Jammin' good with Weird and Gilly
March 22, 2004
So I've mentioned here before that Jack, my boy, 9, good, handsome, smart, got into his skull that he just had to become a rock 'n' roll drummer and, despite my attempts to dissuade him, has been taking lessons and hammering away on most horizontal surfaces with his drum sticks whenever possible.
A couple of weeks ago, however, his pal, Lucas, decided that he no longer wanted to take guitar lessons, though his twin, Edith, has been excelling on said instrument and, in fact, last Friday, played "I'm a Believer" to a sold out crowd in the PS41 talent show, and a good time was had by all, except perhaps for Lucas. Anyway, around the same time that Lucas gave up on the guitar, Jack started fooling around on that same guitar, and mentioned casually to me, that maybe playing the guitar was cool and that maybe he'd like to play it someday. My ears pricked up and I suggested that maybe we could both take lessons together, hoping against hope that this might obviate the need for me to fill our peaceful apartment with a gigantic drum kit one of these days.
Yesterday, we went to the guitar store and bought ourselves a pair of Fenders, Jack's black, mine cadmium red, and the attendant amps and stools and stands and stuff. (I was quite surprised how affordable guitars are, not cheap as, say, Tombow brush markers or glue sticks but not nearly as expensive as the titanium computer I'm writing this story on. I was always so impressed when Pete Townsend smashed a perfectly good guitar onto the unforgiving floor boards or when, in about 1980 and at CBGBs, I watched the Plasmatics bisect a plugged in guitar with a chainsaw and it bucked and screamed and finally fell in two, its strings geysering. I was most impressed not by the noise or the gesture but the sheer waste of money. Anyway, it turns out it wasn't that much money after all). So now our apartment looks like backstage at Madison Square Garden, what with all this gear and amps and half empty bottles of JD standing around. First thing this morning, Jack walks into our bedroom wearing only a bathrobe and his guitar, ready to rock and roll. I had taught him the one song I know, learned when I was 15, the same song every one of my generation learns in order to impress girls, the opening chords of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple.Dum, dum, dum. Dum dum de dum. Dum, dum, dum, dum de dum. So, Jack walks around, in his robe, hammering out the song and sounding much like the Plasmatics with a good Billy Idol curl to his lip.
This evening, when I got home from work, Russell, our teacher was half way through Jack's lesson. Then it was my turn to learn how to sit, how to hold the guitar, how to curl my fingers into impossible contortions and press my delicate finger pads into the egg-slicer strings. Russell has decided that of son-and-pop, I am to be the first one to learn how to tune the "machine" as he calls it and showed me the first steps and then launched into an erudite monologue about the physics of sound. My innocent questions ricocheted his ample brain into all sorts of directions incorporating Aristotle, Euclidean geometry, Miles Davis's early ineptness, the Well Tempered Clavier, electrical engineering, and the real difference between Sinatra and Torme. It was the sort of rich broth I love but, after an hour or so and with a sigh, we went back to filleting my finger pads.
I have always loved music of all sorts, however, it has always mystified me. I have half-heartedly studied other instruments before but the harmonica is the only one I have been at all fluid with and then, only in the shower. So music and the people who play it have all been suffused with magic. Musicians, particularly improvisational jazz cats, seem like another species, with some sort of extraterrestrial knowledge that I can never begin to comprehend. It's a foolish sort of obstacle that I set up for myself so long ago, this absolute sense that I could never hope to play an instrument, even on an amateur level.
And yet, in my one lesson, I have already begun to feel the door inching open. One of the points that Russell emphasized to me was take the time to listen and savor the note. While my body is learning and stretching, my tendons lengthening, my bones shifting, I should give my mind the time to feel the music, to hear the decay of a note, to see how the sound emerges and then how the harmonics fall away. What I find fascinating is that, yet again, the lessons I learned in drawing are at the core of all creative effort.
To suspend time and to appreciate the moment.
To be gentle with myself and feel comfortable with 'errors'.
To realize that no matter how few hairs I have and how grey they may be, I can always learn new things and that once I open my mind to learning, everything becomes a fresh lesson.
Finally, I am also so excited to be learning something with Jack, as he does. In many ways, he is a much better artist than I am -- freer, bolder and clearer. I hope he never loses that way he has with making things. I am also interested to see what it is like to be as new to something as he is, to learn alongside him, to see how we tackle our frustrations differently. I think this guitar thing is going to be quite an adventure and a good investment of what little free time I have left. My true goal: to play "The Milkman of Human Kindness" or anything else by Billy Bragg.
"Freebird", anyone?
A record of my exploration into all aspects of drawing, illustrated journaling, creativity, and the inspiring aspects of art. By the author of "Everyday Matters," "The Creative License", and "An Illustrated Life" and other books.
Comments
I love these entries--the eternal battle between what Jack wants and what you know will be better for your sanity...as well as ideas on parental pressure and direction. Yet you too come out of it learning something. It's all good!
Posted by: Ted | March 23, 2004 01:03 AM
My husband partly earned his way through college as a musician (jazz drummer.) He is still incensed over the wanton destruction of instruments that he saw perpetrated by The Who. He knew kids whose parents couldn't afford to buy them a guitar; kids who saved and saved and saved to buy one. And then they'd see these rich guys smashing them like dime store toys. As the Buddhists would say ... "unskillful."
By the way, those fingers will be fine as soon as you get some good tough calluses on 'em. Takes a little while but it will get better.
Posted by: Karen Winters | March 23, 2004 02:21 AM
Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music...music is the best! (quoted from Frank Zappa, who happens to be mentioned at the very beginning of "Smoke on the Water" funnily enough)
:-)>
Posted by: PunkClown | March 23, 2004 06:27 AM
When my son was 8 and I was 32 we started taking ice hockey clinics together. There were so many facets to the experience: It was humbling, because whereas I'm a really good ice skater, I was still, let's face it, a 33 year old broad, skating back and forth with a bunch of 9-14 year old boys (and one girl, whom I adored). It was necessary, because I was in the middle of divorcing his father and we both needed the opportunity to beat our bodies into physical submission once a week and get rid of some of that floating anger. Mostly it was bonding, the two of us doing something together that we both loved, schlepping our hockey gear over to my office every Thursday and then up to 23rd Street after school, drinking hot cocoa in the loud rink beforehand while he made a pass at his homework and I oversaw his efforts, skating like hell and laughing to each other, and coming home together on the bus at night - exhausted, sweaty, and happy. It was a great, weird, time.
When you think about it, kids don't usually get to watch their parents learn. We watch them all the time, slogging through the times tables and punctuation and verb conjugations. It's a beautiful, elegant process to witness. But how often do they get to watch us stumble, hesitate, try, fail, try again, light up with sudden insight? And how, do you think, does that affect their perceptions of their own learning process, watching someone they love and look up to go through all that?
Jack's lucky in that he gets to watch you do something you love, and something that you treat as a learning process, all the time. But the lessons you're taking together are a special gift to him, I think, because you're going along the path side by side.
Sorry so long, that just touches a chord in me. No pun intended, really.
Posted by: Lisa | March 23, 2004 08:12 AM
Kudos to you and Jack!!! Music, like art, is in the soul!! Go for it Danny!! Last summer, I got the bright idea to get an Irish tin whistle...and learn it....after many futile attempts at getting hubby to buy me a harp. Good harps being over $500's...tin whistles...less than $20!!! So, now I am on the Irish Tranditional road to playing jigs, reels, and hornpipes (types of Irish music)..and a little Beatles, John Denver thrown in for good measure!) Sometimes I think 50...is it too old to learn something like this...then I think....NO IT ISN'T!!
One word.....expect those fingers of yours to be a-hurtin for awhile. You have to get some callouses developed so you can play for long periods. Just practice EVERY DAY!! but not enough to make you scream with pain!...you will develop your finger pads in a couple of weeks.
One other word--learning something totally new is just one way of holding off senility. (So my husband tells me!!--he is 4 years younger than me...so he thinks he's a spring chicken!!)
I think artist's by nature have open minds to learning. It is our way. Look at the ages of all the greats--Monet, Renoir, Picasso...O'Keefe. They lived a full life!!
Oh...another thing. About.com has a great guitar learning area on the computer. Techniques, songs. Lots of stuff. Check it out!
Your friend,
Nancy
Posted by: Nancy Patterson | March 23, 2004 09:09 AM
Your blog is wonderful, the art and the long posts. Thanks for the inspiration in art, because I am just starting out in watercolour.
I am a rhythm guitar player, write songs (not bluegrass), and play in a bluegrass band. I am so thrilled when anyone delves into music because it truly is an art. You will develop calluses in a while, but they are constantly peeling (I know, that's gross), and it is oftentimes painful to play. Find some songs with easier chords, and practice them over and over. That will help you to get faster between chords, which is the key to playing well. I wish you and Jack all the best! Let us know more about your discoveries in music as you go along!
Posted by: Marisa | March 23, 2004 10:37 AM
Those guitars that Pete Townshend, Jimi Hendrix and others trashed were not the inexpensive, overseas-made guitars you can find these days. They were the made in USA, real deals. Nobody made good playing, inexpensive guitars back in the day. At least not the Fenders and the Gibsons. It's amazing what you can get for your money equipment-wise these days.
Also, those little winders on the headstock of the guitar are called "machines" as in "tuning machines" I think that's perhaps what the teacher was talking about when he said to "tune the machine."
I couldn't resist chiming in. Nice blog.
Posted by: guitarart | March 23, 2004 01:13 PM
your entry made me think of a gregory-style version of School of Rock.i cant think of a word to express how cool that is. ive already taken it upon myself to president the jack+danny rock n roll fan club in cincinnati. im sure the basement blues band could open for you guys some day;-)
rock on.
Posted by: morgan | March 23, 2004 03:40 PM
Anyone going to see Bowie while he's in the area?
Posted by: Ana | March 23, 2004 04:25 PM
Ha! School of Rock was great!
Nice entry..although a visual artist, music has always been my first love.
I was lucky enough to marry a man who formerly made guitars at Maton. (In Australia) A few years back, before we were married, we, along with a handful of other people in different parts of the world, designed and constructed a custom made guitar for a member of the Posies. We did it through a private online forum and through the post/mail to discuss ideas and send materials. (I designed the fret markers) It was as much fun to make an instrument, as it is listening to and playing the music itself! I've learned a lot about construction and care of guitars too!
Have fun with yours!! I also think it's so great that you are learning together. You both sound passionate about it. He he..I love the visual image I get of Jack in his bathrobe and guitar with the curl in his lip. Rock on!!
Posted by: Amy | March 23, 2004 10:55 PM