I don't think anyone went out of bounds with it, and it's certainly relevant to the topic.

I think your own beliefs are relevant to your own playing. People play for different reasons.

I was referring to Milesmiles comment. I agree with his perspective entirely, but whenever someone uses the word God, or implies those ideas in the forum, it can get ugly. The reason is, alot of people have thier own ideas about what 'that' is or isn't. Some people maybe wouldn't call it God, they would call it themselves, others would insist it is Jesus. You get my point. Thats why we made it a rule to not post about religion, because it annoys everyone eventually.

And that's the whole point of the thread. The topic starter in the Dec08 GP asks us to discuss "...the personal 'intangibles' that come into play as you develop melodies, riffs, and songs[.] What mysteries do you dip into to create your music? How do you define 'playing from the heart?'"

Point taken on the religion thing.

Picker- maybe that kid grew up to be more or less OK, but very adamant about what he felt was important, unwavering in his principles and passions? Maybe he grew up to be a maverick entrepreneur, maybe a musician, artist, or writer with a very unique vision...

'Course, even in such a case, there would still very likely be people who felt that he had given them a hard time! Probably a long line of 'em!

In any case, what you described fits very neatly with Freud's description of the "Id" component of the psyche, the seminal and primitive needful, demanding infantile side, that coexists with the "Ego" and "Superego" components that later develop...



Yeah, me, too- I'll play somewhat on auto-pilot at times, and can even enjoy that, it's really practicing if I'm focused and paying attention to good execution of what I'm playing. But there are times when I 'get into the zone'; those times, if I'm playing music that I've already played before, I play it with a renewed passion and often discovering new twists to apply to it and improve upon it; and sometimes I go off on a tangent of improvisation, and occasionally come up with completely new material that way.

As I read over all the different posts that I’ve seen here (and go back and re-read the Santana interview), I see one common thread that links them all, one thing that remains constant in some form for every person.

That constant is love.

Love of music. Love of life. Love of a higher being. Love of your beautiful, three grand guitar (or your $99 starter guitar that you still rock out on). Love of both musicians you look up to, as well as the lack of love for musicians you can’t stand. Love is not a “well, maybe” sort of thing… there’s an on/off switch for everything in life, and it’s up to you to decide which of those to turn on.

People have talked about religion, about their children, about fantastic musicians and life experiences, about smoking a doobie or practicing till they bleed. All of these share that common thread of love; you love your God, your son/daughter, your favorite musician, your first car, your precious pot, or your amazing chops. If you didn’t love, what would be the point of any of it?

There have been moments in my life where I’ve looked up to many artists that play their respective instruments, be it guitar, bass, drums, piano, whatever… and I’ve realized that I will probably never be as technical, as fast, as “good” as any of them… but what I can equal them on, every time I pick up an instrument (or heck, even every time a little tune runs through my head), is the soul and love that I can pour into it. One note or a thousand notes, if you don’t care about the music, why will anyone else?

For me, the only intangible in life is love. There are other things in life that make things easier or more enjoyable… money, family, booze, weed, fast cars, and music, just to name a few… but if you don’t love any of those, then they serve no purpose. It's not just an intangible for music, but an intangible for life as well.

*EDIT* On a side note, I really want to thank Guitar Player and Mr. Santana for this article. I'm hoping that musicians everywhere, not just guitar players, get a chance to read this article... young or old, just starting or already a legend, Mr. Santana's thoughts and comments are very eye-opening and motivating. This is what true musicianship is all about. *END EDIT*

-Nic

I think this is a very important and relevant topic. Technique is obviously important, as it teaches you how to play, but after you learn how to play, technique becomes secondary.
One of the points not mentioned in the Santana article is that in order to trancend technique and really give yourself to the music, you must be comforable. In order to be comfortable, you must know how to play. So, learn first, then forget all you've learned after.
Regarding the idea of a diety being involved...it's just a concept that makes some people comfortable. I don't believe it, but if you do, great. It's just another way of saying the same thing. You must listen, become part of the music, let yourself go, open up to the great muse, whatever you want to call it, but the bottom line is you can't be thinking. There is a point when you stop thinking about what you are playing and just play music.
For all those struggling with this concept, the first thing to do is get comfortable playing guitar. If you're not yet, keep practicing. It doesn't matter what style, just keep it up-learn what you need to know to get the job done so you feel confident.
After that, it's much easier to try to inject some emotion in your playing. Otherwise, you get too caught up thinking about what you're playing.
As far as how to do it, my way is to just try. I just try to play with feeling and it starts coming through. Not every time, and not the same every time, but it does. This is also something you need to practice, by doing it over and over. A good excercise is to record yourself trying to play with emotion and see what happens. There may be some moments when you just let yourself go and you'll hear it.
Music does not need to be complex to be expressive, in fact most of the time, complexity is a detriment to expressiveness. Too much thinking about what you're playing instead of just playing.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but you have to be an amazing technical player, like Vai or Satriani to get over the technique.
Simple music, like the blues, is easier to get good and comfortable at and easier to lose yourself in.
Sorry for the long post, but I think of this stuff all the time and have finally gotten a chance to post about it.

Hello Guitar Player and Members of the Forum,

Carlos Santana Article on "Intangibles" and is interesting, but Carlos Santana is not the first to talk about this subject. I first came across this idea that Calos speaks about when a friend of mine turned me onto a book called “Zen Guitar” by Phil Sodo. The book talks about the spiritual side of playing verses the technical side. (The books probably been out for a good 10-years or more).

For those who thought Carlos was just getting a little to “Hippie” on us, please think about this:

What makes one guitarist stand out from another?
Why can two people play the same licks, but one of the two just has more fire then the other. Nothing you can really put your finger on technically but one just has that little spark that makes him or her stand out?

Take a look at the interview with the member of “Double Trouble” at the end of the Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - Live at the El Mocambo DVD. All of his former band mates mention a “Channeling of energy” Stevie seemed to have when he was performing.

Is there such a thing as “Reaching Musical Nirvana”, I believe the answer is “yes”…

I been thinking about this intangible issue by Santana, and thought about something I wrote a while back....

Recently, after listening to a few of my mp3 sound clips, a young guitarist asked me for some advice to help his guitar playing. This caused me to take a moment and think. Whenever a guitarist asks me for advice, I'm a bit taken back because I'm not the most technically gifted player or guitar teacher by any means. In my reply, I found myself talking very spiritually about the instrument that I play and my approach to playing.

My finished reply turned out to be very profound and I thought it would make a great read for other players, both young and old, that have asked or are currently asking the question, "Why can't I do it like that?"

The older I get, the less inclined I am to "gun sling". Seasoned vets know what I'm talking about. It's when you go to a jam session and try to destroy the next guitarist in a guitar gun slinging guitar lick shoot out! Instead, try to not prove anything to anyone except yourself. You just go out and do what you do!

As a player, my reading and technical skills are very basic. However, on the other side of the coin, sometimes I think I am blessed because I play from the heart and have "flow". There are a lot of cats that know the technical stuff, but lack the heart when they play. This is something that is so very hard to explain to other guitarists that are coming up the ranks. To me, "flow" is the hardest part of guitar playing to master.

As I look at some of the mistakes I have made along the way, I'd have to say I regret not paying attention more to my guitar teacher and not striving more to learn more about the technical end of my craft (Sorry Mr. Fava!) and, as much as a strong technical knowledge is good to have, there is a "Yin and Yan" side to everything.

Here are three guitarists with "flow" that I admire:

If you're a blues head, BB King is the best to learn from. He plays his stuff slow so you can grasp what he does. It's cooler if you can get a DVD because you can see the emotion in his face and the passion that he puts into every note. Grasshopper, to master this is the way to musical enlightenment!

Carlos Santana is another wonderful example. Years back, I went to a concert of his where he played the very beautiful song "Europa" and the hair on the back of my neck stood up on edge. I could feel tears starting to swell up in my eyes listening to this cat play.

Is there anything that hasn't been said about the mastery from Stevie Ray Vaughan? Just pick up the "Live at the El Mocambo" DVD and see for yourself. When you watch the DVD, don't analyze whether he is in a minor key or playing a penatonic sale. Instead, watch him as he digs into the string to pull out those notes. Watch the music flow out of him!

"Live at the El Mocambo" is also contains a wonderful interview with Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton. For those who live in a closet, they're Stevie's drummer and bassist. The interview was done sometime after Stevie's untimely death. In this interview both musicians talk about the magical way he seemed to channel this emotion and passion in his playing.

There is a book called "ZEN Guitar" that talks about this very aspect of "flow". You may want to have a look at it, but it's not essential. Just start to think about your guitar in a more spiritual manner instead of the thinking of the mechanics of it. Don't just play the notes. Feel the notes! If you work on this, your playing will move in leaps and bounds. Start studying guitar from a spiritual or emotional level and see what you get.

Back in the 80's, I worked with "Robert Hazard," one of those almost famous local musicians in the Philadelphia area. Though some of my experiences with this guy were a nightmare, he told me something once that I have taken to heart ever since. He said, "Play the guitar ever day like it's your last day on Earth." It's about going out and giving it all you've got. It's not so much the technical, but more the passion. In my eyes, this is what separates the good players from the great players!

Personally, I still have a long road ahead of me, but I hope that I've helped some guitarists out there to make that turn and reach "musical nirvana"!

I think it was J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. who once said something to the effect of wishing he could go back to when he first started playing, because it seems like a musicians creativity is at its most unencumbered. You're not thinking about whether a note is right or wrong or what a "proper" chord is supposed to look like or about what key to play in...you just play and discover the music in a very natural way.

On the flipside of this, Allan Holdsworth said in his GP cover story/interview a few months ago that it might take him a couple of years of study before he gets so comfortable and familiar with a concept that it naturally works his way into his improvisations. It aids his creativity by adding another color to his pallet. He's front-loaded all of the intellectual stuff by constant practice and internalization.

I, probably like most guitarists, find myself in the middle. I can't think too much about theory or "what is technically correct" because I just lose the connection with the music and what I'm trying to tap into. But I can't really take the J. Mascis approach and completely forget everything because I know enough to be conscious of what's going on. Attempting to let the music just take over also makes it hard for me to tap into the intangibles because I can't shut off my brain! I can still let go, but I'm always going to have the key or the mode or whathaveyou flashing in my minds eye.

How do you guys let go? Or, if you don't let go completely, how much do you keep your brain engaged?

Was I supposed to post this here?

"What are the personal 'intangibles' that come into play as you develop melodies, riffs, and songs? What mysteries do you dip into to create your music? How do you define 'playing from the heart'?"

My philosophy on music is that there is nothing that can be said or expressed that can’t be said or expressed more truthfully through music. Music has dialect, tone, and phrasing, just like spoken language, and ideally can be a vehicle to reach the heights of euphoria and the depths of anguish. Music can be a portal to the divine.

When I work on my music it usually starts as a feeling that I want to express. Occasionally everything comes at once in a torrent that hits me like a spiritual experience, but most of the time it is not that easy for me. Most of the time it is like an itch at the back of my mind and I feel like I have to fight for each small piece of it, but by the end it feels very powerful to me; a mantra.

While the expression of emotion and experiences are the heart of music, technique is still important. Improving and expanding your technique is like expanding your vocabulary. A larger vocabulary, when used to express yourself, is a powerful tool. Sometimes technique can lend an eloquence to your music, as a larger vocabulary can lend eloquence to your speech, but using technique to impress is like using your vocabulary to impress - it becomes empty and pretentious. I believe the trick to it is learning what needs to be expressed with eloquence and what is more honestly expressed by simplicity.

Music is not about impressing everyone around you or even having them respect the music you create. It is about your personal relationship with the music, and if you are lucky, it will translate in a way that moves your audience (whoever they may be, your friends and family or a venue). Music is (or should be) poetry too powerful to be expressed with words, and that is how it should be approached; with honesty and openness. Life is instilled in your music only when you are willing to be receptive to your muse and your own heart.

I think of the Chupecabre. I imagine, I'm a chupecabre slithering inverted over the pasture, dodging cow manure as I stalk my prey. Then pow, someone turns on the lights and I'm still a chupecabre, but I'm in a party dress and it's someones birthday! I pull up my knee high stockings and notice I'm dangling from a rope and I see 40 kids racing toward me with a stick...

Accessing my "intangibles" only really started when a) I realized gear had nothing to with it (usually, my best musical epiphinies come when banging away on my cheapo acoustic), b) when I stopped worrying about my musical chops (whatever musical "gift" I possess/learned I'm thankful for), and c) when I ceased trying to sound like someone else. I was literally "set free" by coming to terms with these three tenents and this enabled me to make that difficult to describe connection between what's inside me musically and what ultimately comes out of my guitar.

You been eating Mexican food too close to bedtime...?

Hi fellow guitar players. Here is my say on intangibles.

When developing riffs,songs,melodies, I think the most important thing you can do is "not to think while you are making it up." I find that when force myself to make something up, I usually end up getting frustrated. Everything I have come up with is solely on feel. I don't think, "How can I make this sound cooler" or "How can I make this feel sad." I find that when I try to do that I end up failing. Also, I believe that how I feel effects how I play. If I am angry, how am I gonna play nice and happy and soft? When I am mad I play aggressive, loud and sloppy. So there is one intangible, Feeling. "What Mysteries Do I Tap Into To Create My Music?" I try to have a goal when making something. I say to myself,"What do I want this song to convey?" or "How do I want this to feel?" I say that to myself before developing something. I don't think you should ask yourself those when you ARE developing, because it is going to change the flow of things. Once you have your riff,song or melody, try not to change it; because what you came up with is what means something to you. Playing from the heart for me means: not thinking about what you are doing, being absorbed in the moment, letting it happen, playing what you feel. All these have to be happening to be playing from the heart. I don't think you could let it happen and not be absorbed in the moment. Or play what you feel and not be thinking what you are doing. The good players know what they're playing and why they're playing. They don't know how they are playing.

I've said enough. Basically let it happen, go with the feel and don't think about what you are doing.

The intangible is a moment of creative breakthrough. It’s the moment when you are no longer hungry or thirsty. It’s when you are no longer trying to impress the woman in the front row. It’s when you are no longer trying to remember that difficult scale you learned. It’s when you don’t have to think about your gear or how you’re dressed or if a critic is in the audience or if you replaced the tubes in your amp or if you’re playing the right guitar for that song. In other words, the intangible happens when you’re no longer distracted. It’s the purely creative moment. In a band situation it is typically a collaborative experience. The others need to be in that place too. The groove is on and you’re a participant. Your eyes might be closed.

People become guitar players because of other guitar players. They hear a guitar player when they’re young and it moves them. Maybe they’ve never been moved like that before. They now want to be like them. They pick up an axe and begin to practice. They work hard and practice for days which turn into months then years. They learn the chords and the scales. They buy records or cds and play them a thousand times over, learning that lick. They learn, emulate, suffer, make many mistakes, then all of a sudden one day, they create. Every great player has experienced the moment (many good players too). They can probably remember the first time it happened; maybe it was a gig or maybe it was a day they were in their room playing along with an album. Minutes turned into hours, daylight turned to night time. It’s a moment of transcendence, it’s a moment when you become better than you were only minutes ago. It’s the moment you grow as a musician. It’s an awakening. It happens more than once.

The intangible happens to all great artists and many good artists. When you first hear a great guitar player in your youth and that person is playing a brilliant piece, and you’re really paying attention, you realize that you and they are both guitar players but there’s a big difference. There’s a big gap to cross over to. If you’re serious you look for ways in your life to cross that gap. When you do cross over you realize that there’s no book that got you there. Just keep playing and do it honestly. Work hard and don’t worry whether or not you’ll get to that place; you’ll know it when you do.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about "intangibles" when I'm actually onstage playing, since I have to make sure I play the right chords at the right time!

But it IS good to think at least a little about such things, unless you want to play like a robot!

Of course, if you don't learn your instrument and or the basics of music, you may end up playing DEEP, INTANGIBLE things that don't fit the chord progressions..... In other words, talk is cheap!

Do you know it when you hit a certain "intangible" moment? Oftentimes yes, but occasionally I need someone else's input - "hey man, that's really cool, keep that one!" when to me I was just playin'.....

The Intangibles

As always, nice job Carlos! Carlos is one of the greatest guitar players of all times. He stood the test of time. He has unique sounds and can free format. And last but not least, his popularity is evidence enough. Love ya Carlos and Jorge Santana.

Below are my ideas on intangibles and inspiration for music, guitar and bass for me. First, there is an assumption in Carlos’s article. It has been expressed in a few of the Guitarplayer.com threads. That is a player must get the fundamentals down. I don’t think scales are that important to intangibles, but strumming, pick’n, appregios and various other techniques for making sounds with the guitar must be mastered will enough that the player can hear the sound before it’s played. As a beginner, I reacted to the sound. I played a note and listened, then I went on to the next note. Once the instrument, guitar in my case, is mastered, I can free format. I can imagine a sound, rhythm or even a general direction of my emotion, i.e., sad, mad, glad, bad (self created or created by someone else).

Step two to me is getting in the “Zone.” It’s not always easy and it’s not always possible to turn it on when you want it. The Zone is letting go of thought. Like Carlos says, “Fear only has one agenda – to negate your beauty and your truth. Ego only has one agenda – to create death, destruction, and failure.” Going along with this, the Zone is when you can free your self of thinking. You can stop the fear and stop the ego. The mind is a tool like your hand. To get the intangibles you need to shut your thinking mind off, which is why you have to master the fundamentals so your not thinking to play.

I do this in the following way. I relax my mind and try to stop thinking, not easy. At the beginning it’s hard to do for even a second or two. Doing this for a minute takes work. Many people use drugs or alcohol to achieve this state. The problem is too much and your technique suffers. As I stop thinking, I refocus on my senses. What do I hear? Try to hear the wind, the creeks and cracks, even the silence in between the sounds. From the sense of touch, what do I feel? The wind on my face. The sun on my face. My finger tips. The soles of my feet. Feel the chair on my butt. What do I smell? What do I see? Sometimes it’s easier, especially at the beginning, to close my eyes. It helps shut my thinking mind off. The next piece is what are my emotions doing right then and there. I’m I sad, happy, mad, or has someone made me feel bad. Then go with it. If I’m sad, get some blues going in Am. If I’m happy, hit some F#.

It’s hard to shut your thoughts off for more than a few seconds, but you can go back and forth, in and out of this space as you play. The best I can play is when my thinking mind stops, I’m in tune with the sounds and feelings around me, and I can sense my emotions. Then the hands just go where my imaginative mind wants to go. One of the keys for this working is I can hear or sense the sound before I play it. I’m not playing a note and then thinking about staying in that key or reacting to the sound, like when I was first learning. I’m playing to my internal emotions and the hands follow.

Thanks for checking it out,

Jim

The Santana article hit several note with me (no pun intended). When it comes to intangibles He speaks about music that make him feel like he was 7 years old. When I am having a hard time expressing myself through my music I find it is always because of my conscience being, my awareness of all that is around me. When I was young that awareness wasn't there. My mind was free to wander and explore the depths of the unknown. Everything fascinated me when I was young. I was uninhibited. I didn't care what others thought. My creativity was free of the worry of critique. Not so much so now. Now I struggle to ignore that voice in my head that makes me ask "Will people like this?", "Is it good enough?" My solution to these mental roadblocks is to do something or go somewhere that invokes the child that I used to be, the one that is still inside of me. Something as simple as watching a movie from my youth or taking a ride through my old neighborhood, even looking at old photos or eating a PB + J sandwich reminds me that I shouldn't be worried about what other people think. Oddly enough Santana goes on to say "Then you can get rid of all the sh*t you know, and play things that sound like singing water." I frequently find myself walking through the woods to the stream behind my house and dangling my feet in the water, listening to it as it rushes past. I pick up stones and toss them into the stream to hear the "kerplunk" sound that they make. Maybe I will watch a bird or some other animal doing it's thing and I know that it doesn't care what anyone is thinking. It is just going on instinct, doing what comes naturally, to quote Elliot Randall. Then I am free of the worry of technical aspects of playing or if the melody is catchy enough or if the lyrics make sense. I am a child again and I no longer care about what people think. My only thought is "Do I like that?" Years of playing enables me to "play things that sound like water singing" while my mind is free of all burdens. That's when the best things happen for me and my music.

It may be when the Earth, the Moon, the Stars, and a Monster Cable all line up.
Do 'unexplained things" happen if all Players are in the same "zone" where their minds all melt together?

The magic can happen at the least expected time and place.
If you are lucky, the tape will be rolling or it may end as a fleeting memory. You may never be able to recreate it.

Just FEEL it...just GO FOR IT...just ENJOY IT...and never question it.

Bringing the group dynamic into it is something I had overlooked, but seems really obvious. I definitely think when a band is locked in, it's look putting that intangible/spiritual stuff on steroids. I've been involved in those moments with bands where it's just on, but I've never really thought about how feeding off the energy helps you, as an individual player, tap even further into your own potential.

Sing something.

Did you have to consciously tighten or loosen your vocal chords? Think of how many things you do without... well... thinking. We have an outer part of the brain that deals with all the day to day stuff, it's our awareness, it's what we use to reason, and talk, it even beats us up with doubt and critiques us into submission. The inner part of your brain is where the "heart" and "soul" is. It comes out to play when we occupy or turn off the other part. That is the "zone". It's why you feel like you wake up after playing the best music you can play. That inner part of your brain works all the time. It is the source of the music that "comes out of no where". Sometimes the outer part fights back. That is paranoia, self doubt and ego.

Find a picture of a synapse in a brain. They look like rivers, roots and branches. It the shape of connectivity. They look like hands. Your brain does not differentiate between a synapse and your hands. So if you play a guitar long enough, your brain will know every note and nuance. And if you can shut down the outer, conscious part of your brain, you can play a guitar the same way you sing a note. Without thinking.

So go grab a guitar and...

Sing something.

This thread probably has the most newbie posters I have ever seen in a single thread........ incredible.

It did bring a few folks outa' the closet eh Fumbles?

I think it's 2 guys with 10 IDs each...

I am responding to the article I read in Guitar World about intangible desires involving guitar.

I first thought to myself, this is a joke. As my days went on however; I felt that I had a moment in which can only be describe as a eureka moment. A moment in which it all made sense. Although this was a short moment and so far has not happened again, I do find meaning and honesty in it.

What is music? It cannot be seen, only interpreted on paper by someone who claims to know what they are doing. With the right skills anyone can take something that cannot be seen with their eyes and make it real or tangible to a degree. I have always felt that the human condition dictates that we must make something real in order for it to mean something. It's a feeling I'm sure others have felt. It's this feeling that when we read a fictional story or watch a movie, we become so involved with the story and the characters, we forget that they aren't real. Later on disappointment arrives and we return to reality. It's a feeling we cannot escape no matter what we do. Life returns to its normal dull self and on it goes.

Music is real. It never lies, it makes you feel a way that words can never make you feel. All of the emotion involved in music is universal. If its sadness or joy, everyone can relate to these feelings.

For a guitar player or musician, to portray their emotion into a piece of music, all they need to do is write it. At the moment, at this time or that, in this frame of mind or the other. When you are with you instrument, creating whatever it is you are doing. Remember it is only something that can only be done once. The feeling you get when you play one chord will be different when you play another.

The goal is to capture the best moments you can and share them with everyone else. With luck someone somewhere will experience almost what you did.

That is the intangible thought, to think someone will feel the same as you do. That is something so special you can't plan on it. You can't discover a method to do it. You have to do it so much that it pours out from what is your soul without any control. The only sure thing you can do is have the courage to play whatever it is whenever you want and as much as you can at anytime.

The idea that you can plan something so special and meaningful is beyond our ability as humans. It is god, or energy or love. Whatever it is that you find value in, that is what fuels the intangible desires that are apart of being human.

Plan on nothing, it won't be your conscious mind that decides. It will be from the force that the intangible thought exists.

It's that first note Hendrix nails in the "Machine Gun" solo. It's the first time you heard Eddie Van Halen shred out "Eruption" and Miles Davis take his trumpet beyond what you ever heard a trumpet do before or what was capable of. The Intangible happens when you get out of your own way and let the Zen-like melding of the tangible elements (the living wood of your guitar in your hands, the muscles in your fingers, the cycles of voltage pulsing through your equipment, the vibrations of the strings, the soundwaves bouncing back at you from your environment)turn into something bigger than you ever planned or thought you could control. And you just ride it.

It's being on stage and catching a wiff of some girl's perfume from the audience that makes you flash back to the first time you ever had sex. It's listening to your parents fight while you're in your bedroom practicing, trying to drown it all out. It's every note you've ever heard, every rhythm you've ever felt. It's the birth of your first child or death of your best friend. Anything that sparks the inspiration, affects how you attack that note and brings you one step closer to taking what's happening in your conscience and putting it out on the fretboard. It's allowing those immediate thoughts, feelings and memories to influence how you twist, shake, groove, sing, cry, scream and dance with your instrument in that musical environment. The Intangible is simply the process of succumbing to the music and letting it play you.

Deleted by author

Ah, you're confused because it's actually "speaker-pummeled air from soft spring reverbs while you get drunk and adjust your carburetor." Re-finishing furniture just doesn't make any sense.

Musicians come in all shapes and sizes. So do our hands, so do our brains. We all look at tone, notes and the technical and physical side of playing guitar differently. What we create in our brain and translate intentionally or unintentionally (i.e. the brain's "ID" usually has it's own say in what we play – and how our hands move) to our instruments is "the music" that comes out of us. We're usually playing way too fast to consciously choose all the notes, so the soul of the musician is largely in control and talking through our playing. The bodies ability to translate what the brain is telling it to do is where it gets sticky, tricky…and cool.
Personally I'd love to play faster and more accurately because my brain is saying "go, go, go, go here, do this, make this sound, stop!, move that sucker around a little, bend it, bend it again!", but my fingers are like, "well Jesus man, he didn't practice very much or long enough to do those tricks, and besides I have this nerve damage in my thumb and I’ve had three beers and a shot so far, so relax and I'll do the best I can"...and so on. What comes out, what the audience hears (even if the audience is only the dog) is influenced by a lot of things.
That's why musicians are so cool. The whole being influences the music, not just the fingers. What God offers to us as gifts has a huge impact as well. The shape of our hands, the length of our fingers, the muscles we have to use, how well our nervous system is lubricated and wired all have an effect. How many souls do we have inhabiting our psyche and what influence do they have? I know, a little far out, but it's a possible influence!
Then there's the actual history of the musician. When did they start? How long did they practice? What are their motivation(s) to play guitar?
Intangibles. Take a Strat and an amp and give it to 50 guitar players. How many different sounds will they derive? It’s an awesome and wondrous thing. It’s one of the greatest things about being a guitar playing person. Play on!!

It's the smell when you pee after eating a second helping of asparagus... What is that?