We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mat Gurman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Mat thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I have always had a deep, emotional connection to music, extraordinarily deep to the point that it changes my mood and outlook completely depending on the emotional content of the music so my instinctual response to having an instrument in my hands is to start finding ways to make sounds come out of it. I find that the initial introduction you have with an instrument evolves very naturally, and personally. Eventually, some structure needs to be introduced so you have a tool kit to work with. For me, I did not do well in a formalized setting as a child. That was group lessons. I really don’t recommend those. Personally, I found I could excel quickly using a diagram based chord book along with my ear to figure things out. I still recommend this to beginning students. I had a hard time learning because of some childhood trauma and it forced me to find my own paths of learning everything, including music, but music is such an instinctual thing that the connection we make with it on our own is very immediate and for me, it caused me to grow quickly. I was able to figure out things I heard on the radio way before I had any formal instruction. I wanted to make the sounds I was hearing. The most essential skill I learned early on was Deep listening and this is not something someone can really teach you. You could be guided, but if there is a connection between the will, the ear, the heart, and the instrument all working together. If I could’ve learned to read music in an earlier age, it would’ve been a huge asset in in speeding up my growth as a musician. I was an air player for many years before I started developing that skill, and it did not come naturally to me at all. I had problem with all sorts of linear learning, and did not do well in school as a result of the trauma I mentioned. Music was a language of healing that became both my salvation and my profession. When I was about 11 years old, I was taught a Blues scale by a friend of the family who was a very accomplished guitarist. That was like rocket fuel to my playing. In answer to the very last part of your question, the things that were obstacles became some of my greatest triumphs when I overcame them later and my musical studies, became more advanced.
Mat, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a lifelong artist. I would say, with the exception of possibly six months out of my entire life, I am blessed to be able to say I have supported myself entirely as a guitarist.. I have worked at it full-time since graduating high school and put myself through college at Cal Arts by playing guitar. I think the thing that defines me most as a musical artist is my versatility. I have a natural ability to play any style and I have always been able to do this very naturally and without effort. Where some artist define themselves in one genre, as a studio musician I am comfortable in many genres, and I have backed up acts in every style conceivable. I don’t have an attitude about going from Bluegrass to bebop, rock, reggae, blues, country, etc. Music is about emotion.
It is the language of the soul and all the different styles are like different dialects or accents, but the emotional content is consistent. It’s human. As long as the style allows for improvisational expression I am down with it. The one thing I am probably weakest at is classical guitar. That’s actually kind of funny because I play nylon string/classical instruments primarily these days but I’m talking about the actual music, that is classical music, that is a very structured and focused discipline. I did study it and I can’t do it. I love to listen to it. It just is not my strongest technique. Because I came up as primarily self taught, my technique is different from standard classical technique. This drives classical players nuts when they watch me. That’s OK. I’m just trying to be me, not them.
I have worked in most areas a guitarist can working in from touring with bands, theater and orchestra pits, live television, film, recording, studios, and stages of all sizes with artists are on the way up and on the way down in almost every conceivable style of music. I think my proudest accomplishments are some of the smaller and more personally inspired work I have done to unite people and end hate. Some of this work is hosted by the nonprofit Orbis Unum, LLC. I have some pieces of music that I’ve written that are more spiritually motivated, and I am proud of my piece called “In Other News“ which was done completely on guitar synthesizer.
My instructional DVDs and videos I am also proud of because I try to make the spiritual connection with music part of my outreach, and that is a rather abstract concept to teach in a lesson. In one of my videos, I teach a lesson in improvisation, and I use surfing as an analogy. I’m not a surfer, but there is a great similarity between the way an improvised solo unfolds, and a surfer riding a wave.
One thing I would like potential clients to know about how I approach my work is, I never give less than all of myself and I am always striving for a personal best when I play.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
What a fantastic question! I’m so glad you asked this. Back when I was in grade school and middle school, art education was part of general education. It did not have a huge outreach but it had a huge impact. For creatives, those visits from an art practitioners was like an oasis. I recall before I even started playing at age 10, a music teacher would come to visit each classroom once every other week. There was also a music appreciation class in middle school that taught students how to listen to music and identify the instruments by ear. The loss of public school arts funding (around the time of President Reagan) had a devastating impact on future generations musical awareness. Today, I find a sense of apathy in younger audiences regarding live music in our environment. Live music is everywhere on a small and large scale. On a few occasions I have had people come up to me while I am playing solo guitar and ask me “are you the DJ“? In their mind music means DJ. As a lifetime performing artist that frightens me. That kind of musical ignorance is dangerous. Every type of personal service is disappearing along with small business of every description. There are many ways to support artists and of course, financial support is essential. So is just being aware of the person providing the service who often gets dismissed as just another app to turn off or ignore while playing with a cell phone. This is a person with unique skills and abilities who is making a personal contribution to our environment. They deserve to be seen and acknowledge, and thanked whenever possible for what they do. That doesn’t cost anything. There is nothing more disheartening to a musician than to have someone in the audience disrespecting them by watching a video on their phone while the musician is pouring their guts out. That is what has happened as a result of music and arts being silenced as a part of primary education.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
At this point of my life, I want to bring people together through music. That is my outreach. I get very diverse audiences at some of my live shows, and I use music to create inclusivity. Certain styles of music seem to speak to many cultures and backgrounds. For instance, reggae music, and Bob Marley! I may rearrange a song in that style, and I find people of many age demographics and racial heritages really get into it. Music brings people together. I want to help facilitate healing. Music is my tool for doing that. It is the language our soul understands and is not something to measure or judge, just appreciate, share and be thankful for.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.matgurman.com
- Instagram: instagram.com. Mat Gurman
- Facebook: Facebook.com/mat gurman
- Youtube: https://YouTube.com/user/MatGurman
Image Credits
David Lustig