mandolin/fiddle players

[catmandu2]

Yes, running the "visual program" takes up processing space within the brain.

Also--and perhaps more importantly--the visual cue prompts us into a type of thinking/perceiving/experiencing. We are cue-ed by a great many things (it might even be said that virtually our entire experience is prompted by given cues--to varying degrees), but the visual cue is our strongest reference: when we learn something by visual reference (typically--the fretboard) we form neural pathways that are triggered by those cues, forever more...unless, of course, we make effort to re-route, circumvent, and otherwise "short-circuit" those established pathways, with which we might have varying levels of relative success. But, the learning is no trivial matter--and no small contendewr to override--we are animals of routine/ritual

WRT creativity--and improvisation--the implications are great (in psychotherapy, Jung advocated--as do the zen buddhists--for the importance of seeing things from different perspectives...this is why imagination is the key to empathy)

For me, playing the woodwind has been the most intimate of instrument-playng experiences--for the reasons you cite Niles.

I would also surmise that drumming on a full kit can provide a similar level of immersion

Quite so. The player is a nexus where the disparate parts of the kit and rhythms converge. There is a lot going on inside the player--between the beats--that a player must master in order to render the beat--make music--in optimal fashion

[catmandu2]

Boy are we getting away from Bill's original posted question... I hope he doesn't mind but in some ways it all applies IMHO.

As for Niles' Factor A & B. I definitely agree, however, true virtuosic playing on even the "impaired" instruments such as our beloved mandolin can overcome the obstacles. In some ways, it is quite easy for even a middling violinist to evoke emotion with his/her playing whereas it is more difficult with those less evocative instruments. I do recall Carlo Aonzo's playing of a simple aria bringing me to tears and this was on a mandolin. So it can be done but it takes an extra heaping of soul.

Still it is what I strive for and probably rarely achieve.

Jim, although we make comparisons and extoll the virtues of other instruments--and other experiences--this in no way diminishes the value of the mandolin. For a small, resonant, bright, plucky string instrument with chop--it's unsurpassed. ; ) Everything of course has its limitations and its compromises. As Niles said--the ones with relatively more expressive capacity only usually require more skill and practice. But this doesn't make assumptions of artisitc value. Often, simple or austere is profoundly evocative

[OKMike]

I am progressing much better with my teacher, Doug Scott in Tulsa OK. Fiddle is a B!&%#, love it though. Someonte told me Steel guitar and fiddle were two of the hardest common instruments to learn. I believe it, there is a lot going on at one time!!!!