CURMUDGEON CLASSIC

Volume V, Chapter 15

courtesy NASA

HIGH ON THE HOG: MEMOIR OF AN OBSESSION

As is the case with so many virtuosi, my musical education began early. I was in grammar school, probably in the fourth or fifth grade, when I started violin lessons after school. I suspect it was my father’s idea, since he always wanted to play the violin himself. My personal preference was for kickball, though, and when I hung around the playground and forgot to go to my lesson two or three times (in the first and only month), my father punished my recalcitrance by announcing that he was not about to pay for lessons I wasn’t taking. I have no specific recollection of this painful period—the memory is repressed along with things like the time my mother forgot and left me at the liquor store—but it became part of the family lore and I remember being told about it often enough in the years afterward. I’m not saying there is any connection, but even today I find the sound of the violin physically painful.

I stuck with kickball until the age of sixteen, when I took up the piano. This must have been my idea, because I kept it up for a year. My progress was unsatisfactory, at least to me, and when I went off to college my musical career went on hiatus once again. For fifty years.

We have Christmas Eve dinner with George and Miki every year and George insists that we sing carols for our supper. There are usually about a dozen people, none of whom can sing, and the sound of us all trying in our individual keys and tempos is truly stomach-churning. We desperately need accompaniment, and somehow we got to talking about guitars. Miki said she wasn’t using hers and would be glad to loan it to me—insisted, in fact, on loaning it to me. I figured guitar would be easy. Every teenage boy including my son, a former teenager, who picks one up can play. (He is also part of this Christmas group, but feigns incompetence. I happen to know he used to play in an actual band in somebody’s garage.) My brother plays guitar and he never even had lessons. Of course, he also learned to play the piano by sitting under the bench next to the pedals during my lessons, so maybe he doesn’t count.

And so it was that in January, a month before my first Social Security check arrived, I started guitar lessons.

It turned out not to be as easy as it looks. I found any number of positions my left hand will not assume. I developed blisters and then calluses. I learned that your fingers can, and do, hurt even with calluses. I used muscles I never knew I had, only discovering them through pain. And then my teacher introduced me to barre chords, a particularly excruciating concept made popular by the famous classical guitarist, Torquemada. You use your index finger as a bar (or “barre,” as we guitarists say) to depress all six strings at the appropriate fret for the root chord you want (like E-flat), then use fingers 3-5 (or 2-4, as we guitarists say) on strings farther down (or up, as we guitarists say) the neck to form the particular quality (like minor 7). Unfortunately my index finger has a somewhat irregular shape, rather more like a finger than a bar (barre), and I can tell you it is physically impossible to do what I have just described.

Nevertheless, my teacher wants me to learn to play them. He says it’s shocking how many professional musicians can’t play barre chords. I say why can’t I be one of them? In the first three months, I quit at least four times. But I’m older now, and stubborn. Besides, I promised Miki that in exchange for the year-long loan of her instrument, I would play a Christmas carol next year.

I read that it doesn’t take talent to become a virtuoso: it takes about 10,000 hours of practice. This is good news, because I don’t have talent, but I have time. I figure if I put in 40 hours a week, by the time I’m 70 I should be reasonably competent. If my joints still bend. The guitar has taken over my life, and all it’s given me in return is sore hands.

I can’t do 8 hours a day, though. After 30 minutes of practice, I have to stop and soak my hand in a bowl of ice. Then I run hot water on if for a while, and after another half hour or so, I can go back and practice some more. And when things go badly, I have to walk away in frustration and let my brain cool down. I’m a little volatile. I haven’t hit another human being since junior high (although I’ve missed a couple of times) but there are inanimate objects, and fragments of objects, all over southern California that evidence my wrath. The only reason I haven’t smashed the guitar against the wall yet is the knowledge that it isn’t mine.

Even so, I’m thinking about buying one, but I have to earn it. Maybe another couple of months.

*

At some point I discovered Taylor guitars; I think it was in an article about recycling old wood. Bob Taylor makes wonderful musical instruments, and he makes them fairly close by, in El Cajon. I wasn’t actually about to spend several thousand dollars for a guitar, but I managed to make a pilgrimage to the factory to see how it was done.

I was surprised, and a little disappointed, to learn that it’s done by computer, by laser, by all sorts of machines, many of which were designed by Taylor’s people. So much for the quaint notion of old guys with long beards shaping wood with drawknives. But that takes nothing away from the magnificence of the final product, a fabulous (and fabulously expensive) and voluptuous object that gives a whole new erotic meaning to the notion of fingering. Now I know what a guitar is. When I win the lottery, I intend to have a custom-made Taylor. Until then, I can only hope to gain enough expertise to do it justice. So I must take my leave now: I have to go practice.

I’ve pretty much lost interest in everything else. I haven’t taken the camera out of the bag since I started practicing music, and the only place I’ve gone without taking the guitar along is on my visit to the Taylor factory. I managed a half hour practice on the morning we left and got in an hour or so after we got home the next day. I can’t do 8 hours a day, but since I don’t take weekends off, I actually need less than 6 hours to get in my 40 per week. I don’t think I’ve actually achieved that much practice so far, but maybe next week. So far my impression is that if I do the same thing over and over again that many times, I ought to be able to master it. Wrong. Ask me again after 10,000 hours. For now, you’ll have to excuse me: I don’t have time to write this if I want to get in one more run through Hark! The Herald before bedtime. Christmas is only 7 months away.

I made the mistake of revealing my trip to the Taylor factory, and its effect on me, to my teacher. He says if I’m serious about this guitar thing, I shouldn’t wait. Learning will be easier and more enjoyable on a great guitar. So, am I serious?

I guess so: I took a day off and began having withdrawal symptoms after 30 hours without practicing. So today I spent two hours locked in a tiny room in the Fret House, my local guitar store, with four guitars, playing one after the other. The choice was easy enough: my favorite was whichever one I played last. I went in determined to love the gorgeous nylon string Taylor, which I did, but in the end the plain little Martin with steel strings sounded better, played just as well, and cost $1000 less. A surprising, but easy, decision. Still, I wish it weren’t so homely. The Taylor is glorious, glossy and sensuous, and next to it the Martin looks like it isn’t finished yet. Tomorrow I will go back and do it all again, doubtless coming to a different conclusion, but I have to buy something before the end of the week, when state sales taxes go up. Again. Damned if I’ll give the Governor an extra five bucks because I couldn’t make up my mind.

So I went to the ball and I danced with all the lovely ladies, but I ended up taking home the plain one. She ain’t much to look at, but she sure can cook. I’m calling her Hog, short for mahogany.

They say a really good guitar makes you a better player. That’s not entirely accurate; a good guitar conceals the fact that you’re not a better player. And encourages your teacher to make you work on something harder.

My teacher (John; you might as well meet John, so I don’t have to keep referring to him as “my teacher.” Say hello, John.) liked the Hog so much he found some new and amazing gymnastics for me to perform on her: pentatonic scales. They require me to stretch across three frets. I could probably do it if I were allowed to use my little finger, but for reasons that have yet to be divulged, that is prohibited. So I’ve been practicing for the last 3 days. My fingers are not getting any longer.

The pentatonic scales were invented by laggards who couldn’t handle the normal 7-tone scale, so they dropped out the two difficult notes. That, at least, is the story I’m told. Personally, I think I’d rather just play the missing two. There are five pentatonic patterns which John numbers 1 through 6 (there’s no 2; I suppose if I hang in there long enough I’ll find out why.) that are supposed to be related in some arcane way. I can see that the bottom of one is the same shape as the top of the last, but I don’t know why I should care. I’m still waiting for the epiphany when I suddenly see how it all fits together.

*

The Fret House hosts a concert in their basement just about every week, featuring guitarists from all over. I try to go to as many as I can to be inspired. And demoralized. I saw Richard Smith tonight, stood up and cheered wildly and then came home to lacerate an artery. It’s not that I ever expected to play like that, but it is a little discouraging to see how far short I fall.

*

I hate this son-of-a-bitch instrument. If I manage to get my finger in the right place, I pick the wrong goddamn string. Time after time. Anna asks if I’m learninging songs I can play an d enjoy. Hah! I can[‘t play a stinking song, I can’t even sing the notes I’m supposed to play on the pentatonics—nothing but a croak comes out for anything above C. What‘s more, the tips of my fingers are so hard and sore I can’t feel anything I touch. I can’t pick up my vitamins in t4e morning wit my left hand, and Ia can’t fucking TYPE.

Q: what do you call someone who smashes his fingers with a hammer every day for four months thinking it will stop hurting if he keeps doing it?

A: a guitarist.

I can’t do this. My wrist hurts, my joints hurt, my index finger feels like it has a shard of glass embedded in it, and my attitude feels the same. I can’t practice—no, that’s not even the word, I can’t attempt the pentatonic patterns for more than 3 or 4 minutes before I have to leave the room to keep from smashing the Hog against the wall. I’m going to take a week off. At least.

*

I almost made it. We went to visit my son and left the guitar home. He, however, owns two of them…. I only picked them up a little, though, and I think my fingers have pretty much healed. My head is better, too, and I’m ready for my lesson tomorrow.

I’m closing in on six months now, and can’t see that I have much to show for it. If somebody says “play something for me,” the best I can offer is: OK, here’s a little number I call “Pentatonic Scale Pattern #1.” But I have been trying to learn to play the guitar for almost half a year so I now qualify as an expert on what’s wrong with guitars.

They’re backwards.

First of all, if you play a right-handed guitar (yes, they do make left-handed ones; Jimi Hendrix played southpaw and Paul McCartney still does) and you are right handed, your sinister hand has to do all the work while your good hand just goes up and down. I know fingerpickers have to move their right fingers pretty fast, but they mostly stay in the same place while the left hand flies all over the fretboard. Why not use the hand that’s dextrous to do all that moving?

Hold a guitar and look down at the strings. There are six of them. The first one you see, the one closest to you, is called the sixth. It makes the lowest sound. As you strum down to the first string, the notes get higher. So you move your hand down to move the sound up. If you are reading music, you move down the strings to move up the staff, unless you are looking at tablature, a simplified notation unique to the guitar that has a six-line “staff” representing the 6 strings. With #1 on top, despite the fact that in real life #6 is on top.

There are 12 frets (well, 12 useable ones) numbered, oddly enough, from left to right (as you’re looking down at them). As you go along the neck toward the body of the guitar you are going up, contrary to the usual anatomic arrangement. Anatomy aside, the neck is generally pointed away from the ground, so you literally have to go down to go up.

So on the guitar up is down, right is left, high is low, and 6 comes before 1. Other than that (except for the finger-crippling strings, which could easily be depressed using a set of keys that would be painless to operate) the guitar is a perfect instrument.

*

John told me to pick a new song from my “Beatles Easy Fake Book” (I’ll tell you about fake books in a minute) so I chose “Yesterday,” sweet, simple, and short. Until John got hold of it. “It’s in the wrong key,” he observed. “And some of these chords are just wrong. You want to play this like Paul McCartney does.” Actually I’d prefer sweet, simple, and short—and right-handed. But John tore out the page in my book and gave me the version as recorded by the Beatles to work on instead. It’s still short. Even so, it was too much for me to chew all at once; I went home to work on the first eight bars for a week. Do you know how many times a day you can play the same eight bars before your brain and fingers refuse to go on? Somewhere between 50 and 75. Do you know how many times a day you can play the same eight bars without hitting B-flat correctly even once? Somewhere between 50 and 75.

Oh, right: fake books. Guitar players, at least rhythm guitar players, don’t actually read music. Their part is indicated by the chord names and a little picture of the fret board indicating where your fingers go to produce that chord. John says (and he’s my teacher, he must be right) to ignore the fingering. The chords are usually correct, but the fingering is almost always wrong. “That fingering would produce a G-minor all right, but no guitarist would ever actually do it that way.” The reason the books are virtually always wrong is not entirely clear; something to do with making it look easy to sell books. Personally, I have nothing against easy. Anyway, a book full of these chord diagrams instead of musical notation is called a fake book, undoubtedly a derogatory term coined by real musicians. Now you know.

Progress happens. I bet I’m getting the B-flat a good 10% of the time after only a couple of weeks. And, while pentatonic scale patterns still don’t exactly make sense, I have some glimmer about how they fit together. Not an epiphany, but it’s something. I still don’t know why they’re called patterns, though; seems to me a pattern means you can predict what comes next. Maybe it’s more like a dress pattern….

Tomorrow will be my semianniversary (or is it bianniversary?): 6 months to the day of the guitar. I was leafing through my book of Christmas Carols and discovered that I could totally play The 12 Days of Christmas, a song I hadn’t looked at since I rejected it as too hard when I settled on Silent Night. I must be getting somewhere. I hope so; my fingers are killing me.

*

Training by rote has a long and honored tradition, but I always thought I could learn better if I understood what I was doing. So after six months, through the clever ploy of threatening to do it on the internet anyway, I managed to convince John to teach me a little theory. He started by telling me to memorize the Circle of Fifths, a graphic way of displaying the relationships of the notes in the diatonic scale. That it is also known as the Circle of Fourths probably tells you all you want to know. I think this means trouble. After a whole day of study, I’m thinking maybe rote was better.

Music theory goes back at least to Pythagoras, who should be ashamed of himself. He observed that plucking a string produces a tone, and shortening the string by three fifths produces a higher tone. For reasons apparent only to Plato, Pythagoras decided the interval should be called a fifth. It only gets worse from there. A fifth is an interval of five notes, but only if you include the note you start from. C to G is a fifth: C,D,E,F,G,. I’m already on C, so I only count an interval of four, but I’m not a musician. It’s not really four, either, it’s 3 1/2, since E to F is a half-tone. So a fifth is really 3 1/2 steps up the scale. You could call it a half, I suppose, since an octave has seven notes. Just kidding: an octave really has twelve tones (or half-tones), so a fifth is really 7/12. Your basic major scale chord is the keynote plus a third (that is, 3 halftones) and a fifth, which is a third above the first third. So two thirds make a fifth. Holy hypoteneuse, Batman, I think my head just exploded.

The C of F’s is supposed to cycle through all 12 tones by fifths (or by fourths if you go the other way, since a fifth up equals a fourth down) and end up where you started (a circle! I understand that!) but it doesn’t, quite. You have to fudge, or “temper,” (an odd but well-chosen term) each interval by a teeny bit in order to eliminate the gap at the end, known as the Pythagorean comma. If your mind doesn’t quite close on this, it probably needs the same little fudge factor. Musical training allows one to make this cognitive adjustment without conscious thought. This, of course, is why musicians are said to be temperamental.

Pythagoras also claimed to cure drunkenness with a melody in the Hypophrygian mode in spondaic rhythm, but that is the subject of next week’s lesson. There will be a short quiz on this material at the beginning of class on Monday.

*

I bought another guitar.

OK, that’s not (quite) as crazy as it sounds. We’re flying back to Wisconsin next month, and there’s no way I’m taking the Hog on the plane. So rather than go a week without practicing, an unthinkable situation for someone as compulsive as me, I invested 80 bucks in a crummy little guitar that will fit in the overhead compartment. It also comes with a bag that will accommodate extra socks and underwear; you never know. They had something called a ukelele guitar that was even smaller, cheaper, and crummier; I’m calling mine a compromise.

*

I was whining to John about the fact that I still have to think where each finger goes when changing chords. He told me to go out and buy the biggest fake book I could find and play all the songs in it. Never mind learning the songs, never mind what the songs are, even. Forget about the tempo or the strumming pattern, just play all the chords. So I got The Ultimate Pop Rock Fake Book, 600 songs. 584 pages. Four pounds. Lots of chords.

Fake books, as you know, give you a song’s chords, the melody line, and the lyrics. So the first thing I did, while I was still in the store, was flip to page 329 to find out the answer to the question that has plagued musicians since Pythagoras himself: what the heck are the words to “Louie, Louie”? And the answer is…(drum roll, please) The Ultimate Pop Rock Fake Book contains the lyrics to 599 songs.

When I got the book home I discovered that my flimsy little music stand won’t hold it up. I’ll have to find some way to make do until I can finish building a sturdier one. Then I discovered that Abracadabra (the songs are in alphabetical order) contains chords like E7#9 (and E7+9, which may or may not be the same thing) and that Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (which begins in the key of G, meanders off to E-flat for while, and finally ends up in G-flat) starts you off with a little number called G#m7b5. That’s one chord. I have no idea what it is—I don’t even know how to say it. I guess I’m not going to play all the chords….

I knew I should have just shut up about it. Now John’s got me working on Gershwin’s “A Foggy Day,” so I can learn to play Ami7b5. I still don’t know what it is, but I know where to put my fingers. It sounds bad when you do it right, so I don’t know if I’m making mistakes. Maybe that’s a good thing. Meanwhile, I have finished building my stand, which will accommodate the monster book and a bound copy of the federal tax code at the same time.

A-7b5 (that’s not “A-minus” [personally I’d give it no more than a C+ anyway] but merely a not-very-short-cut notation for “A minor 7flat5” was only the tip of a big, horrible, black, bleeding iceberg. Now we are on to learning another four pages of strange and incomprehensible chords. John says if I can memorize A minor and G, I can also learn thirteenth and minor 9. I admire his confidence.

I have to study his fingering patterns carefully because, unlike G and A, my ear can’t tell if I’m playing it right. What’s G-9 supposed to sound like? Unfortunately some of his “suggestions” are truly impossible. I’m supposed to wrap my middle finger over my index finger and then somehow place my pinky down in Santa Monica. I hope he’s just written them down wrong; otherwise, this is as far as I go. My guitarthritis is bad enough already….

On the pus (now there’s an interesting Freudian typo; I mean on the plus) side, I now know what G#mi7b5 is, and I can even play it. It’s the same as A-7b5, only one fret lower. Now you know; aren’t you glad you came today?

*

Aside: a note about nails. If you want to be a fingerpicker, as opposed to a strummer or flatpicker, you need fingernails. Only on one hand, of course: they just get in the way on your left hand. So I’ve been trying to find a way to shore mine up. I can now state categorically that adding a few layers of superglue makes your nails thicker and lumpier, but not a whit stronger. Now I have thick, lumpy, broken nails. Some serious fingerstyle players use acrylic nails, but that somehow seems like cheating. Besides, it’s odd. What do they say in the nail salon when you walk in and say “I want acrylic nails, but only on these 4 fingers”? If I’m going to learn to fingerpick at all, I guess I’ll have to learn to pick with my fingers; nails aren’t going to happen. We now return you to our regularly scheduled jeremiad.

Wisconsin has come and gone (or more accurately I have gone and come) and my first trip with the junkitar must be regarded as a definite sort-of success. It fit quite nicely in the overhead compartment and survived the journey with no problem. But practicing with it is something of an adventure. It’s a different size and shape than the Hog, the feel (with nylon strings) is very different, it has a tendency to drift out of tune—way out—every few minutes, and sounds pretty bad even when it’s in tune. It’s possible to practice with it, and I did. But I’m not sure the practice is much help—I’m just learning how to play wrong.

John told me another of his war stories, this one about how he knew he would prevail in his audition for the college band when the last of the 7 other applicants leaned over and asked him how to play a C6 chord. John has forced the Major 6 pattern on me, along with elevenths and thirteenths, so I know how (or at least I have it written down somewhere) but can’t imagine any circumstance in which I would want to play it—it’s painful to the hand and painful to the ear. As ever, I asked why I couldn’t be that guy, but John just scoffed.

My first lesson on returning was even more humiliating than usual, if such a thing is possible. I couldn’t play what I’d worked on all week, and I still have Beginner’s Disease, namely complete collapse after an error combined with an unshakable impulse to go back and try it again. John, of course, says if you screw up, just go on and keep up. I can see the logic in that advice, but I can’t help feeling that what I’m doing is learning to ignore mistakes. Surely that can’t be good?

OK, that’s it. I’m done. Yesterday I spent 5 hours playing the same four chords over and over. I still have about a 50% error rate, but I managed to get my speed up to the slowest speed my metronome will go. At this rate, if I continue to practice 5 hours a day, I will be able to play Gershwin’s A Foggy Day when I’m about 80. Assuming I live that long. Assuming the Hog lives that long, and with my temper and frustration tolerance that is by no means a sure thing. It isn’t worth it. I give everything to the damn guitar and it gives nothing back. No, I guess that’s not strictly true: I forgot about the arthritis. There’s got to be a more rewarding way to spend my declining years.

Tom, the owner of the Fret House, has now put in his oar. I was bitching about my non-progress and about the fact that I can’t play any music yet, just chords and the rhythm parts of songs. I told him I don’t want to play in a band and I don’t want to play the accompaniment, I just want to play music. With my mouth closed. John says solo guitar is the hardest thing to learn, and I have to have lots more fundamentals first, but Tom is not convinced and has suggested that he might take me on if I decide to make a change.

For now, John and I have decided to seek counseling.

Counseling consists of me continuing to whine and John continuing to insist that I can, in fact, do it. I think he misinterpreted the other applicant’s question about how to play C6; what the guy meant was “how do you contort your fingers into that position?” I said I wanted to play music, as in melody, and John gave me major and minor 9th’s, and Alice’s Restaurant. I suppose I have no right to complain: Alice is just what I wanted, and it sounds really simple when Arlo Guthrie plays it. The first 3 notes really are simple. After that, it’s like playing C6 with my hands in one of those Chinese finger traps.

And that ended the counseling experiment. I called John and quit two days before the new month started. He was not pleased, on more than one level, but getting him going in the direction I want is no less painful than going his way, so I’m following the advice of that well-known musician, Yogi Berra: I have come to a tuning fork in the road and I’m taking it.

Tom has accepted the challenge. He is an incredible player, but his idea of music I can learn to play is “Shortenin’ Bread.” Not exactly the expressway to Carnegie Hall, but it’s a painless first step.

OK, maybe not so painless. It was harder to master than I had imagined, and my reward after two weeks was “Shortenin’ Bread II,” in syncopation. In case you were wondering, there is indeed a “S.B. III” as well. I don’t know how many versions Tom has.

Meanwhile, I have committed my Saturday afternoons for the first half of next year to a guitar building class. Jeanine is concerned that this is becoming an obsession. Gee, married only 20 years and already she knows me so well…. I told her to consider this a woodworking project, not a guitar thing.

The first thing I wanted to do for the class was to modify the plans so I could build a version with a cutaway. It means I have to special order a new set of extra long sides (price TBD), build a bending machine, and screw up several practice pieces even before the class starts. I only really need one new side, long enough to take the extra bends for the cutaway, but it wouldn’t do to have unmatched sides….

Unfortunately, it isn’t enough just to bend a new side. Since the top and back (the two big surfaces: what a normal person would call the front and back) of a guitar are slightly curved, it’s deeper in the middle. Which means if you bend the side in toward the center, you also have to make the bent part a bit wider. Or taller. Whatever—I’m not doing it. If a symmetrical guitar is good enough for Segovia, I guess it’s good enough for me.

*

Who am I kidding here? I have been working on something called “Spike Driver’s Blues,” a number by the aptly-named Mississippi John Hurt. I did it so badly last week that for the next seven days I played those 10 bars 3 hours a day (not counting how many times I played it in my sleep) until it was perfect. Automatic. Fast, even. So I went in to my lesson today and my fingers and my brain were perfect strangers: I could not get past the first measure. If it weren’t so mortifying, it would be fascinating. I assured Tom that I had mastered “Spike Driver’s Blues,” at home. Although it occurs to me that Tom has never actually heard me play anything, he believed me (or maybe he just didn’t want to go through this again next week) so he gave me a new and harder piece to work on.

When I came home I left the Hog in the car, where it will do less damage. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving (I know, it seems like only yesterday…) and with any luck I will be too busy playing host—or hostess’ husband—to take the damned thing out. I wonder if it’s too late to get my deposit back on the guitar-building class.

Tomorrow, I say, is Thanksgiving. Which means I have less than a month before my semi-public debut. I had the chords to Silent Night mastered—at least as well as I had Spike Driver’s Blues mastered—but then I decided I needed to add some intimation of melody. It isn’t ready. It isn’t going to be ready. I’m thinking I may call in sick that day….

Success doesn’t pay. When I assured Tom I could play the Hurt piece at home, he took me at my word and gave me Rockin’ Robin, which he said was a lot harder. I didn’t really think so, and the next week I managed to bumble my way through it, sort of, so I was rewarded with Anitra’s Dance, a nice little number from Edvard Grieg. Which really is a lot harder.

I’ve moved on from Anitra to Gravy Waltz (yes, Gravy Waltz. It won a grammy for best jazz recording, but I haven’t been able to find out why it’s called Gravy Waltz.), a tune by Ray Brown, which is—did you see this coming?—a lot harder. I suppose that’s progress.

*

Today was the Fret House’s Christmas party, and Tom played Silent Night. I haven’t decided whether to forgive him. My party is in 3 days.

Christmas Day: my own silent night has come and gone, not silently enough. I would like to be able to say that it went well, but the truth is I have no idea. It’s not that I have repressed the memory; I didn’t really connect with the experience even at the time. I remember taking the Hog out of her case and thinking it was some completely foreign object; it was like I had practiced all year on the guitar and when it was time to play, someone suddenly handed me a banjo. After that my senses took leave of me: I vaguely recall starting, and stumbling early and often. I do know I played through the blunders, which I regard as a triumph of sorts. I know there were a dozen people singing along, but I never heard them until they finished, slightly before I did.

The best that can be said is that the audience didn’t have to pay. They were very gracious, considering. Family is the people who pretend they don’t notice when you screw up.

My year-long odyssey with the guitar technically has a fortnight to go, but this seems like a good place to end the story: I doubt you will miss anything in the next two weeks. After a year of trying, I still can’t play for my own pleasure—or anybody else’s—but I’m better than I was. Am I discouraged? You bet. Am I going to quit? Hell, no: I’m mad now. The only problem is with the math: that 10,000 hours necessary to achieve virtuosity presupposes starting in childhood and fails to account for sore joints, loss of flexibility, neurofibrillary tangles, the difficulty of laying down permanent memory tracks in an aging brain, or general decrepitude. So I am going to have to add a little extra time. According to my own personal calculation, I have to live to be 112. Hey, I can do that.

©2009 michael grossman