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When I was 12 years old I was inspired to learn how to play the guitar after hearing the music of Jimi Hendrix. As I began learning, I quickly realized I would have to put a lot of effort into this endeavor to be able to make the kind of music that Jimi inspired me to make. So I dug in, and the more I dug in and applied myself, the better I became at my craft. As I got better, it started to become more fun too. Early on I made the connection that the more I applied myself (by practicing, wood shedding, experimenting, etc.) the more I enjoyed guitar playing. For me, practicing my guitar, and enjoying the act of guitar playing go hand-in-hand, and I never viewed practicing as a chore I had to do.
As the years churned on I never stopped applying myself. I eventually went to Berklee, began playing professionally, and still work at improving and honing my skills 20 years later (even though I can maintain a decent level of proficiency without doing so). While some people along the way have suggested that I practice more than I need to, I disagree. Putting in such a big effort over a long period of time has not only made me a better musician, it’s made me a better person. It’s benefited my life in ways that go way beyond music. If you can teach yourself self-discipline through the mastery of your craft, you will forever have an increased self-discipline in every facet of your life, more patience, problem-solving skills, the list goes on.
In my opinion, too many musicians coming up in the world today learn a bare minimum of proficiency early on and then just coast. So many are consumed by aspirations of fame and fortune that they miss out on the rewarding feeling one can get from just working towards being great at something. Whether you you play music as a career or just for fun, I believe that the more you put into developing your craft, the better your whole life will be. Practice might not make you perfect, but it will make you better.
Have you ever challenged yourself with something really, really hard. I mean something so difficult that initially you weren’t even sure if you could do it? Challenges like running a marathon or completing a triathlon, learning to speak a new language, losing 100 pounds, or mastering a musical instrument are all daunting tasks that can take months or years to accomplish and require an extreme level of “stick-to-it-ness”. Initially, this challenge might not be something that you need to do, but something that you want to do, or maybe even feel compelled to do. You take on this challenge simply to see if you can do it and because you sense it will make you a better person. The reward might be unknown at the onset and not come for a long time if ever, but still you march on with this challenge because it feels right.
Many years ago I was faced with such a challenge when I was playing guitar in the New England-based band “Crossfire”. The year was 1990 and the bands leader, Rob Gourley, suggested that I learn the Eric Johnson instrumental “Cliffs of Dover”, as he felt it might be a good showcase for me at our shows. He said that this was not something he expected me to do, but that if I wanted to learn it, the band would play it.
At this point of my life I had just finished my Berklee education, an extremely challenging experience in and of itself, so the idea of learning a four-minute piece of complex guitar music didn’t sound too daunting. At least that was my initial perception.
So I embarked on this new guitar journey. I outfitted a makeshift studio in an empty bedroom at my friend, Pete’s house with a practice amp, a boombox, a reel to reel tape deck, a metronome, and a music stand. I went out and purchased a copy of Eric Johnson’s “Ah Via Musicom” on CD as well as the guitar transcription and got to work. And work it was. When I had first heard this piece of guitar magic on the radio I recognized its brilliance, but Johnson’s impeccably fluid technique almost masks the songs difficulty. He made it sound easy, and easy was something I quickly discovered this song was not.
By the time I had put a couple of afternoons into it I realized this process was going to take weeks, maybe even months to be able to do the song justice, but that was no deterrent. I quickly realized if I could master this piece, not only would it be a great showcase for me with my band, it was going to make me a better guitar player in the process.
Crossfire was a steady working band and my only job at this point in my life, performing all over New England 3 to 4 nights a week. So my daily routine during this phase consisted of sleeping late, eating a late breakfast or early lunch, and then heading over to my “guitar studio” for an afternoon of extreme woodshedding.
I began with the intro and learned as much of the opening passage as I could by ear. When I came across a phrase I couldn’t interpret I used the sheet music. When things still didn’t make sense, I used the reel to reel tape deck to slow the song down to half speed. Gradually, one phrase at a time, it began coming together. After a couple of weeks of this I could make it halfway through the song, granted with many mistakes and not very smoothly. I labored on. After about five or six weeks I knew the entire song note for note but could still not play all of it at tempo. So I began practicing the most difficult passages at slower tempos, one phrase at a time, sometimes running a one bar phrase over and over for 10 or 15 minutes, gradually nudging up the tempo of the metronome. Of course a one bar phrase of Cliffs of Dover might be a flurry of 10 or 12 notes played in about a second.
Finally, after about three months of making my friends and family crazy, shredding my fingers to the bone, and a couple of ugly moments when I almost threw the guitar through a window, I was ready to present it to the band. We made a few passes one day during a sound check/rehearsal and we were good to go. The crowd loved it when we played it later that night, and it became a staple in our set for the next two years. My performance on this piece gradually improved over that period, as the experience of playing it live helped me to further kick it up a notch. The song was so difficult to execute that I still practiced it daily during this period. Eventually I left Crossfire for another band and although I continued to play this piece, it wasn’t long before I put it aside.
Looking back, Cliffs of Dover was the hardest piece of music I have ever learned. I probably put between 200 and 300 hours into it prior to ever playing it with the band. But I do remember feeling instant results after I could play it. Performing less technical songs and solos became easier. My hands and fingers were stronger and my stamina had improved. My ear had also improved making it forever easier to learn new pieces of music.
Lately I’ve been feeling the need to challenge my playing again so I decided to bring this piece out of the closet. I sat down with it a couple of weeks ago and have been working it back up to speed ever since. It’s been 15 years, and the process of sitting down with it again is like visiting an old friend. Although not as daunting for me as it was back in 1990, it’s still a bitch, and I have a ways to go yet. Once I can get it to a point I feel comfortable with, I’ll post a video for you all to check out.
Completing this challenge was hard back then, and it’s hard again right now. But I believe it is these kinds of challenges, self-imposed or other, and the new horizons they lead us to that encapsulate the best of the human spirit.
Most musicians, at one point or another, have, or probably will play a gig where one of the other musicians plays poorly or with bad taste resulting in a “painful” musical experience for some. But an even more awkward situation comes at the end of the night when the player in question starts fishing for compliments. You don’t feel a complement is warranted and don’t want to compromise your principles, but to state the totality of your feelings or say nothing might result in an awkward moment and/or damaged relationships. How do you save face without lying?
As the level of musicianship among the world’s performers can vary greatly, it is a near certainty that we will all wind up in this situation sooner later. Sometimes a less than qualified player can wind up in a situation where he or she has no business. By the time this is obvious, it’s too late and you just have to ride it out. Of course music is highly subjective, and therefore competence and taste can be subjective too. Sometimes the chemistry is just not there. Nevertheless, whether the player was an obvious hack or his or her style didn’t suit your taste, you are still faced with that odd moment at the end of the night when you might hear the words “I really enjoyed playing with you” or even worse “So what did you think of the gig?”
I recently played a gig with a local band at a nightclub in town. One of the regular members had subbed out his spot and his fill-in was a friend of the other players in the group. While this player was technically proficient and new the material, he overplayed. I mean, I didn’t know that number of notes even existed. Although the other players didn’t notice, or didn’t mind, I had great difficulty playing with this individual, and ultimately had a miserable time. At the end of the night this player said “You sound great, I really enjoyed playing with you.” Oh no, now what do I do? I was hoping he wouldn’t say anything. I thought he was tasteless and I hated playing with him, but saying that would have been construed as an insult, possibly damaging relationships within the group. To leave his complement hanging in the air and not respond would’ve also been construed as an insult. The minimal response of “thanks” might have been sufficient, but the lack of a complement in return might also have resulted in an awkward moment.
So I said “Thanks, we had some great moments. I had fun tonight.” These were all truths and I spoke this with sincerity. I was appreciative of his comment and responded accordingly with “thanks”. Even though I was in musical hell for most of the night, there were a couple of songs where it all came together – hence “some great moments”, and at a few points (probably those same moments) I actually had fun. I don’t care how bad a gig is going, there is always at least one point, even if it’s just one chorus or solo in one song, in which everything comes into alignment. Even though most of the musical moments of this night were not enjoyable for me, I chose to draw attention to the few good ones. Although I didn’t have much fun overall, I did have some fun at a couple of points, and in my mind it was those moments I was thinking of when I said “I had fun tonight”.
So I didn’t lie and I didn’t actually leave a complement, yet I was still “complimentary”. Nobody’s feelings were hurt and everybody wins.
Now I just hope I never have to play with him again.
Computer-based recording might possibly be the savior and destruction of music as a true art form. With computer based recording technology so affordable, it is now possible for anyone that wants to record music to do so. The plus side of this is that many poor struggling artists now have a chance to develop and preserve their work. The downside is new affordability has led to an oversaturation of mediocrity. There are over 4 million “bands” on MySpace, many that are terrible. Over the past two decades mediocre music has flooded cyberspace and media in general. Of course there are some undiscovered gems amongst the masses, but the percentage of poorly written and badly recorded pieces of music out there in the world is arguably much greater.
I believe this is part of what I call the dumbing down effect of music within our society. The ability for musicians of minimal proficiency to combine prerecorded loops and samples with less than optimal performances which can then be edited to something half palatable has greatly reduced the necessity for excellent musicianship in the recording process. Before the age of digital recording, most musicians that ever recorded had to have some minimum level of competency. Punching in mistakes and “flying over” whole sections of a performance were not yet practical, and in most situations this deemed it necessary to get it right on the first couple of takes. Of course there were some exceptions to this as there were plenty of recordings made of bands with minimal musicianship.
But aside from a few exceptions, prior to the digital age of recording, if you couldn’t play your ax, you didn’t record. The golden years of recording in America produced and revealed a vast collection of great musical composers and performers, many of whom possessed a depth of emotive ability and some technical prowess. Unfortunately, right around the time that computer-based recording was becoming commonplace, music education essentially vanished from our schools, and this further perpetuated a kind of musical illiteracy within the younger generation in a society that once excelled at it. Today, we have a society of “music-makers” that possess the ability to make musical recordings without necessarily needing to know how to play any instruments.
“Music for profit” is essentially a 20th-century invention, and one of its likely unintended byproducts is an overuse of music in media. Music has always been a big part of television and radio advertising, but the digital age has helped create a new level of oversaturation as generic sounding “computer music”, often the results of one composer working in a small home studio, are the backdrop to our television shows, and once great classic blues and rock anthems have been reduced to bad sounding MP3 ringtones and car commercials. With televisions on our phones and 24-7 connectivity on the web there is no escaping the constant barrage of media driven music. Music is everywhere, but all too often, without purpose.
There is one way out of this downward spiral of musical numbness. Learn to play an instrument. Commit yourself to musical excellence. Don’t just learn proficiency, learn how to express yourself with your instrument, as ultimately your instrument is an extension of your own being. Educate yourself about life and form real opinions. Have something to say and learn how to say it through the art of musical performance. When I was first learning how to play the guitar in the late 1970s, I worked at it. I practiced often. It was hard, but over the years it got easier, and I could eventually see tangible results. By the time I was into my adulthood I could consciously express emotions through musical performance. By the time I delved into computer-based recording in the early 2000s, I had already put a lifetime into the art of musical performance.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for computer-based recording. For it has allowed me to develop my compositional skills in new ways, improve my overall musicianship, and document my work, as it has for many. But the computer, and even the act of recording itself, are only as old as a newborn child when compared to the age of music itself. Music has always been there, and always will be. For music is life itself, as song and dance have always been a part of the human story.
At the end of the day, for music to survive as an art form yielding of true human expression, we must embrace music for music’s sake. Not for profit, but for life, and the expression of life. Music is an educator, a healer, and a savior. Music is the original human form of communication. Maybe one day again we will all use it for those means. True music for life, and life with true music.
Over the past 20 years or so, there have been many powerful innovations in the world of communications, and I often wonder if these changes have hindered society as much as they have helped it. The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, Facebook, texting, these things are supposed to make our lives easier and help people become more connected with each other, but do they really? When I look back to my life as a teenager growing up in rural New Hampshire in the 1980s, I see a world so far removed from the world of today, that images come to mind of my great grandparents living in the era just before the streetcar. Let’s take a look back, shall we?
The year is 1983 and I’m a 15-year-old sophomore getting ready for school. Just before heading out the door, I call one of my friends on a telephone that still has a cord on it. The line is busy, and there is no call waiting. Oh well, I guess I’ll just talk to him later, it wasn’t that important anyway (this will be the last opportunity to use a telephone for the next eight hours). Throughout the school day, the only conversations that take place are in between class and at lunch, for the most part. There are no constant distractions from texts or endless phone apps on my iPhone, because they doesn’t exist yet. With nothing else going on, I guess I’ll have to somewhat pay attention. During study hall, I take a few minutes to write a letter, with a pen and paper, to a friend who moved away. A Little later on, I’m home from school and flipping through the pages of an Encyclopedia Britannica for a homework assignment. I can’t just punch a word or phrase into a Google search for the answer, I have to pick out the right volume, think about the spelling of the word that I’m looking up, find it in its alphabetical place in the book, read about the subject to learn the answers, and then complete my assignment with a pen and paper.
Homework now done and I’m off to my part-time job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. Without a cell phone, I can’t be reached easily at work, but then again, why should I be, I’m 
supposed to be working. On the rare occasion that there might be a family emergency, I can be reached on the restaurants business phone, but as that phone line is for the restaurants business, outside conversations from the workplace are an exception, not the rule. This leaves not much else to do but work, and engage in friendly conversations with my coworkers. I get home from work and there is a voice mail on the telephone answering machine. The message is from one of my friends about getting together on the weekend. As this is before the era when everyone walks around with a cell phone glued to their hand, it is the only message. Telephone communication was not so constant, as you had to be somewhere with a landline to speak on a telephone. This extra effort usually resulted in most people only leaving messages for things that were actually important. Jump ahead a couple of months to summer vacation and my dad has sent me to the local hardware store to buy some new hinges for a broken barn door. I talk to the owner of this small store, a store that, amazingly, always seemed to have at least one of anything you would ever need. The store owner not only produces the appropriate items, he explains some do’s and don’ts about correctly installing these items.
That was life in the pre-digital era. Conversations were voice to voice, either in the room, or by telephone. Applications for jobs or bank loans were also done with a face-to-face meeting, and you couldn’t tell someone you were firing them in an e-mail. If you wanted to learn something, you had to make a real effort, either by talking to an expert, looking something up in the family Encyclopedia, or even venturing out to the local library. People weren’t so easily distracted by advertising as there wasn’t yet a television or electronic billboard placed strategically throughout the day. Human interaction was more direct and personal. People communicated with their family, friends, and peers almost solely through the human voice. The very nature of this simpler and more direct existence also made it difficult for people to avoid honoring their commitments.
Flash forward to 2010. While some of us still occasionally use some old-school methods for communicating (like the phone), it is almost impossible to escape texting and e-mailing in our everyday lives, methods of communication that rely on the perception of the reader, limit the depths of our interactions, and only contain fragments of the human element we once took for granted in our daily conversations. Many choose, or are forced to live their social lives through Facebook and other social networking sites, where thoughts are amputated at 140 characters and we never actually “speak” to anyone. We are so pressed for time in this hyperactive world and our lives are often so fragmented, that we will Google the answer to a question, rather than learn the entirety of a subject. We will text or e-mail a coworker or family member from the next room, or watch television in school on a screen smaller than the size of our hand. The very 
nature of the Internet allows a veil of anonymity for many, and I believe that the downside of all this technology is perpetuating a certain degree of social ineptitude, and at times, a lesser degree of intelligence for some.
Of course there are some positive sides to all this technology. Research has become more practical and efficient for the masses, it’s easier now than ever to connect with lost family members, friends, and peers, and wrongdoers have a harder time hiding behind their actions, to name a few. But with all these advancements comes responsibility. How do we as a society use the good that this technology has to offer without losing our basic humanness along the way? Are we really as smart and connected as we think we are?
A friend of mine recently said that his grandfather is always telling him that technology is the drug of today’s younger generation. I think I’ll twitter him to let him know I just posted this blog.
This week, like most, has been a busy week so far, and my wife and I have logged some serious hours in our home offices. As we own our own businesses, our days are filled with constant activity; from website projects to advancing tour dates to writing projects to filing income taxes. Work, work, work, that’s what we’ve all been called to do, and as life becomes more expensive with every passing year, it seems impossible to ever get ahead. Pursuing a music career in Nashville is no exception, and this causes many to closely watch their budgets, often refraining from recreational activities. One thing that you can do in middle Tennessee, that costs only the gas it takes to get there, is visit one of its beautiful state parks, and yesterday, that’s just what we did, heading off to Edwin Warner Park with some water and granola bars just after lunch. 
We’ve been to the Warner Parks many times since our first discovery of these magnificent shrines of nature five years ago, and on this particular day we tackled “The Red Trail”, perhaps the parks most challenging hike covering about 5 1/2 miles. As we hiked through this amazing place, which spans almost 3000 acres of deep woods terrain only 9 miles from downtown Nashville, the stresses of everyday life and business seemed to fall by the wayside with every step we took. The park is exceptionally maintained, with clearly marked trails, and at times, the sounds of the outside world disappear to be replaced by the sounds of singing birds, foraging squirrels, soft winds, and our own footsteps amidst the occasional silence. While it was an unseasonably hot spring day of 90°, the rapidly blooming natural canopy of the forest around us protected us from the hot Southern Sun as we retreated further into the forest. Our midweek expedition took us deep within this mystical place, climbing up and down steep foothills, across the high plateau, through Dripping Springs Hollow and onward past the Betsy Ross Cabin, ever surrounded by majestic timbres, large twisting vines, and immense floral wonders. After losing ourselves in this magical place for a little over an hour and a half, we arrived back at our car feeling reinvigorated, with a renewed sense of purpose and perspective.
It’s amazing how taking a real timeout can help recharge one’s batteries, kind of a spring cleaning for the mind and soul, and how sadly, we as a society, are not more in tune to such simple yet powerful concepts. We could all live richer lives if we could just simply learn to become more connected with the world just outside of our home, our offices, and the usual playgrounds of life. For in the often chaotic and overly hyperactive world we live in, if life is expensive, a walk in the park is still free.
Yesterday I learned a valuable lesson. If you have something to say to someone important in your life, perhaps texting isn’t the best way to do it. I just learned this the hard way. I made the mistake of complaining to my boss about an issue that wasn’t really that significant through a short text. He perceived my three sentences in a way I had not intended, and before I could explain my thoughts further, he reacted harshly. We went back and forth in texting world for a little while, but it was well into the next day before things calmed down. The human voice, whether in person, or over the phone, can give different meaning to the simplest words and phrases. Those same words and phrases appearing on a screen can have several different meanings, depending on how the reader interprets them.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, when most human interaction was done through telephone calls, face-to-face meetings, or handwritten letters. If you needed to communicate with someone, typically, a real conversation would take place. Now, most people I know prefer to communicate via texting or e-mail. For me, texting is great if you have a simple question for someone that requires a yes or no answer. But if it involves anything that’s dynamic or complicated, intricate details are often hard to convey in 140 characters or less. I can’t even think of how many times I’ve had long winded “conversations” with someone who is important in my life, texting back and forth for 20 or 30 minutes, or sometimes more. I often wonder, why didn’t we just talk on the phone? This would have been a five-minute phone call. Sometimes in the middle of those situations, I’ve tried to call the other party, and they didn’t answer, but they do answer the texts. Why are we afraid of direct human interaction? I know there’s no going back, and texting is here for good. But I think that next time I have something important to say to my boss, or anyone else important in my life, if there’s any question about how my message will be perceived, I’ll wait until I can do it in person, or at least in a real conversation.