Music

I've always wanted to be able to play music.  When I was, like, ten I started taking piano lessons and learning Masterworks like "The Jumping Froggy."  I got bored.  Then I started improvising and I figured out the melody to a song by the The Association (the song was "Windy" in case anyone cares).  I thought it was really cool I could learn a song that I actually liked.  Excitedly, I showed my music teacher (a humorless woman who wielded a yardstick that she would smack her pupil's hand's with), thinking that she would reward this initiative on my part by showing me how to improve my rudimentary tinklings.  Instead, she heaved a heavy sigh, snorted a disapproving snort, and sternly admonished me not to attempt to learn any music that was not written down.  A couple of months later I sort of lost interest in music and quit playing piano.

Later, when I was fifteen, I picked up the guitar, mostly because there was a guy who lived across the hall who knew how to play and was willing to teach me.  He figured everything out by ear, and I thought he was some sort of prodigy.  I would tell him what song I wanted to play and he would sit down with the record and figure it out for me and then write down the chords.  Eventually, I sort of stumbled around with a few lessons from people here and there (who also seemed to learn "by ear") and I just learned to figure stuff out myself.   I still play the guitar, and somewhere along the way (once I realized that improvisation was a valid method of playing) I figured out piano too, although the guitar is mostly what I play.  And I don't play that much now, except when my friend Ched is in town and then he and I jam and sort of work on songs that we both make up.  I am happy with my music, and I sort of wish I had learned to read music.  But, I don't lose any sleep over it.

The one thing that I have learned from messing around with music is that there is no "one way" to learn something, and there is no "one way" to play a song.  I find it amazing that there are people who engage in creative undertakings, like playing music, that are wedded to these "you-have-to-do-it-this-way" rules.  I think Charlie Parker said it best, when he was asked how he learned to play Be-Bop music: "First you master your instrument. Then you master the music. Then you forget about all the shit you just learned and just play."

Last update: 8/27/2002; 12:05:05 PM.