Virginity Lost

I, like you, have spent most of my life watching professional musicians make faces while they play. As a teen, I didn't think too much about it because things in my own life were plenty intense and it was all about me anyway. As I got bit older and more cynical I started to wonder how much of the whole thing was an act. Then I read that book... This Is Your Brain On Music. Awesome. Opened my mind to the possibility that some artists are actually feeling something profound.

My own facial expressions while playing have been of intense concentration or grimaces as I've hit wrong notes. What do I expect, I suck. But recently, I had some quiet time so I laid down a 4 chord organ sequence, added a bass, looped the thing and strapped on the guitar to just make some noise.

Over the next couple of hours, I played and I played. At some point I crossed over. My face was a glow. I felt electric. To paraphrase Winnie the Pooh, I felt "tingly in my jingly". It was the closest thing to rapture that I have felt in any remotely recent memory. For a full ten minutes after I put the guitar down, I had a stupid post-coital grin on my face. It was almost embarrassing!

It was good. It was scary. I'm not entirely sure about letting go in this way. I want to go back. But I'm afraid. Makes no sense. Makes no sense at all.

CC licensed photo by Heart Industry.

Silly Rabbit, Picks Are For Kids

I have had in my possession for a whole three days now a thing of wonder. Now that I'm playing guitar (or attempting to) and I find myself looking hither and yon for "talent enhancers". I had heard about E-Bows when I was a teen but never seen one so it seemed perfectly logical that I should buy one on impulse.

Now the sales guy warned me in a heavy southern drawl, "now when you first use an E-Bow, you're gonna suck!" Strange both in the directness and that here in the Toronto area we don't hear drawls like that. I was taken aback but I bravely plowed on and said, "well I make experimental music so it's ok if I suck."

Once I bought my new treasure home, the Southern Man turned out to have hit the nail on the head. I did suck. Was it broken? Did I need a new battery already? Should I take it back? You mean I need to read the instructions? You mean I might need to listen to the included CD with a players guide? The buyers remorse lasted a good 15-30 minutes.

Somewhat fortuitous for me, sandbags had recently posted Rytme Shifter 1 which seemed perfect to E-Bow along with. Soon enough things were getting completely out of hand. I felt like Fripp! Perhaps I should have recorded all that but I didn't. Instead I played and played late into the night...



The next morning, I woke up and decided it was time to record and in a much mellower mood, I came up with this:



Of course, the training wheels are off now and I'm working on the next track and all thoughts of taking the thing back are gone. I even went back to thank Southern Man for his warning.

Help! I've Been Kidnapped By My Guitar

My guitar lesson count is now at lucky number 13.

I've been swallowed whole by this thing. I love playing. I still suck. But I love playing.

I was given the intro to finger picking a couple of lessons ago and I could spend entire days doing that.

So what's wrong? Well nothing except that I'm not spending as much time recording as I might. And even when I do, I lay out a track pull out the guitar and start jamming with the track. And jamming. And jamming. And jamming. Without the record button on (cause I still sound way better in my head than the reality).

I've grown my fingernails a little longer on my right hand. I've established a relationship with a nail file and it still feels weird to type (hitting the . key with my nail instead of my fingertip, for example).

The other thing it has me wanting is foot pedals. Mouse clicking and guitar do not go together. The new looper in Live is awesome but it's not entirely hands free.

And did I tell you my fingers hurt? The callouses are coming along nicely but...

In lesson 13 we started playing with weird chord voicings which led to drop tuning first the 6th string, then the rest of the guitar. And again my head explodes with new possibilities. I think I'm going to be stuck here for a while.

Gone and Done It

I finally bought myself a guitar. I've had it for a little under a week now and I think I'm in love. We're still learning about each other but the s-s-s-s-ound is f-f-f-antastic!

For the guitar geeks in the audience it's a Michael Kelly Valor Custom. Grover tuners, Rockfield pickups (split tap), blah blah. It's got a beautiful red flame maple finish that this picture does not show.

As is common with new lovers, my parts are getting worn. And how sweet it is.

Lesson Three and the Beginner's Plateau

I've now finished my third lesson and the magnitude of the thing I'm trying to do is starting to become apparent. It's kind of like I naively said, "Hey, let's walk to LA from NY." And then three blocks from my house I start to realize, "Uh oh. This is big."

Of course, all this is natural and I don't even know the half of it yet. In my very first lesson, Mark counseled patience. So patient I'll try to be.

That's just the playing part. The recording part is an additional headache. I'm learning beginner lessons about latency. And how in Logic, if I reduce the buffer size and start using mega plugins things don't go well. My audio interface can do low latency monitoring and has some onboard effects but I have yet to arrive at a set up that I consider workable. When I do, that'll likely be at least one post of its own.