"It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." (Jackson Pollock)
This writing is inspired by some of my dear friends who just survived the music camp and now are struggling with the technique in music-making process and got caught in what I called "technique hysteria".
I suffered technique hysteria early 2005, when I just got back from Berlin. I spent my last four months there improving my technique with a very good professor and she was giving me a lot to think about as well as to train. When I started my lessons with her, I didn't think I was going home four months after, but the class was abruptly ended, and then I was left with a huge question mark on about every little details in music-making. Is my fingers quick and strong enough now? Do I have a supple wrist to support my movement? Do my thumbs move with as much flexibility as other fingers? Am I relaxed enough? Do I have some bad habits I didn't realize having? There were questions after questions and at one point, I was blocked. I was so scared of playing anything, even the easiest music, because all of a sudden, I became so aware of every single thing. My brain couldn't get the big picture, and it was always about the minute parts which compose music, not the music itself.
I must tell you, it's the most frustrating period in my musical life. And it's all because of a devil called technique.
Here's what Picasso said about technique: "the more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it." Okay, very true. This makes total sense. There are people in this world to which technique comes naturally that they sometime couldn't explain it and they never have to worry about it. They're like the most gifted handyman who has all kinds of hammers and bolts and nuts in their belt and can use it to make everything, from door to window to wooden sculpture. But not everyone is born with this kind of gift, and I think this shouldn't stop us from doing an artwork, or anything we want to do.
Artists, and in my case musicians, who are frustrated with their limited technique should always come back to elementary school and go to drawing class. Why do first-graders love drawing class so much? Because they can do whatever they want, and create whatever it is that's in their mind, without worrying whether the result would look very much like what's in their mind or...not at all. In short, screw technique. They have fun, and they create, and they say something with whatever they possess. And do you know when drawing class isn't fun anymore? The moment you realize that your friend has some hidden magic in his hands which can create chicken that looks like chicken, whereas your hand can only produce chicken that looks like chicken nugget. But no need to be sad. Normally when you realize this, you also realize that you're not head over heels in love with drawing class and you're more than happy to try your hands on soccer or poetry.
But what if you're so in love with one particular form of art and you know that your life is meant for it but your technique isn't supporting your love for it? First of all, you must remember what Martha Graham said. "Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion." Okay, this will sound too good to be true. You need more than passion to be great. You need to work super hard. But I've seen many people who have enormous talent in music and still they are not the best musicians because they lack passion; that one flame, the fuel that drives them from within. Second of all, you learn the tools you need to be good in what you do. Of course, if you're not a natural-born pianist like Horowitz, you will have to go the extra thousand miles to be able to play Traumerei as lovely as he did (with the risk that you still can't be able to play as lovely as he did), but it doesn't mean that it is not possible. And you might have to learn all your life to be good, but if you want to be true to yourself, then you shouldn't mind spending all your lifetime to learn.
I'm not saying here that technique isn't important. I'm just putting it back in its place, and I think technique is a tool to express. If you can learn the right stuffs, it's great. But if not, the person to stop you is yourself. With music, before anything, and like every other thing in life, you have to know what you're going to express before you pick the right tool. It's like a surgeon. You have to know what you're going to cut and why before choosing the right scalpel. And if you don't know your intention, your tools will be useless. So if your mind is creative enough, you will always find the right tools to explain what's on your mind, what you feel when certain music hits your soul, and what you want to say with it. And cultivating this is more important, I think, than anything else. And to do that you must go beyond correct hand position and all science to make good music. To do that you have to fall in love, have a heartbreak, talk to people, get connected, smell flowers, hug trees, feel the wind in your face, laugh, cry, give a lot of hugs, and live life to the fullest.
