Lets call it mudd
March 30, 2009 – 9:33 pm( I guess this is the brand new beginning of beautiful ramblings to come, I posted it before I deleted everything and here it is again!)
I don’t know why I want to call it mud, or why I gave mudd two d’s but what the hell, it just felt right. I find so few things feel right these days that when something does, it feels really right. So right that it just thunders in my brain how right it is. For that reason I tend to cling to things that feel right. I wonder if there is great folly in that. Perhaps there are many instances where when something doesn’t immediately feel right I just toss it aside, when all was needed was a little work. I have no doubt that it must happen many times a day.
Which is not to say that I mean “right” in the: “going well” or “this is good” sense, more in that it is “right” in referring to its resonance with me. You could say it clicks if you wanna keep going with the clichés. In this specific instance I’m referring to when I play something on my guitar. Some notes or phrases or riffs (or yes even licks!) just feel good to play. You could say it strums on my heart strings if you need another cliché. Some just feel dull and uninteresting to I don’t continue to play them.
I suppose if I was considered a genius composer or musician you could say sometimes I am inspired and sometimes I am not.
May I pause to say: Fuckin’ a. You wouldn’t think I would get so many damn spam comments but I do. It’s almost impressive how much crap some program can rattle out on one insignificant blog. If you are trying to trap people into schemes you really are aiming at QUITE a narrow audience. Though I must say, some of the broken English is nearly passable for real conversation and compliments, and in those times I must admit I feel pretty good that you like what I have to say. Anyway back to my musical savant nature.
In this case I’m not even talking about playing something of my own; there is a song by the Raconteurs called “These stones will shout” which has some absolutely incredible guitar on it. Both listening and playing it just feels wonderful. The thing is that in my further advancing age, I’m more an more prone to be turned off by things that are difficult.
Most (key word most, a lot of guitar riffs and songs are easy as hell to play) good guitar selections are tricky to play and thus require real practice. But who like practice? Practice sucks, makes you feel like a jackass over and over again just for the opportunity to eventually do it right. Which I suppose does have its own special reward, but I’m a busy man, I got shit to do!
That’s what I can tell myself anyway.
But is that wrong? Is this all play and now work, defeatist attitude wrong? Some may say sure, and I’d probably agree. But on the bright side, I’m sure sometimes it saves me from pointlessly doing things that I could never hope to accomplish.
In such a case I can view myself as some kind of bullet dodging genius. Though I do ponder, perhaps I could be doing greater things in life, to those of you record players spinning over and over and over and over again on the same grove I say:
I do believe you can practice damn near anything and eventually become good at it, but I’ll also admit, in some cases it’s a total waste of time because you will always suck. You know who you are; you people out there struggling to grasp fruit that’s hanging way to high for you. Maybe you know this and are hoping you can eventually grow and jump higher, but those of us watching you all these years have not seen any improvement so you should really just stop, it’s painful to watch really. That’s good there ya go, put it aside.