Here’s something I would like to share with you. It has inspired me more than I realized. It’s a piece written by Paul Thomason in issue 6 of Total Guitar 1995, right at the beginning of my guitar playing career.
Here we are then, Issue 6 of Total Guitar, and, assuming that you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’ll now have six issues worth of tips, tuition, info, technical knowledge and basic guitar nous to draw and learn from. You’ll heve been taken step-by-step through delay, chorus, effects, fuzz pedals, wah-wahs, flanging and phasing. You’ll have been shown how to play like Hendrix, Howe, the Stones, The Beatles, The Police, Davis Bowie, U2, The Stone Roses, Vinnie Moore and the Smiths. You’ll have read the words of Geordie, Billy Duffy, Nuno Bettencourt, Dub War, Deirdre Cartwright, Mike Oldfield, Les Paul, Johnny Marr, Shaun Baxter, Bruce Foxton, Marco Pirroni, Vini Reilly, Monster Magnet and Trey Gunn. You’ll have been introduced to more new kit than you can shake a stick at, and told you whether we think it’s worth your attention. You’ll have been afforded the opurtunity to listen to music you might otherwise have missed, from reggae to rock, jazz to pop. You’ve even, for God’s sake, been shown how to play one of the theme tunes from Trumpton.
Now, I hope all this has been of use to you, and that we’ve put it all together in an entertaining and readable way. I really hope you like TG, and that you get a lot from it. However, there’s one thing we can’t teach you. One thing we can’t show you how to do. Perhaps it’s because it’s not a technique, not something you can practice. It’s more to do with who you are than how you play, and no amount of practice or heartache is going to make you any better at it.
Wanna know what I’m on about? It’s no secret, no big deal, it’s just this: being a musician and playing guitar isn’t about scales, modes, chords, finger-strength, amp-type, guitar-type, how fast you can solo, how many bloody chords you know. None of that matters. Nor really. Sure, improve the way you put yourself across, practice if it makes you feel good, but if technical ability is all there is to it for you, you might as well be a bank clerk. As the late, great Bill Hicks was wont to say during his stand-up act “I want my musicians to play from the $%&#ing heart!” I’d rather listen to music that was made, warts-and-all, by people who really meant every last note, who’d leave the mistakes in if perfection would destroy the energy of the music.
I admit, I’m impressed by perfection and ability, but only for the time it takes to listen to it. Listening to three-octave tapped runs up and down the fretboard is akin to staring at Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy at the freakshow. It’s a wonder and marvel, but if you can’t see that’s all it is, you seriously need to re-examine your motivations.
When I go home, the CDs that I end up going back to aren’t necessarily the ones with the most technically perfect playing or the most complex structures. No, the ones I go back to are the ones which came from the hearts and souls of the people who made them. To me, it’s obvious, and to those of you scratching your heads out there, saying “But you can never put too much value on musical knowledge, technical expertise…” it will never be obvious. You will never get it, never understand. The love of the music is so much more important than your skill in making it. It’s the difference between Clapton and John Lee Hooker. Between Mariah Carey and Aretha Franklin. Between Vai or Satriani and The Stooges or The MC5.
If skill and showing off your hottest licks to admiring peers is your main motivation to play guitar, you’ll give up. I guarantee it. If your only reward is people going ‘Wow’ when you play, you won’t have the resources to keep you going through 15-hour rehearsals, cr@p gigs, hauling your gear in and out of rat-infested venues and practice rooms, no pay, shite PAs, and all the drags that make the life of a musician a pain in the ass from time to time. The only thing that will keep you going during the periods of rejection and boredom is your love for it. The fierce joy of playing and making it sing. Making it fly. Don’t you get it yet? Don’t you understand? If, in the words of Billy Duffy, you “don’t know what the $%&# I’m on about”, perhaps you really ought to look at a career in banking after all…
