Guitar
I kind of diss firemen and teachers in this entry. Both of these professions are by no means easy. In fact, any job that’s worth doing at all requires dedication, commitment, and a bit of your soul.
I wanted to be famous like a rockstar. Or at least just make a living playing music that I love.
I overheard my crush Jane on the bus in 9th grade discussing with her friend how guys who play guitar are hot. Therefore, I did the only logical thing and started learning how to play on my dad’s old classical guitar. I had played piano for years, so I picked up the basics of the guitar quickly.
I got a hand-me-down electric guitar from a family friend not too long after that. The neck was small and the nut at the top of the guitar wasn’t completely secure. It would shift up any time I would bend the strings. I started taking lessons with a guy that ran a guitar shop next to my mom’s alteration shop. He was helpful, but I only had that lesson once a week for a half hour. So I ended up learning most of what I wanted to know on my own.
Jane also had a online AIM (kind of like Facebook) profile page that said one of her favorite songs was Over The Hills And Far Away by some band called Led Zeppelin. I took a listen and was blown away by the opening riff. How’s he playing that so fast? I sat down and played it over and over again to figure it out. It was really cool. I listened to some more of their songs and got hooked. Up to that point I’d only heard classical songs I played on the piano, church hymns, and the odd pop song that came on the radio. But here was a band like nothing I’d ever heard before, and I genuinely thought they were good.
I got a Led Zeppelin box set of 4 remastered CDs while grocery shopping at Sams Club, and it changed my life. I played along on my guitar every moment I got and learned almost every song on there. The solos were a bit too hard for me, but I learned some of Jimmy Page’s licks and played my own licks to make my own solos that I thought were pretty good considering I hadn’t been playing for very long.
Eventually I got to know most of the solos by heart, but more importantly, it just felt so incredibly free and liberating to synchronize my mind and my fingers on the guitar, and to lose myself by playing whatever it is I was feeling in that split second… I was able to shut off my brain for a few moments to escape the thoughts of depression, loneliness, and hopelessness that plagued my mind during every other hour of the day.
January 29, 2008
What the hell happened to follow your dreams?
The street musicians on the side of the street get $15 a day. Not enough for a hotel. As horrible as it sounds, I have a desire to live this way… ten dollars on drugs and alcohol, five on food. The life that involves college, family, and a stable life doesn’t involve my dreams.
When I was a kid, they used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t know for sure then what I wanted to be, but I was sure I didn’t want to be a fireman or a teacher. I had too much ambition. As soon as I discovered the musical path, I knew that was for me. But I have so many doubts. I’m not really very good at it, but who is?
Why don’t they have this job as a college course? But that just makes sense. You can’t live life in college. The music I have identified most with is music about life – the blues, men’s music. None of those heroes went to college… they couldn’t. I have the opportunity but don’t want to. Does that make me an idiot if I choose the harder path over the yellow brick road? They wouldn’t think twice about that choice.
Maybe it’s the intrigue of the unknown, where each wants the path that they aren’t on. That’s crazy. I’m crazy for wanting it. I want the things that I don’t have, and when I finally do get it, I don’t want it anymore. Envy and jealousy again.
January 30, 2008
I couldn’t live on my own. Society would eat me alive. What if it doesn’t turn out the way I want it to? The thing about pessimism is that it’s just a wall we hide behind to cover up our most intense desires and deepest fantasies.
I spent a year playing Zeppelin tunes non-stop. And then I discovered Eric Clapton (the brilliant sounding sentence above about pessimism was actually a quote from his book, not me) who is sort of a gateway musician to other blues icons like Robert Johnson and Freddie King. I found solace in the blues and in the fact that sadness never changes no matter who you are or what era you lived in.