Birth of an Obsession - May 07

After I had sped away from my last lesson with P., guitar tucked safely away behind the seat of the truck, I had to give some serious thought to what I was doing. I had been ‘playing’ the guitar (and believe me, I use the term ‘playing’ very loosely. So loosely, it would be considered more an inert gas as opposed to anything closely resembling a solid effort) for over a year. In that year, I had learned virtually nothing and not for a lack of trying. The books were a great resource but limited. Talking to a few friends who also played revealed little help. Although they are terrific people and decent enough players, they are not teachers. They lack the patience to try and pound information into this giant melon I call a head. I had even purchased a few DVD’s and computer software packages that promised and ‘easy way’ to learn to play the guitar.

The DVD’s turned out to be some strange things. One promised to teach the student how to play metal guitar. Anxiously, I sat in front of the television, popped the DVD into the player, the guitar propped in my lap, the neck resting in my left hand and the remote in the other. The instructor was an older guy, my age most likely, who was apparently unwilling to give up the look of a guitar god, black hair hanging to the middle of his back and long, wild strands dripping in front of his eyes. He spoke with a low, raspy voice and his red-rimmed eyes looked like they had not seen the light of day since the mid-seventies. All in all, a promising start. He sort of reminded me of what Tommy Chong’s really freaky brother would have looked like. I named him Chet and referred to him often during the playing of the DVD.

What I learned from the DVD is as follows: First, it is very difficult to play ‘metal’ on a cheap acoustic guitar. At least for a tyro. The instructor, armed with a beautiful Strat, played through some versions of AC/DC, Sabbath and Metallica. When I tried to follow along, it sounded like a drunken camp counselor trying to ‘bring it on home’ around a campfire. Second, it is as equally difficult to play a guitar with a DVD remote as a pick. I found that I could not keep up with the instructor so I had to stop and replay or slow the scenes down just to see what he was doing. My brainstorm? Keep the remote in the right hand and just try to ‘play around it’. That does not work. After screaming some obscenities at Chet Chong, I pulled the DVD out, threw it on the shelf under the television and have not watched it since.

I knew then that it was time to re-evaluate what it was I was doing and what it was that I had wanted to do. I had owned a guitar, yes. Could I play anything? No, not really. The few songs that I managed to stumble through like a pig trying to perform brain surgery were brutal and ugly affairs. It made no sense to me. Like most novices, I was later to discover, I wanted to pick up the guitar and in a few weeks, be able to play the songs I heard on the radio, the ones in my memory from my youth, the soundtrack for my life that seemed to continuously drift through my mind. I wanted to be able to emulate the guitar hero’s I had heard and loved through out my life. I had seen B.B. King so many times, I should be on his Christmas card list. The same goes with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Johnny Lang, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. I had seen Roy Buchanen years ago and had my mind bent. I have been there watching a 70-something Dick Dale play guitar with such ferocity that it practically dropped me to the floor. I almost wept seeing Satch play one warm summer night at an outdoors venue. It was in my blood. I loved it. Why couldn’t I make it come out of my fingers?

It was crunch time. I had to find another instructor and give it one more shot. If it failed, I would relegate the guitar to an object de’ art, nail it to my living room wall and tell everyone that ‘No, I don’t play. I appreciate music on a much deeper and intellectual level’. Of course, anyone who knows me, and they are the most likely guests in my home, knows what a load of nonsense that is but they would forgive me and not make me elaborate on what was shaping up to be a most spectacular failure.

I found my next, and interestingly, my last instructor, via an Internet ad. He was the lead guitarist for a local Pink Floyd / Van Halen tribute band. I had seen them perform once or twice and was impressed with him from what I had seen of him on stage. I made the call and we set up a meeting. He was an excitable and passionate man who practically oozed ‘guitar’. He was different from P. He still loved what he did. P. , on the other hand, always made me think of something I read once; ‘Old whores don’t giggle much.’

I thought I might have found my answer.