When I play, I play what I feel from my soul and it follows through to my fingers. The emotion can be felt in the music. What drives me crazy is people who try to "bottle" someone else's creativity. Allow me to explain this briefly.

I was just in a band at church. After I had been there 3-4 years, the church brought in a new music minister . Up until this time, the music services were great. The styles were varied and everyone got what they came for whether it was a little blues/rock, slow or medium tempo or even a little C&W style picking (after all, you have to please everyone in that venue, ya know).

Anyway, the new minister is about 12 years younger than myself and has been to music school. He is very well learned and talented on the sax. Here is where my problem lies. Being as he is so school taught and theory oriented, he began to tell all the musicians how to play, what to play, when to play and how it should be played. Thus went to the extreme that he began deciding what equipment should be used, what pedal should be turned on...etc. I know the importance of working as a team and making everything "fit" is vital to musical success.

Maybe I am being really stupid here, but this is how I feel. I have invested a lot of money in my rig so that I am able to express myself musically. My artistic license/expression was ripped from me and can never be returned. I have left that situation and do not think I will be going back to it any time soon.

So I guess my problem is that I want to play my instrument my way. Aside from nominal changes that fit a riff/passage into a song or whatever, I feel that I am enough of a musician to be trusted to not overplay and overpower. I do not need a babysitter or a guidance cousellor.