I
What is The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists?
One possible answer: a lot of people making a lot of noise with guitars. Sometimes they even perform in public: as in Sant Cugat, Seattle, Sassoferrato, Funes and Farnese.
Another possible answer: a specialist study in the self-organising properties of complex wholes. How does Intelligence act in and through many individuals, coming together as one? What if a high level of Conscious or Creative Intelligence needed to enter this world, what kind of body or vehicle would it need?
The global challenges we face, to be addressed by current and following generations, are beyond the capacity of individuals to meet. Solutions are more likely to be found in groups and networks than in the efforts of individuals acting alone.
The quality of solution required, to problems now of global proportion, is creative; that is, at the level of genius. The solitary, individual genius is, by definition, solitary and individual. The question, then, is how may we cultivate and develop group genius?
II
A group comes together in service of an aim. At a particular level, each member of the group is that group, and the group may act in and through that person. This is the level where societies act in the common interest; where global solutions are found or, more accurately, present themselves to be discovered.
How may one hundred people act as if they were one person?
This does not happen by accident, neither by chance: it is an intentional undertaking.
Group, social, national, international and global action in service of the planet is not likely to happen quickly. But this is no reason we should not begin.
How? We begin with the possible and move gradually towards the impossible. The impossible is already available, because it has to be. A practical difficulty is, we have not yet addressed the possible.
So, where to begin? We begin where we are. But we begin today.
III
Where are we in The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists?
This initiative is based in 25 years’ experience of Guitar Craft courses, held on four continents for perhaps 3,000 students mostly above the age of eighteen. Guitar Craft seminars have provided opportunities to develop personal discipline and facility on the guitar while fostering musicality, mainly within a context of playing with others.
We have 25 years of experience in developing elements of a common practice, expressed primarily in musical form and mostly on the guitar. Music is essentially a social act, and Guitar Craft training take place within the Guitar Circle. This provides opportunities for developing social skills, problem solving, reliability and responsibility, and cultivating personal initiative in front of challenges at whatever level the student is able to honorably respond; all within a supportive and encouraging environment. Fun, play, spontaneity and improvisation are as necessary in the development of any discipline as its considered practices and exercises.
IV
Music reaches beyond words and between cultures. Music enables us to communicate and express ourselves when words fail. Music moves us by speaking to us directly and immediately, in ways that elude easy explanation; but are no less real for that. Music is as available to us as we are available to music.
Where there is music, there is hope.
This is the time.
Sunday 23rd. January, 2011;
Monasterio Nuestra Senora De Los Angeles,
Monjas Dominicas,
Sant Cugat, Spain.
