Facing another malady, Kottke endured painful tendonitis during the 1980s, largely the result of his percussive style. Leo Kottke’s ears have just limited hearing, the results of a boyhood firecracker accident and too much time spent on the rifle range as a young Navy reservist. They may even hear Kottke’s music better than the man on stage.
#The power of habit lynch football story professional#
But he’s earned a cult-like following that includes many professional and amateur musicians. A somewhat popular voice on commercial radio several decades ago, more recent times have found Kottke’s music more likely at the far end of the FM dial. It’s embarrassing at times, but I just have to know that I’m playing for my huge, adoring fan base."Īnd that’s a fan base Kottke nurtures worldwide. I don’t have Alzheimer’s, but I can forget where I am. I just know I’m playing somewhere east later this week. Just have a good manager keep track of the more mundane aspects of you being on the road 80 percent of the time. One more thing Leo Kottke offers to anyone contemplating the musical life: Don’t get too preoccupied with the details of the distant world outside of music. And while he likens his voice to "geese farts on a muggy day," his baritone never sounds like its courting trouble on songs like "Rings" and a stellar cover of Tom T. Kottke’s syncopated fingerpicking - flavored by everything from classical to jazz to blues to folk to rock - never fails to find that great escape. Because when you’re in trouble, you have to find a way out." If it’s a middle-of-the-road night, I won’t get into trouble, and it won’t feel right. "I’ll deliberately get into trouble on a bad or good night. Those standards notwithstanding, Leo Kottke advises to get yourself in a little trouble on stage, which isn’t hard to do when it’s just you and your ax holding court in a crowded concert hall.
And if he did practice, it felt like playing - something he would do for stretches of 12 hours, if only to get a few bars played to his lofty standards. Somewhere, the guitar was calling, the six- and 12-string that would become putty in Kottke’s hands.
Don’t fall into bad habits."Īfter all, practicing is what Kottke did with the trombone as a boy in Oklahoma, the student of, as he recalls on his website, "industrious, frugal, starving men." He could read notes and play respectably - or so at least he was told - but never quite felt as one with that horn in his hands. If you want to develop as a musician, play what you like, and stick to it. "Practice is what ruins people," says the good-natured but droll 65-year-old guitar god. So how does one learn to play guitar like Leo Kottke?
0 kommentar(er)
