Day 286: Strings

Restrung my electric guitar tonight, my old Strat, old ramshackle Fat Strat, humbuckered and notched and dusty between the machine heads. My fingers rusty and ungainly. Remembering clunky bits of riffs, old C and G and D, old A minor, old chugging power chords, not a lot else.

At 15 I wanted to sound like Billie Joe Armstrong and Tom DeLonge. Memorised some tabs, ingrained them deep, till they were chiselled roads. But no avenues between them, no knowledge of landscape, no room for musical life to build and develop. I was not naturally talented and it made me feel like a failure and so, after years getting nowhere, I gave up.

But trying at things at which we are not naturally talented is often where we meet ourselves, where we transform ourselves. Methodically practising at weaknesses can be so rewarding. I picked the guitar back up a few years ago, went through an online beginner’s course, and though much of it seemed so simple to be unworthy of my attention, plenty of it was not, and I did it all anyway, forced myself not to skip whatever was either boring or hard.

There’s a correct pace at which everything happens. You could call it the Tao of the universe. I didn’t want to go at that pace at 15, I wanted to leap to chugging punk rhythms and lightning riffs, to get the reward without the effort. Learning notes on the neck and lackadaisical country western strumming patterns and arcane modal shapes was too dull, too uncool. So I skipped what I hated, avoided what I couldn’t do, and instead laid down these fragile thin roads of knowledge that linked to nothing - roads over which I could run back and forth, but from which I could never deviate.

I fell away from guitar again after the beginner’s course a few years ago. But I think I’d like to get back into it now. When I’m not working or writing it’s a nice hobby, learning a new skill, that does not come easily to me, and thus is probably worthwhile. Going slowly, assiduously, enjoying the difficulty and the glacial sense of progress, enjoying it for its own sake. And it sure beats videogames, YouTube videos, phone scrolling, as something to add structure to an evening.

……

Music: Strange Brew, by Cream. Bit of psychedelic blues rock, just what my guitar-awoken ears are craving. Oh yes.