The guitar strings cut deep lines into my fingertips this morning, burning reminders of my five minutes of practice. And this is going to take practice; A LOT of practice. My hands are stiff, too long away from my music, and I found even the simple act of switching chords a challenge. But it will all come back, I can feel it. I can do this. And maybe there will be a meeting of music and words? Could I possibly write songs? I used to keep notes, bits and pieces of songs I began and never finished. But back then I was scattered, flying off in a million different directions…I wonder where that notebook is….
I loved the part of the Tom Petty docufilm where he says that the best songs just came to him; he would be sitting there playing and the first lyrics would come and then the whole song would just follow, coming through him into being. He didn’t want to analyze the process, fearing he would lose it; I found that so graceful, for him to accept this gift without analyzing it to death. What a smart man. And then seeing him yesterday; it was fun watching him and the Heartbreakers perform during the half time at the Superbowl, and somehow I wasn’t really surprised – I just sat there thinking, how’s this for a positive affirmation! There are no coincidences….
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
More guitar stuff
Waking up this morning I noticed it was only 2:41 when I began yet another day by perusing the TV channels (hey, it’s been really cold!) And there was Neil Young (much older now, aren't we all) playing
The Needle and the Damage Done. My fingers began to twitch remembering the feel of the song and I lay there wondering if the universe was indeed speaking to me. Searching online I found so many recordings of this song I was amazed. There were even tutorials with close ups of the chording; okay, okay, I get the message! I fell in love with this song back before a needle ever hit my arm, back before I felt the first rush of heat through my body. We use to play with our guitars at the pizza parlour where I worked after closing was done and the front doors locked for the night. Great acoustics in there! After days up on speed everything sounded wonderful, even I sounded on key. So yes, another ghost from my closet, I suppose I am a recovering addict (it's been almost 29 years, can I say recovered?) While drinking was nothing special, we did that from an early age at the yacht club, drugs first intrigued me when I move to San Francisco at age 19. I was living alone for the first time, and while the sixties were gone, the sex and drugs and rock n roll lived on strong and I was not immune to the lure, probably more for the companionship than anything. Everything was casual until a few years later when I met my ex, and all of a sudden drugs were a life style. Without going into all the gory details, for several years we lived fast in fantasy land until one day I saw the pictures taken at a friends wedding and didn’t recognize myself. I cleaned up and two months later I was pregnant with my daughter, elevating food to the drug of choice in the process. I haven’t thought of it quite like that before, if I hadn’t been pregnant with all the cravings that entails would I have made that transition? Would I even have been able to stay clean? But those questions are part of the ‘what if’ game I do not allow myself to play. So where was I? Oh yea, playing guitar. Guess I’d better get busy.
The Needle and the Damage Done. My fingers began to twitch remembering the feel of the song and I lay there wondering if the universe was indeed speaking to me. Searching online I found so many recordings of this song I was amazed. There were even tutorials with close ups of the chording; okay, okay, I get the message! I fell in love with this song back before a needle ever hit my arm, back before I felt the first rush of heat through my body. We use to play with our guitars at the pizza parlour where I worked after closing was done and the front doors locked for the night. Great acoustics in there! After days up on speed everything sounded wonderful, even I sounded on key. So yes, another ghost from my closet, I suppose I am a recovering addict (it's been almost 29 years, can I say recovered?) While drinking was nothing special, we did that from an early age at the yacht club, drugs first intrigued me when I move to San Francisco at age 19. I was living alone for the first time, and while the sixties were gone, the sex and drugs and rock n roll lived on strong and I was not immune to the lure, probably more for the companionship than anything. Everything was casual until a few years later when I met my ex, and all of a sudden drugs were a life style. Without going into all the gory details, for several years we lived fast in fantasy land until one day I saw the pictures taken at a friends wedding and didn’t recognize myself. I cleaned up and two months later I was pregnant with my daughter, elevating food to the drug of choice in the process. I haven’t thought of it quite like that before, if I hadn’t been pregnant with all the cravings that entails would I have made that transition? Would I even have been able to stay clean? But those questions are part of the ‘what if’ game I do not allow myself to play. So where was I? Oh yea, playing guitar. Guess I’d better get busy.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Runnin’ Down A Dream
I just finished watching a documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It was like a trip down memory lane, each album he made book marking a part of my life; from sex and drugs and rock n roll to motherhood, marriage, back to school, a new career, the end of marriage, raising teenagers, death and taxes. It was all there for me to remember, for hours I was mesmerized by the music that has been with me through 30 years of my life. Tom and Stevie, she was there too through it all, sometimes the music was the only things carrying me through days I couldn’t face alone. So why have I abandoned this comfort. I guess I know why, because one day a few months ago I caught myself singing to the radio in the car on the way to the office. And I looked up and said “See, I’m going to be okay.” And the guilt was overwhelming, even as I recognized that I shouldn’t go down that road there I was trudging along, pulling myself back from that moment of joy as if I had been burned. There was another moment not so long ago where we caught a performance of Styx on the new HDNET channel playing with the Cleveland Contemporary Youth Orchestra back in 2006 and they were doing
I am the Walrus and the violins just swept me away, and the joy of the kids playing the music reached in and grabbed my heart and held it tight, the notes screaming at me ‘where have you been’ and filling me until I could barely breath my body so full of the sound and emotion.
So back to this morning, I was lying in bed waiting for the house to warm up, flipping through channels on the TV (that shouldn’t even be in the bedroom, I know…) when I saw the words Runnin’ Down A Dream and the song was immediately in my head and I hit enter on the remote. Four hours later here I am wondering how I have lived without the comfort of music these past couple of years. I began learning guitar back as a teenager, inspired by my
Uncle Guy and the wonderful music he brought to family gatherings. I started lessons at a community center program, learning folk songs and finger picking, then on to high school where I learned to read notes and gained confidence. Next it was on to a music college where I began to study classical guitar and penned my first original score. There are many stories, leading like steps from there to here, none of them a good explanation for why my guitar (the same one my parents gave me in my teens) is packed away in a hard case under my dresser in the bedroom right now. I used to play in my twenties with friends after work, and later for my children when they were young, but I can’t remember the last time I pulled it out and dusted it off. I think that not having a voice had something to do with it, I married into a family who could sing, I mean really sing, where I was always a little flat. Now here I am, living with a man who loves the guitar and every so often asks me about playing. He has … let me go count…a dozen electric guitars that I can see, four of them out of their cases on stands, most of them Fenders, tucked away into this tiny 1100 square foot house. (don't even ask me to count amps)Some of them he means to sell; acquired in his hunt for the perfect guitar he loved finding them, taking them apart, replacing the worn parts, putting them back together with pristine strings and polishing them until they gleamed only to discover that the certain magic he was looking for was absent. It is so quiet here when he is on the road as he is this week, gone are the rifts he practices over and over as he watches TV, plays computer games and voraciously reads online. (He is a multi tasker who can’t seem to get an empty bottle from the countertop in the kitchen to the recycle bin under the sink, I mean, there aren’t even steps involved.) But I digress. I need to welcome music back into my life. I have become addicted to audio books, the words following me from the car, to the kitchen, and then out for a bike ride or a walk. They are with me as I fold laundry or do dishes, and I only silence them when I am reading, writing or watching TV. I try and try to meditate, but Heaven forbid I should allow myself anytime for complete silence and thought, which usually leads to pain. I have known for some time that this is me hiding and ... and ... and having written even that much I freeze, my fingers refusing to finish the sentence. Because even the idea of moving from denial to acceptance in the ‘stages of grief’ is beyond my comprehension, there is just no way to accept my son is gone. There has to be a differnt path than acceptance. So this morning I am thinking that music might be a way to fight back, and maybe I will go get my guitar out; if I can do this, maybe I can create a chink in my armor and find my own way out of this impossible situation.
I am the Walrus and the violins just swept me away, and the joy of the kids playing the music reached in and grabbed my heart and held it tight, the notes screaming at me ‘where have you been’ and filling me until I could barely breath my body so full of the sound and emotion.
So back to this morning, I was lying in bed waiting for the house to warm up, flipping through channels on the TV (that shouldn’t even be in the bedroom, I know…) when I saw the words Runnin’ Down A Dream and the song was immediately in my head and I hit enter on the remote. Four hours later here I am wondering how I have lived without the comfort of music these past couple of years. I began learning guitar back as a teenager, inspired by my
Uncle Guy and the wonderful music he brought to family gatherings. I started lessons at a community center program, learning folk songs and finger picking, then on to high school where I learned to read notes and gained confidence. Next it was on to a music college where I began to study classical guitar and penned my first original score. There are many stories, leading like steps from there to here, none of them a good explanation for why my guitar (the same one my parents gave me in my teens) is packed away in a hard case under my dresser in the bedroom right now. I used to play in my twenties with friends after work, and later for my children when they were young, but I can’t remember the last time I pulled it out and dusted it off. I think that not having a voice had something to do with it, I married into a family who could sing, I mean really sing, where I was always a little flat. Now here I am, living with a man who loves the guitar and every so often asks me about playing. He has … let me go count…a dozen electric guitars that I can see, four of them out of their cases on stands, most of them Fenders, tucked away into this tiny 1100 square foot house. (don't even ask me to count amps)Some of them he means to sell; acquired in his hunt for the perfect guitar he loved finding them, taking them apart, replacing the worn parts, putting them back together with pristine strings and polishing them until they gleamed only to discover that the certain magic he was looking for was absent. It is so quiet here when he is on the road as he is this week, gone are the rifts he practices over and over as he watches TV, plays computer games and voraciously reads online. (He is a multi tasker who can’t seem to get an empty bottle from the countertop in the kitchen to the recycle bin under the sink, I mean, there aren’t even steps involved.) But I digress. I need to welcome music back into my life. I have become addicted to audio books, the words following me from the car, to the kitchen, and then out for a bike ride or a walk. They are with me as I fold laundry or do dishes, and I only silence them when I am reading, writing or watching TV. I try and try to meditate, but Heaven forbid I should allow myself anytime for complete silence and thought, which usually leads to pain. I have known for some time that this is me hiding and ... and ... and having written even that much I freeze, my fingers refusing to finish the sentence. Because even the idea of moving from denial to acceptance in the ‘stages of grief’ is beyond my comprehension, there is just no way to accept my son is gone. There has to be a differnt path than acceptance. So this morning I am thinking that music might be a way to fight back, and maybe I will go get my guitar out; if I can do this, maybe I can create a chink in my armor and find my own way out of this impossible situation.
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