Playing with the great Firedean today got my ego back in check. I was mortified to run across something that was SO hard, with rhythms and chords that I just wasn’t familiar with.
Heather and I retreated from Washington, DC, each in our own separate worlds, but with mine mostly focused on a feeling of failure.
Through most all of grade-school I was pretty close to being a straight-A student, and through high school, I maintained a GPA well over the 4.0 mark with the assistance of Advanced Placement and International Bacculaureate classes. Despite that I wasn’t working hard. I didn’t have to study much, and most things came pretty naturally to me. As such, I got into the habit of thinking that most things should come naturally, and, as cowardly as it may be, I’ve tended to let that guide my Life towards whatever downhill course, whatever easy path I might just fall into. When music turned out to come more naturally than art did, I turned that direction. I fall into things… I’m lucky.
The Trip (quitting my job, trying to make a “Living” as a musician, on my own) has been my first real effort to get away from that. It’s sort of shameful, but better late than never. I don’t know that most people EVER really take charge of their Life, and instead just sort of wander through whatever doors happen to open for them. Of course, whether it’s ACTUALLY more intelligent to just keep beating your head against a patch of wall that you want opened rather than going through any number of opened doors, who knows…
So what, you may ask, the fuck, you might say, is my point? Well – simply that playing with Firedean is making me WORK – and work HARD. It’s like Mr. Schlude.
For some reason, I didn’t have trouble with Algebra, or Trigonometry, or Calculus, but at some point I ran into Geometry, and my head would NOT wrap around it. I struggled to make Ds in Mr. Schlude’s class, as I remember, and for some reason, no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t make it make sense. It was like walking into French class and encountering Japanese instead.
By the end of two hours trying to learn the Songs of Fire, I could literally feel tears at the corners of my eyes… I was just damned embarassed. I get told far too often that I’m a great guitarist, and to be reminded that there is still SO much work to be done…
We decided to spend the night at College Perk, and walked in on the tail-end of the open mic – the tail-end of Pat Klink’s set, as a matter of fact (of We’re About 9). I was startled to find myself in the midst of far too many people, and retreated upstairs as swiftly as possible. After about half an hour with stew and “the Golden Compass”, I was ready to face the world, wandered the Perk, played guitar, flirted and fretted. I felt human again.
But I broke a nail on Mitzi. Sigh.
And Tyler replied to all of this with:
yo
for what it’s worth, I know two different guys who have spent at LEAST four years in college studying guitar, who now make a living teaching it, who couldn’t keep up with you. one actually saw you play one time and walked out cursing. just so you know.
Thanks. That will tide me over until practice tonight, and then I’ll have to read it again on the ride home.
In completely unrelated news, Heather and I went and saw the Star Wars III trailer. I was ok with the movie it was attached to, but the trailer made me very, very hopeful for the Revenge of the Sith.
Ok, so I’m a Star Wars fanboy. What of it.
I’m hopeful for Star Wars III. Bloody Phantom Menace was inexcusable, filled with flatulent humour and … that digitized monstrosity Jar Jar… dot dot dot = much cursing. II was pretty good but when you knock away the utter pointlessness that made Episode I so hideous, you finally suffered from the lack of chemistry between the actors. But I still contend that Hayden Christiansen does an okay job brooding and being an angry teenager, and that the whole Tusken Raider slaughter scene is one of the most chilling moments I’ve ever experienced.
Because I’m a geek. I know. Shut up.
Anywho, I’ve long feared that Lucas will shy away from the sheer darkness of Anakin’s fall to the Sith – and the trailer gave me hope. Not only did it seem to focus less on the carnival-ride feel of the previous two movies, but it contained some good shots of the rising Lord Vader, and the beautifully creepy overlay of the Christinsen/James Earl Jones’ voices… add to that some good ole bad ass Yoda poses, protoTIE fighters making howling that unique TIE howl, a shot of big warships coming close and loosing broadsides into one another and you’re missing only one thing to make ME happy.
Wookies.
Oh, and then they showed me wookies. Sooo many wookies. I might not MAKE it till May 19th. Sigh.
