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Note: Today’s post is by David Hester, who has been exploring an alternative approach to Piobaireachd playing at his website, altpibroch.com. The important thing is not what you sound like. It's what you want to sound like. —Arnold Jacobs Principal Tuba, Chicago Symphony As musicians, we need a clear concept of what it is we are going to play. Without it, technique is meaningless — it is exercise for no purpose at all.  Practicing itself becomes a directionless enterprise, time spent going musically nowhere. We can certainly use recordings of old masters to provide us with examples to follow. But unless you make the music something personal to you, you are not contributing to art. Remember: you are a creative artist.  You are someone who has tasked themselves with the responsibility of sharing music, of communicating something to others. You can do it in completely predictable ways: in which case, audiences will get bored. The brain, when listening ...