20 May 2009

Trying to take something seriously...

My dad bought me my first guitar for my 11th or 10th birthday. Not quite sure. I took all of two lessons separated by way too many weeks for me to "get" anything out of it from his friend Lee, who was a helluva nice guy and a wonderful guitar player from what I remember. I am guessing that somewhere in my folks' attic are the yellow legal pages on which he wrote down the "blues scale" and a few chord diagrams that were not in the book my dad had bought me to go with the guitar. They may even still be attached to the sheet on which he drew the fretboard on, leaving most of it blank so I could fill in the corresponding pitches for "homework". For what it's worth, I still have my guitar students do this to help them more quickly memorize the instrument's layout.

I played guitar on and off for most of my teenage years, eventually making sense out of the aforementioned legal pages and getting my friends whose folks got them guitar lessons at local music store to teach me whatever they had learned that week. I always had a good ear and my wanting to write songs that reflected what I heard in my heard (and my spending money on various guitar magazines) forced me to teach myself a good bit about the instrument, so, without ever taking another lesson, by the time I was in late high school (a little late for this, I know), I had found my way into a decent and somewhat serious rock band in which *I* was usually the one who was in charge of knowing all the changes and forms of the songs we covered - in addition to writing half of the band's originals.

By the time high school ended, recognizing that I wouldn't get very far lacking the proper technique I would have picked up in formal guitar lessons, I had modeled myself as more of an all-around musicianly type, proficient on a few instruments (though a master of none) and well-versed in music theory, songwriting, arranging, etc. This also served me well as I transitioned into college. The ear and aforementioned theory knowledge I had forced myself to develop allowed me to make the jump to conservatory-level musicianship in an easier fashion than some of my peers and it wasn't long before I was applying all sortsa cool new compositional and arrangement techniques I learned during freshman and sophomore years to the tunes I was writing and working on with my band(s) at the time. I became more proficient at the piano and became a naturally better bass player (if only as a result of my new-found understanding of harmony), but, while I was the guitar player in my main band at the time, I could still only count myself an intermidiate player due to my lack of techinical know-how.

Now let's be clear: I am not singularly blaming my folks for not getting me guitar lessons here. I don't think I hounded either of them much and, besides, I was and (to a certain extent) still am a notoriously lazy student (grad school 4.0 be damned!); so lessons may have been just a waste of money at the time. Besides, I was still content on modeling myself as something of a musical jack-of-all-trades types and perhaps taking one instrument too seriously would have limited me in some of my other musical pursuits. I do realize how ridiculous that sounds, but it's what kept me from being frustrated with my lack of more specific skills for years.

As college led into my life as a young professional (boy does that sound "official") I nearly fell into the familiar music educator trap of being an "ex-", or even "failed", performer as my musical activities rarely extended beyond the confines of my own bedroom during the first two years of my teaching career. Frustrated with the fear that I too could become an ugly suburban stereotype (that music teacher you used to have was a real live musician at some point, y'know), I quickly found some peeps and started a new band wherein I was the bass player and spent the next couple of years becoming an honest-to-goodness bass guitarist. I practiced, studied, rehearsed, wrote, recorded, toured, etc. as a bassist with a few bands in NJ and NY and even made a little scratch playing on various little recording sessions and pit gigs. I still kicked the guitar around, but seeing as I was out of practice, now living in NYC (whose Native American name I am almost sure translates to "Land of Too Many Guitar Players"), and was never a great player in the first place, I pretty much stopped referring to myself a guitar player.

At some point in 2004, I did start playing guitar on the regular again. I bought a bunch of new gear and started a rock band, so I figured I better get practicing! And so I did; and for the first time ever resigned myself to being an inferior technician and actually sat down and played scales and drills to a metronome for the first time in my life. I absorbed the styles of guitarists whom I could most easily emulate and actually took the guitar sorta seriously! Gone was my former cop-out of "who needs technique when they have style and ideas like mine?!". I actually almost sorta kinda considered myself something of a guitarist. Then I just sorta stalled out.

I am not sure why I was content being a knowledgable-yet-mediocre guitar player. I guess I just thought I could coast on the basis of my larger base of musical know-how - and to tell you the truth: no one called me out on it. I mean: no one was banging down my door offering me guitar gigs, but I was playing guitar regularly on and off in a few bands and it always appeared as though I was holding my own. But at some point last winter things changed. Y'see: every year in late January or early February I have something of a musical mental meltdown wherein I decide I am at best the 10th best player I know on any given instrument and that I am thoroughly incapable of doing anything even remotely valuable as a songwriter or in any other musical avenue I pursue. Luckily, I kept my annual crisis to myself this past winter and as able to contain it to a mere few days, but during the darkest months of early 2008, I was one sad sack. I was ready to quit playing everything. There were quite a few nights when I actually sat on my couch attempting to drown my sorrows in TV only to be distracted by angry tears directed at the tools of my supposed misfortune - still in their respective cases, of course. I went so far as to start investigating the market value of about 90% of the gear I owned in an effort to rid myself of all the things that were there to remind me of the failed musician I once was. I know this all sounds very dramatic, but it's true. It was really quite a shitty time. I am not quite sure how I decided this (in retrospect I think it was a combination of wise words from Melissa and Jay), but I decided to have one last go of it.

While I can't remember the date or time or even place, I do remember there being a very specific moment wherein I resolved to learn to play the fucking guitar. As if the impending self-imposed end of my life as a musician was not enough inspiration, I also had a more specific moment to work my toward. My band had booked Memorial Day weekend to record an entire album's worth of new material almost 100% live. Now: I am not sure how much most of you know about the recording process, but I can assure that two things in that last sentence certainly place my band in the minority. First: recording live is becoming more and more rare these days. More often than not, bands and solo artists record albums by meticulously stacking one track on top of one another - one at a time. This leads directly to the other point of interest above. As you might imagine, this process is painstakingly lengthy, so the idea of cutting an entire album's worth of tracks in a single 4 day span (8 hour days) is almost unheard of these days. (Murphy waits for his dorky music friends that know about this stuff to point out several examples of other recent albums recorded almost live in a very short amount of time) Needless to say, the prospect of only having one or two chances to rip a sick improvised solo that would then be immortalized on a compact disc was a terrifying one. Were we recording using the more popular method, I would have a squintillion chances to play the "perfect" solo and could even edit together the better bits from lots of solos digitally long after I had played them in an attempt to "construct" said perfect solo. Where was I going with this? Oh yeah. In addition to the need to be prepared to improvise something worth listening to ad infinitum in only three or four chances, I was also terrified of the prospect of even playing my non-solo parts on these songs. If I dropped the ball on the fourth bar of the last verse, there would be no punching in. The whole band would need to do a whole new take. To be honest: there are quite a few clams on the finished product as a result of this philosophy, but it was all worth it as the energy on most of these tracks is amazing. The only way we ever could have gotten where we did was via the hours of intensely focused rehearsal we did. The only way I could have been prepared for said intense rehearsals was via lots and lots of practicing... and so, for the first time in years, I practiced... a lot. I spent the majority of the Spring of 2008 busting my hump to get these parts down and, in the process, got at least some of my musicianly-mojo back. I even took a guitar lesson with the intention of my finally getting my technique caught up with my know-how. Sure, it only lasted one lesson, but I somehow thought the effort was indicative of some larger progress being made. The recording sessions proved a success, the surrounding gigs went swimmingly, and, due to the time I put in, I felt like a "real" guitarist for possibly the first time ever.

But old habits die hard and, at some point the following summer and fall, I fell of the wagon and became a lazy musician once again. I thought about becoming a "serious" upright bassist and devoted a good chunk of my time this past fall to practicing and playing my upright. For a little while I even considered playing drums in a band I was starting. While I was playing more gigs than ever, I was even less focused than ever. I was busy as hell, however, so I was kinda oblivious to it all. Here's the other thing: I just wasn't that interested in the guitar. I mean: I had spent plenty of money on customizing my guitar and gadgets that would make it sound cooler, but I wasn't in love with my guitar - and that was perhaps my last hurdle on the road to taking the guitar more seriously.

As sure as the pope shits in the woods, when this past winter rolled in, so did my doldrums. While I didn't hit the skids quite as hard as I did in '08, I did spend a good bit of January and February questioning my place (if any at all) in the world of music. Maybe I should devote another post to my complex, but what's most important this time around is how I found my way out. I'll give you a clue: it was the guitar. ; ) There is an half-written 3,000 word missive sitting unpublished on my blogger dashboard about my reborn love of Phish. That story may or may not ever see the light of day, so I will simply say here that after not listening to them for some ten years, I somehow found a renewed and greatly revitalized appreciation for Trey Anastasio and his boys. Maybe I just understand a little more about music than I did when I approached theirs last. Maybe I am jonesin' to make my guitar lines sail like Trey's do. I am not sure, but for some reason, this new-found love found me with the guitar in my hands more often than ever. I was playing and practicing every day for the first time in a year. I was even shocked at the amount of relief I felt when I found out that our hosts on me and Melissa's recent jaunt to L.A. had an acoustic guitar around so I could at least keep up with part of what was becoming a slightly stricter practice regimen. While I was there, said host, Adam, and I attempted to jam on some Phish tunes that I thought I had worked up. This experience told me two things: 1) Trey Anastastion is an arpeggio-junkie, and 2) I was not prepared to jam with a musician on Adam's level. Here's where it gets interesting: Unlike every other time I have found myself victim to my own musical ambition, I did not fall into my usual shame spiral of pity and self-loathing - instead I resolved to fix it so that the next time I am in a situation like that I could hold my own (and play those fucking arpeggios).

It was also around this time that I fell in love with the guitar. I am not really sure how or on what day it happened, but at some point I looked down at a guitar in my arms and it just felt right. The strange symbiotic connection that so many great musicians claim to have with their instrument of expertise suddenly made sense to me. I was somehow meant to do this. I instantly found myself more able to "speak" through the guitar and much of the physical tension that accompanied the mental duress of having to play amidst a vast inferiority complex simply melted away. I looked forward to spending time practicing in a way I never had before and new techniques came to me more quickly and with more fluidity. To be honest: I have not been practicing in a very focused way for a set period of time every day like I should. I haven't memorized the Phish catalogue just yet, but I can't remember a day that has gone by in the last month wherein I haven't picked up a guitar - if even for a minute - and felt some of that magic. .

...And that's why we're here. Not only to proclaim my love for the guitar, but also to proudly announce that after a somewhat thorough search and a really great post-gig conversation with two of my favourite musical conspirators about lessons they have been taking recently (maybe a post on this at some point), I have picked a teacher and, in a few weeks, will start taking guitar lessons. I am excited, not only because my soon-to-be teacher is one of the best players in town, but also because I can't remember the last time I have been so sure of one of my musical decisions. I really want to be a guitarist. After 20 years of dicking around a ton of different instruments and roles in the world of music, I think I may have found some direction. Now let's be honest: in two months I could be at this very blog talking about my newfound love of the Simandl method for upright bass and how I am about to give up sleeping to go late night blowing sessions at jazz clubs in Manhattan; but for now I am rip-raring to go on the guitar and hope that in a year's time I will be writing about how awesome it is to be able to play whatever I want on the guitar with whomever I want without feeling "less than" or out of place. Wish me luck!

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