Troglodyte V Cro-Magnon

Troglodyte V Cro-Magnon
By Pappy

I just tried to knit and it got me thinking about guitars and how much I hate learning new things.  I like KNOWING knew things - particularly how to DO new things, but the learning process - that wearing it into your brain and/or muscle memory and getting it down pat and then slowly speeding up until you're proficient - THAT is a giant pain in the neck.

By the way, knitting sucks.  The first row is fun but after that you just have no idea how you're doing.  It just looks like a bunched-up mess until you finally gather enough courage to finish it off (or "cast off")  and see just how poorly you did.  I'm pretty sure from now on I'm just going to assign knitting projects to my wife.

Anyhoo...  Guitars.

Practicing guitar is no different.  I remember learning this hybrid picking lick when I had a roommate and the room was really small so we couldn't get away from each other and he watched as I slowly (very slowly) learned this lick.  He saw the frustration and by the end of the time required to get it down pat, he had had just about enough of listening to it.

But I was glad I knew it when I was all finished.

That's just the price you pay to learn to play well.

Recently though, I was wondering why we - or, more specifically, I - want to learn to play better.  A virtuoso type said that he didn't like the idea of learning new things just to know them or just to impress.  Instead, he has these songs in his head and he's looking for a way to get them out and the techniques that are usually equipped by the shredders happen to be the same techniques he needs to make the music in his head come out of his hands.  It made sense to him.

But I don't really have songs kicking around in my head.  I don't think these things through.  i just strap on a guitar and start banging around on an E power chord and see where I go from there.  Maybe it'll be single notes, but more than likely it'll be power chords the whole way through.  Perhaps some octave chords.

This isn't to say I don't know that I SHOULD be trying to get better.  I do feel bad when I say I've been playing for fifteen years and don't know any theory, or scales outside of the pentatonic box, or the CAGED system, or keys, or anything really.  I know that I like the idea of seeing other guitarists nod their heads approvingly or compliment my playing because we're all fond of some sort of validation for all this time we're dumping into our hobbies, right?

So lately I've decided that I want to really get better at rockabilly and for some reason I can't pick quickly to save my life.  I'm really going to have to do a video chat with some sort of rockabilly enthusiast who can look at my picking and let me know where i'm going wrong because there's just no way I should be picking that slowly.

To cover up my lack of picking speed though, I decided to do more hybrid picking.  Filling out the time with your other fingers sure does help a lot.  I began working on a reinterpretation of the Misfits' "Halloween" (my go-to if there ever was one for musical experimentation) and I'm getting pretty happy with my results.

The other day though, I finally got some time to spend just playing the guitar.  My wife took the kids out and i was left alone for a few hours and I just PLAYED.  It was pretty great.  Well, it was OK at first, mainly because I was practicing, or playing stuff that I had to focus on, but eventually I just let it go and started playing power chords and not focusing on anything but the chords and how they sounded together.  I wasn't banging out songs left and right, but I did come up with a pretty great line of chords that I'm sure a more melodic mind could really play with over.

That was a blast.

The question is now more prominent than ever: Why am I focusing on getting better, when I can do all I have fun doing?

Of course, I guess it will be just as easy if I practice the intricate stuff more and more.  Eventually theory and skilled playing will become as easy as banging on the low three, right?

Well, here's hoping anyway.

XXX---XXX

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