Chapter 1

Somewhere between playing like a guitar god or goddess descended from a phonograph record, incapable of making a mistake, and playing like a hyper-caffeinated insomniac with two left hands, dropping notes all over the stage, there is a sweet spot.

We guitarists tend to be supremely self-conscious about perfection. We all want our music to mesmerize anyone who happens to hear it.. We want it to flow, to project confidence, and we want… well, let’s be honest: we want no mistakes. But how far do we need to go to provide that seamless listening experience? How far to satisfy our own enjoyment? What kind of perfection are we going for?

The perfection of a well-tended garden, or a well-oiled machine?

I love the garden metaphor because both gardening and practicing are about choices, timing, and tending the conditions that bring something to life, be it a couple of tomatoes or a piece of music.

There is no perfect way to garden, and there are no guarantees. We humbly and hopefully prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water them, and monitor the conditions. The plants do the growing, and Mother Nature does everything else . We can encourage them, and even play music for them. But we can’t tell them how fast to grow.

Radishes may be ready in weeks; tomatoes take months. It took me five years of trial, error, and tweaking to get the pomegranate tree in our yard to give us a good harvest.

Music takes time to flower and fruit, too. You can practice only so many hours—or sometimes minutes—a day. Yet the skills you cultivate continue developing after you put the guitar down. You can cultivate your practice environment. Your mind and body form an environment, too, and you can cultivate that too. Yet just as with a garden, Mother Nature does the rest. Much of what happens internally remains unconscious, which is why even great virtuosos can still have memory lapses. There are mechanical aspects to playing, and they are important, but we are living beings.

We can’t rig ourselves up like a coffee maker and press play.

Chapter 2

A piece of repertoire has this advantage over a tomato plant: you literally cannot kill it.

If you plant your tomatoes at the wrong time and winter comes, or summer is too brutal, it struggles, maybe pops off a few fruit, and dies. You have to start over, next year with new seeds. Your Sor study is much more mercurial but it is also much more easily resurrected. Music comes newly to life every time we play it, even as it grows over time. That gives us two ways to tend it: In the moment and over time.

In the moment: we can cultivate our own inner and outer skills so we learn how respond to what it needs while we play: the balance, leverage and flow that comes with proper technique, the awareness of tension that allows us to relax into everything we play, the learning how to tune in to our expressive intention so we can brush aside mistakes rather than let them take us down.

Over time: we can cultivate its development by trying our best to give each piece or skill set the appropriate tools and attention it needs to develop through each stage of growth, strengthening its health and resilience so that it shrugs off the musical aphids and tomato slugs and becomes hearty and robust as it grows.

So what does this mean for perfection? Where is that sweet spot?

There is no perfect answer, of course, because we are all different, and we are all at different places in our musical journey.  But think about what you want:
Are you going for flavor, in which case the sweet spot for you could be a single sweet, fresh, juicy tomato that melts your brain when you bite into it, even though it has a weird shape and a spot or two. Just getting to the place where you can play one piece beautifully, even if it’s not always perfect, is a major accomplishment. 

Are you going for looks? A perfect, round, red, and bright tomato that tastes a bit bland? Maybe this is enough to make you happy for the moment. Being able to play something that once seemed impossible without any obvious mistakes, no matter how much work and with a bit less expressiveness than you might desire, is a major sweet spot.

Are you going for variety? Growing some cherry tomatoes, some giant slicers, some juicy salsa wonders—getting a simple prelude, a Carcassi study, and a short Tarrega classic, up and running, ready for improvement? Sounds like a great sweet spot. 

 To land in the right sweet spot, remember Mother Nature is doing most of the work, then aim towards your your ideal but acknowledge your current limitations, and just play.

Enough AI slop—here is my real garden.