Flashes of Brilliance

I’m a fingerstyle guitar enthusiast! So much so that I volunteer to write the Toronto Fingerstyle Guitar weekly newsletter. I’ll post my articles here for your musical pleasure. Be sure to check us out online at http://www.fingerstyleguitar.ca  This article was originally printed in May 2008.

I’m in awe of anyone who has ever composed a piece of music. Take tonight’s feature performer, Wendell Ferguson, for example. I have one of his CDs and it tickles me pink every time I hear it.

It’s brilliant - the lyrics are hilarious, the complexity of the rhythms and melodies are inspiring and I’m jealous of the seeming ease with which it seems he flows from one song to another. In fact, the last time I saw Wendell play, he told a story of having written a fingerstyle guitar piece to honor the memory of the great Chet Atkins, only a year after he had started plying fingerstyle guitar.

Wow!! Sheer genius. Pure creativity.

Now don’t get me wrong, I consider myself fairly creative. I write. I build websites. I sing. I’m an amateur photographer. But I’m an accidental creative. I see flashes of brilliance and am sometimes able to capture these fleeting moments and record them for posterity. But I have yet to harness my creative juices into something I can control and bascially sit and wait for the flashes of brilliance that sometimes never come.

So when I’m faced with an original composition, a question always pops to mind - how did they do it? Do they struggle like I do and drag themselves out of bed to write it down before it’s forgotten or are the able to sit down and compose at will?

I don’t know but I do know this: I learn as much by listening to musicians like Wendell as I do by writing my own. And who knows, maybe if I surround myself with brilliance, the creative juices will increase their flow.