If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.
My musical influences growing up were limited to Korean folk songs and hymns as I went to a Christian boarding school where I was not allowed to listen to secular music.
I hate the idea of genres.
I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes.
I wasn't allowed to listen to a lot of music growing up. It wasn't until I started to make my gospel record when I was around 14 or 15 that I started to be exposed to more outside influences.
I'm a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, and they will buy every CD that I have released, but they don't me just to bring the instruments much into the church.
This genre of music seems to want to push people into a certain time slot, which is unfortunate.
I've come up with another formulation about style: that it's essentially a manifestation of a certain habitual set of limitations. It's what a composer does NOT do that defines a style.
Although I dig my guitar playing, I think it's kind of an obvious situation; I play what I want to play within my own restrictions.
