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Axe-Master
Sorry for the crappy title. Yuk! Just wasn't sure what to call this list. And yeah,
hopefully not being presumptuous and pretentious with a list like this. It was just
fun to do as a thought experiment.
Anyways, I was recently having a conversation with friends about playing guitar, and the
topic came up about what some of the keys to improvement might be. That led me to reflect
on my own 38 years of playing while drinking some beers last night. I ended up whittling it all
down to 10 elements that I have benefited from. Most of these are general principles, guideposts,
if you will. I realized that I have also circled back, at critical junctures, to each of these 10 principles
again and again. It also led me to see that these principles were never not in play in some way--
either as fundamentals to brush up on, goals to aspire to, or things to be inspired by. They are always
therefor me to (re)focus on or be inspired by. Even if I didn't know it until I thought about it, and then
wrote them all down.
Maybe you have a list of 10 elements or keys that have helped you. Here is mine.
hopefully not being presumptuous and pretentious with a list like this. It was just
fun to do as a thought experiment.
Anyways, I was recently having a conversation with friends about playing guitar, and the
topic came up about what some of the keys to improvement might be. That led me to reflect
on my own 38 years of playing while drinking some beers last night. I ended up whittling it all
down to 10 elements that I have benefited from. Most of these are general principles, guideposts,
if you will. I realized that I have also circled back, at critical junctures, to each of these 10 principles
again and again. It also led me to see that these principles were never not in play in some way--
either as fundamentals to brush up on, goals to aspire to, or things to be inspired by. They are always
therefor me to (re)focus on or be inspired by. Even if I didn't know it until I thought about it, and then
wrote them all down.
Maybe you have a list of 10 elements or keys that have helped you. Here is mine.
- Always Remember How Fun This Is, Because It Is! Our worst times playing music are when we
are not enjoying ourselves. Non-enjoyment is also unsustainable. If we are not having fun,
then we are not going to keep doing this. So fun, enjoyment, passion, and the pure delight
and thrill of music, for me, is the most essential element of all.
- Follow Your Heroes. No one blazes their own trail. No one has to. We all stand on the shoulders
of giants, and even the giants stand on someone else's shoulders. Being inspired by that Mt.
Rushmore of guitarists/musicians we admire can teach us so much. Learn from the best, your best,
because they all have so much to teach us. - Play With Other People, The Sooner The Better. Music is a team sport. Fuck the solo artist!
Seriously! Community is at the core of music. Bands. Orchestras. Symphonies. Ensembles. Fans.
Groupies. Buddies. It's easy to get fixated on ourselves and our own abilities (or lack thereof),
and other people is where we can get out of that trap. Inspiring and learning from other people
is really at the heart of our growth and development. Play with other people as soon as you can
and then keep playing with other people (even when they piss you off, cause people!). Also, put
yourself into the fray with different types of players. Grow your community, and join/start/feed a
Music Mafia around you.
- Tuning! Tuning! Tuning! Speaks for itself, doesn't it? Some may argue this is first, or should be. But
I have had fun playing a tad out of tune and so did some of my heroes. Don't let tuning ruin a great
moment! That being said, knowing how to play in tune---i.e., refining your touch, understanding pitch
and intonation, are essential. Duh, right? Tuning and our ability to hear are related and mutually
reinforce each other. Bad pitch can become an habit just as easily as good pitch. Knowing when we are
"out of tune" and correcting it as quickly as possible are massive! And yes, most of us suck at it initially.
- Be Curious About, Or Maybe Even Learn To Play, Another Instrument. I have a theory that the best
musicians are not just focused and fixated on one instrument--even virtuosos are multi-instrumentalists.
Other instruments can teach us so much about the relationship between different elements of music (rhythm,
harmony, phrasing, placement in a mix). Drums can teach us how to phrase differently on a guitar. A brass
or woodwind instrument can teach us that we need to breathe, and so maybe our guitar playing is not one
continuous spew without any air or space to breath. Even voice anbd singing is a different instrument we
can learn and grow from. Take a cue from Prince, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Dave Grohl, and David Bowie.
Get familiar with instruments not called "guitar."
- Learn To Control Your Volume! If there is one thing I hear musicians get wrong the most it is this: volume. Either
too loud or too quiet. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with playing with other people, and being curious about
other intruments. We have to know where we fit in, and what our volume level in relation to the volume level
of the other instruments is. Don't just pummel and blast people. That is not the way. Also don't be timid and meek.
There is a fine and delicate balance at play, and constant course correction with volume is a thing. Grow to love
fondling that volume control on your guitar. Make it your best friend. Trust me, your friends and fans will appreciate it.
- Never Allow Mistakes To Become Roadblocks. Never! We all make them. We all will continue to make them. Just
let them go. Seriously, move on. The faster the better. The guitarists I have played with in the past who could not let
a mistake go and keep going literally quit. It's true. This is all mental. In order to get better and improve we need to
NOT fixate on a mistake. It's just a moment and music is a series of moments. Stop the flow of moments to obsess
on what went wrong and the music stops. Literally! No one died because you were sharp, flat, or a bit late too that
change. Train keeps a rollin'!!
- Live A Life Outside Of Music. Ok, I have to confess that I stole this one. This was something I read when I was young.
If we have no life experience and have not lived, then we have literally don't have anything to bring to our music. Do
things other than play music and it will feed your music. Cook. Have kids. Fall in love. Take a trip. Read, read, read! All
of the things we do outside of music and/or playing guitar can really inspire and energize our playing. Think of all the
great songs we still love to this day. It seems the one thing they all have in common is that they came from someone's
actual experience. So, as Jimi reminded us, "Are You Experienced?"
- Perform Live in Front Of People! Not sorry. This is where the rubber truly meets the road. You might get butterflies
just thinking about it. It is definitely the hot seat. It can teach us so much about ourselves, and not just as musicians,
but as people. It is like flying an actual plane versus the safety and security of a flight simulator. It is where we are forced
to commit to parts. It is where we have to go all in. Of course, not everyone can or will, but I seriously believe it is one
of the gauntlets that we all need to put ourselves through as musicians so we can test our mettle. It can be as simple as
an "Open Mic" or as serious as a Massive Festival. The point is not where or how many people we perform live for, just
that we do it. And like anything we do, the more we do it the more proficient we can become at it. - Record Yourself. Simple as that. Find a way to hear how you sound and get familiar with it. It is easy to be delusional
about ourselves (by either being too hard or too easy on ourselves). Delusion is never captured on tape, though. That
is why it is the path to honesty as a musician. Hearing ourselves can be as harrowing as performing in front of other people.
Both are wake up calls, and full of choices we have to commit to. With recording we get to hear our choices back. How we
pick. Where we pick. What note we played, and what note we played after that. Was our vibrato too heavy? Did we bend to
pitch properly. Are we squeezing the notes too much and constantly playing a tad sharp because of it? Are we too gainy?
Not gainy enough. You get the idea. Capturing our playing on "tape," so to speak, is how we can best hear ourselves, and it
is also how we can best share ourselves, apart from performing live.
Even though there is nothing specifically technical about any of these Principles, they have served me well, and I am pretty
sure that I will keep returning to them again and again.
Curious if maybe you have any you have discovered, or have put into practice.
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