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| Value for Money | 8/10  |
|---|---|
| Overall rating | 9.5/10 |
By Rishijin on 29th May 2008
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Value for money | 10/10 |
| Overall value | 10/10 |
 Rishijin's recommendation | |
Phil Sudo was one of the few musicians that I have come across who really "got it".
He realized that music is an artistic expression of what's in your own mind, and has very very little to do with emulating the sounds of others and using standard theory structures such as chord types and specific scales.
He realized that all of that is poppycock, essentially, and while useful for getting started in being able to make SOME kind of pleasing sound on the instrument, eventually that stuff is all useless.
The real essence of playing a musical instrument is about expressing the thought or emotion that's happening in your own mind at the time of conceiving the song, with little or no regard to the boundaries of what things are "supposed to sound like", or "what music is".
Mr. Sudo seemed to realize that the art of music is entirely dependent on your intuition and willpower to express, with sound, what is already emobodied in your own unique natural charisma.
He did a fantastic job outlining a structured path to understanding the real meaning of music, and truly the meaning of any art form.
This book is practically universal in its application, and I strongly believe everyone should read it.
I won't go into specifics, but there are a few slight offshoots hidden in the book that seem to veer off of his own path that he is teaching. However, I believe that this further humanizes the concept and brings to reality the difficulty of achieving absolute enlightenment.
I'll just repeat my good and bad points here:
Phil Sudo was one of the few musicians that I have come across who really "got it".
He realized that music is an artistic expression of what's in your own mind, and has very very little to do with emulating the sounds of others and using standard theory structures such as chord types and specific scales.
He realized that all of that is poppycock, essentially, and while useful for getting started in being able to make SOME kind of pleasing sound on the instrument, eventually that stuff is all useless.
The real essence of playing a musical instrument is about expressing the thought or emotion that's happening in your own mind at the time of conceiving the song, with little or no regard to the boundaries of what things are "supposed to sound like", or "what music is".
Mr. Sudo seemed to realize that the art of music is entirely dependent on your intuition and willpower to express, with sound, what is already embodied in your own unique natural charisma.
He did a fantastic job outlining a structured path to understanding the real meaning of music, and truly the meaning of any art form.
I won't go into specifics, but there are a few slight offshoots hidden in the book that seem to veer off of his own path that he is teaching. However, I believe that this further humanizes the concept and brings to reality the difficulty of achieving absolute enlightenment.
This book is practically universal in its application, and I strongly believe everyone should read it.
By the way, if you are wondering who else I think "gets it", and share many similar beliefs as those that are stated in Zen Guitar; listen to artists such as Steve Vai, Moby, King Crimson, Bumblefoot, Tool, Erik Norlander, Jimi Hendrix, Nine Inch Nails, Tobias Hurwitz (of course), Mattias IA Eklundh, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Bathory, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Claude Debussy (assuming it is played well), Pat Metheny, The Hellecasters, KoRn, Behold....The Arctopus, Bob Marley, (hed) p.e..........the list could go on for a while....but I think after listening to all that, you may begin to understand what personally expressive music is about.
What most of those people have in common, is that at the time of writing their music, they did what came naturally to them, not focusing on genre, or even what it was going to sound like in particular, but rather letting the music happen for itself in a primal, intuitive, natural way...then refining it into fantastic organized works of expression.
You may notice there are a lot of artist there who the industry would consider under the incredibly unspecific category of "Rock".
This is because Rock is easily the genre which has received the most branching out and experimentation since it's conception.
Just the simple idea that what we would consider modern rock sounds absolutely nothing like original rock music, is proof of that statement.
Many of the people I listed there (and there are many more) actually invented their own genre, and others are uncategorizable.
Sorry if this seems like a tangent, but it really does have very specific grounding to what is described in Philip's book.
Philip Toshio Sudo can teach you to do similar things....read this book!!!
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