This is my fourth post about creativity and its origins in play, as Dr. Stuart Brown presents the concept in his book Play (Avery Press, 2009). Ironically, Brown’s interest in play derived from research into Charles Whitman’s killing of 14 people at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1966,...
In my last post, I discussed creativity in terms of the theories of play promoted by Dr. Stuart Brown. If his TED talk “hit” numbers mean anything, I’m not the only one with whom his thinking has resonated. Reviewing my own lifetime’s moments of enjoyment and creativity, I noted...
This is my second post about creativity, focusing on Stuart Brown’s study of play and its role in neurocognitive development, inventive and generative states of mind, and mental health. Albert Einstein, understandably, had lots to say about creativity. His summary of play’s role in generative, innovative thinking: “Creativity is intelligence...
I’m going to digress from my series on “Meetings With Remarkable People” even though I have not yet written about some of those who most influenced me. Portraying them is an intimidating task, so I thought I’d approach them through a quality that they had in common and in...
This is my third post about the American finger-style guitarist John Fahey, one of a series I’ve titled Meetings With Remarkable People. After our show at the Great American Music Hall, Fahey was transcendentally drunk, but he managed to make it to the party at my brother Nick’s place...
Looking at YouTube videos of John Fahey in concert recently, I recalled vividly the technique I once so admired. Plant your right hand little finger on the pick-guard; pick away with the thumb and two fingers, get that alternating bass thumping beneath your treble melodies. His left hand had little agility,...
Every young person needs a madman, a Loki, a Coyote, a misfit to look up to, and John Fahey filled that role for me. Long before I met him and performed with him, I knew from his writings and recordings that he must be a remarkable person. But he was one...
After seven years of studying classical guitar, I was moving toward what eventually became known as “American fingerstyle.” The intricate solos I wrote incorporated elements of whatever I’d listened to and loved: English and American folk, pop, jazz, blues, ragtime, Indian music, and Western classical and Baroque. I bought a...
I had been making instruments, sort of, since high school. I fell in love with the classical guitar thanks to Andres Segovia and not long after fell in love with luthiery thanks to Irving Sloane’s marvelous book Classical Guitar Construction. I’m not sure when Glenn Johnson caught the romance...
This is my second post about Moondog, another study of one of the remarkable people I’ve known. His real name, we learned, was Louis Hardin. He had grown up in Kansas, Wyoming, Arkansas, and Tennessee, then spent three decades in Manhattan. He had a curious, double reputation. On one...