Practicing (The Book)

I've been reading a book I got for Christmas, Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music (Hardcover) by Glenn Kurtz. In his youth, Kurtz studied classical guitar and aspired to a concert career but abandoned this quest in his twenties. The book recounts his 'return' to the guitar and 'practicing' - events from his youth are intertwined with his current life. I'm about half way through it and enjoying it a lot: I studied classical guitar at the U of M for a few years with an academic career in mind, so there are some parallels.

Kurtz studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and he describes the somewhat informal play&feedback sessions that he and fellow guitarists had: mostly how they 'critiqued' each other and also searched for faults (good technique, but no emotion). He also discusses their dissing of concert guitarists such as Julian Bream and John Williams (Sloppy, too cold).

This type of criticism is certainly common with all musicians (even old-time) and I'm sure other artists as well. Although I rarely go 'public' with such criticism's, I am always listening to recordings and live performances with a critical ear. If someone is playing in a similar style as mine, I can be especially severe (in my mind;-)).

However, there are those times when the critical pose fades away and I can just relish the performance.

Might be more on this book later.