I learned guitar in the 80’s. This was a time when guitar solos were fast, squealy and played by real men… dudes dressed as women that worshipped the devil and wore makeup (to quote the great comedian Bill Burr).
I was obsessed with the Steve Vai guitar duel in the classic movie Crossroads where actor Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid) out-plays the master. The movie is basically the guitarist version of the Karate Kid.
The end piece is a neo-classical shred fest, full of arpeggios and incredible picking. I spent ages trying to recreate it by ear from a tape recorder held up to the tv (no internet/tabs/youtube etc). I was quietly confident in my own ability to shred as I’d been playing for just over a year. Surely that was enough time to rise to guitar god status?
One morning the phone rang and it was for me… that usually never happened. It was a friend saying that the local radio station was running a competition for tickets to go and see Jeff Healey (Blind Blues guitar legend) during his international tour. I thought, “This is my big break”. I pretty much had the crossroads solo sounding… well… close enough. So I called them up and waited in a queue of random guitar players.
When my time came, I found myself live on radio talking to a couple of famous local dj’s. I was full of nerves, but I was sure that my adrenalized state would create an even better, and more precise (definitely faster) version of the crossroads song.
“Ok Mark…go for it!…”, the dj said. So I placed the phone next to the speaker (I didn’t have an actual guitar amp) and cranked the volume on my Strat copy with 12 month old strings to full, so it would make a fuzzy sound (no amp… or effects).
A small radio silence was shattered by the most agonizingly imperfect guitar playing ever to hit the radio waves… even worse than that guy from Oasis. My fingers froze then fumbled, time slowed down and I felt my body begin to heat up. I was only into the 3rd arpeggio…”God I’ve got a whole 3 minutes of this to go!!”. The dj’s felt the awkwardness and began to talk over my solo in an attempt to salvage the remainder of the audience.
After the mess was over, I grabbed the phone, hoping they never noticed that most of the notes I picked, my fingers weren’t actually ready for.
Then they spoke… I could hear the awkwardness through the plastic coiled phone I was holding to my ear. Even with all of their professionalism, I could tell they were struggling to comment favorably on what must have been a very difficult piece of New Zealand radio air time.
After I hung up the phone and the adrenaline had eased, I had this huge heavy feeling of disappointment and sadness… “This is what I live for…and I’m **** at it!”, was the general PG version of what was going through my mind.
I didn’t have good looks, wealthy parents, confidence, charm, charisma, jokes…and I hated golf. This was what I was banking on to lift me out of this sad little life and onto stardom or whatever… or at least the thing that would pay the bills.
Incidentally, the dude who won the tickets simply strummed out a basic blues and sang along to it (hint: keep it simple and always play within your ability).
After a few days of feeling lost, I got back into the guitar with a fevered passion. I never wanted to feel that “Heavy” feeling again. I read about the power of goal setting and I DID THE WORK! I played from the moment I got home from school until I went to bed. I know this for a fact because I kept a journal, logging every minute I spent practicing and playing guitar and what I was practicing. I clocked up between 3-9 hours everyday. I allocated time for scales and jamming, and even just ‘muck around’ time where I would just play along to my favorite tunes at full volume in my bedroom.
I hung out with my guitar playing buddies, watched music videos and concerts from Gary Moore and Yngwie Malmsteen. I played with the school rock band and any other band that would let me.
The thing is, I actually thrived on the focused and disciplined mindset that I had achieved. This was the journey, and it was actually really fun and exhilarating. Mate!! I’m playing guitar all day!! How tough is that? It beats the hell out of doing Maths or digging holes. Or stuck in a factory job having the life sucked from me.
Was it scary? Hell yeah! But I had no alternative in my mind… it was all or nothing and I believed the payoff would be worth it. I truly believed (and still do) that the time and energy I put into my craft will be payed back to me ten times over.
I was wrong on that last statement by the way… I was paid back, and I’m still being paid back for all the hours and hours… AND I think it’s WAY more than 10 times. And not just financially, but spiritually, physically, emotionally and on and on it goes.
We all suck when we start something new. We all wish we were better than we are at the moment. We must remember that we are better today than we were. And to enjoy the process of progress.
If you do the work, the rewards will come.
