I can see how the experience is very different from creating images. Photography can be such a solitary effort. I wonder what it would be like to have one HUGE viewfinder that saw 3 or 4 people could look through. They could all then make adjustments to composition, react to each others’ adjustments, etc. I suppose only in that way could it be like the experience of playing music with others.

We will jam together someday somewhere up there in Alaska! Just not anytime soon..

Thanks for the post man.

Yeah, it was tons of fun. I haven’t gone out to jam sessions in forever, I’ve been playing gigs where I don’t quite have the freedom to play as I want - typical of most working musicians, I guess. So it’s really nice to be in a situation where those kinds of things aren’t there, and ya just play .. kind of like shooting what you want versus doing a wedding shoot, I presume.

That’s cool you’re working through the DVD - I have seen a few of those, when I was teaching full-time, and some are really well done.

I think even the large viewfinder thing wouldn’t be the same - because the composition is sporadic - in music its simultaneous (except for classical, for example, where a group of players performs, note-for-note, the original score. In improvised music, it happens simultaneously, and it you don’t make suggestions to the other person with what to play - well, not verbally, anyway. What I play might influence what another musician is about to play, but tyipcally he or she just reacts, they don’t ask “oh cool, should I do this?” or “how about if I do this?”.

Really, I think the difference is the performance. Composing music can be like creating and composing an image. But in music there’s this “thing” which is the performance. In photography, that is entirely not there. We push a button (My Georgia friends would say ‘mash a button’). With music, we ‘play’ - a word central to all art, I think. Audience members enjoy the the playing, nt just a recorded performance. In photography, and say, painting, or writing, audience members can only enjoy the end product, not the moment of the creation. I think that’s really different.

On a side note, when I teach, I almost NEVER use the word ‘practice’ for students .. I suggest to them to go home and ‘play their guitar’. I find it has a huge difference on the way they spend their time with the instrument.

I wouldn’t hurry up here right now - it’s cold. Folks tell me it’s gunna get even colder, but I don’t know whether to believe them or not. Come on up in the summer, we’ll play some tunes, make some photos, and look for wolves.

Cheers

Carl