Christos' Lessons, Loro and Making the Tune Your own

I'm editing Christos' lesson getting them ready to go online. I hate editing video, btw. It's not fun for me, I'm not a video guy and am not dying to make money at shooting video and editing it and making it into a work of art! It's funny because everything I do is a means to an end. The end is playing my instrument. That's the most important thing in my life. Absolutely the most important thing.

However I learn a lot from watching and editing someone's lesson. I wind up watching it 2 or 3 times carefully, so I definitely learn. Most of the time I learn what to do and sometimes I learn what not to do. That's taste.

It's fun watching Christos' lessons on how he learns a tune. He might do things slightly different from me but he's still doing the SAME thing. Trying to the make the tune his own. I listen to his embellishments and realize that some of his stuff is unique to his culture. Growing up playing greek music.

In the end with every tune you learn, you will either make it your own or not. You don't have to tell other musicians whether a tune you just played is your own or not. They heard and if they're good they know already. There's a lot of things that unmake a tune for you. One is time. You don't play the tune for a long time. Nothing you can do about that except play the tune frequently. No short cut or pill I know of. I forget and relearn Moose the Mooche all the time!

So when you're checking out Christos' videos, keep all that in mind. What are you doing to make a tune your own. Keep in mind if you're a beginner this might not even be on your radar yet. However you can always make a melody your own, right? Even if the chords are hard.

This is important stuff because this is the stuff that makes pros, and good amateurs. There are a few guys on this site that are not young and have really learned to play there instrument in the last 5 years or so. That is really focused on their instrument and they have become really good.

All goes back to time. If you put quality time in you get good, you make the melody your own, you make the tune your own. If you don't then you can't achieve these goals. Of course the great news is we can all achieve these goals!