
“After all the intellectual stuff gets out of the way, then you just play. I mean, that’s the state I like to be – or hope to be in – when I’m really playing. I’m not thinking about any technical… it’s just coming out and there’s not… no thought so much really but sometimes it takes a while, learning a new song, it takes a while for it to sink down deep enough for it to come out that way. That’s probably why a lot of the songs I play I’ve been playing them for a long time and… they feel like they’re part of my blood stream a little bit I guess.”
- Bill Frisell
There are so many things that we have memorized, things we long ago let go of ‘the intellectual stuff’ – tying our shoes, brushing our teeth, using cutlery, and on and on. It wasn’t always this way. Repetition leads to familiarity and thoughtful repetition leads to mastery. I know the delight when I’ve taken enough slow time with a piece of music that it enters into me.
We can’t master everything. But we can master some things!
What do you value so much that you want to persist so much that it becomes part of your blood stream? That you play a long time, long enough to sink down deep? It takes a while, as Bill says…then you just play.
(From Bill Frisell Solos DVD)
You can see Bill perform here.
Quixote Consulting helps teams become artists of their work with music team building activities such as Play the Blues harmonica team building, Give the Kids Music, Music of Teams, Build a Team Song, Bang On My Drum All Day, Networking Music Dinner and more.





Jazz Guitarist Bill Frisell on How Complexity is Trumped By What You Bring
“I used to equate complexity with better music. How could you say that Segovia is more advanced than Robert Johnson or Jimi Hendrix or Wes Montgomery? … for me there’s no higher or lower… it just depends what you can bring to it or what your imagination can come up with.”
- Bill Frisell
(From Bill Frisell Solos DVD)
Yeats labeled our reverence of complexity, a ‘fascination of what’s difficult’. He goes on to say what that fascination did to him: “has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent spontaneous joy and natural content out of my heart.”
That’s what happens when seek out ‘advanced’ ways of doing our work, of playing music. The spontaneous joy leaves. Sometimes good things come from that. Rumi calls this “rewarding bitterness with care”.
But if you’re looking for more play, then the level of trusting what your unique strengths and passions are – what you bring to ‘it’ – whatever ‘it’ is for you. And to trust that whatever your imagination can come up with. That trumps any experts’ wisdom or standard way of doing things. I write these words both to remind myself – in music and work – and to remind you of what we innately already know to be true.
You can see Bill perform here.
Quixote Consulting helps teams become artists of their work with music team building activities such as Play the Blues harmonica team building, Give the Kids Music, Music of Teams, Build a Team Song, Bang On My Drum All Day, Networking Music Dinner and more.