Generalist or Specialist

"If you learn everything, you cannot go in depth. You will be floating, of no significance to anything or anyone."

This came about during a discussion with a fellow classical guitarist. I explained my philosophy that as a musician, we can no longer simply play one style of music and ignore every other genre available to mankind. He disagreed. He said that ours was a generation of superficality, skin deep but of no substance.

My reply was that classical music is beautiful and sweet, but choosing only that and disparaging every other genre (just like Daniel Barenboim did on BBC radio), is liken to that a person saying I am going to only wear blue shirts for the rest of my life.

(Point of note: I also spoke to a lot of rockers who disparage other genres,
and for these rockers I don't feel angry, I feel sad because they don't know what they are missing out.)

The guitar is a democratic instrument, portable, popular and adaptable. Instead of trying to box it into a small fit, we should instead utilise its strengths. Play jazz, learn classical guitar techniques, try some hawaiian slack key tunings, pick up the electric guitar and play some Van Halen tappings. Embrace some Peruvian folk songs as your repertoire.

The world has changed, globalised. We Singaporean musicians need to move on. Western musicians have no qualms about crossing musical boundaries. So what about us? We are already left behind.

Think about it.