So for Christmas K got me an electric guitar. It's not, she
thinks, the best move she ever made.
Until recently I had tried and failed twice to learn to play the
guitar. Once was in high school, when I went to the music store
downtown and dropped a bunch of money I'd earned at the bagel shop
after school. I wasn't smart enough to buy anything like an amplifier
or an instructional book with some basic chords in it. The only music
I'd listen to regularly was stuff like Cream and (middle, keyboardy)
Van Halen. Neither band has terribly accessible guitar parts for the
most part. My fingers, which are stumpy today, were stumpy
and uncoordinated then. My ability to play the viola when I
was ten did not translate into anything that sounded good. I
eventually sold the guitar to my friend Charlie who within three
months could play most of Metallica's catalog flawlessly.
The second time was in grad school, when I was living with a guy
named John who had a bunch of guitars and a bass and a drum kit
sitting in his (our) living room. John, who liked only white-guy
blues (the worst kind of music on the planet with the occasional
exception of the Allman Brothers) was a ridiculously talented guitar
player, and he had guitar tabs all over the place. (He also had
wires, tools, computers, tree frogs in terrariums, scary plants,
half-fixed junk appliances and a variety of (his and my) math and
physics texts, along with homeworks in different stages of doneness;
but that's kind of another story.) He had the complete Beatles
songbook for guitar, which meant that I had some songs that were not
only possible to play but interesting to hear. The trouble eventually
was that I couldn't screw around with the guitar, go to the gym, work
twelve to sixteen hours a day in the lab, sleep, and see K. Then I
moved out and my lack of time became moot. (Parenthetical note: I
eventually quit grad school, which made it possible to do all these
things and still play with the computer all day. A-and I get paid a
pile of money compared to grad school. So, for god's sake, kids,
don't stay in school any longer than you absolutely have to!)
At any rate, now that I have a guitar again I have finally figured
out the secret of the guitar, and here it is: learn six chords well.
About 90% of all songs can be played using the same six chords.
What's even scarier is that about 40% of all songs can be played using
the same three chords. Not three chords, the same three.
What is, of course, completely depressing is that a whole bunch of
Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and Samples songs are so simple as to be
uninteresting to play or listen to, just like we've always
suspected.
So I sit in an otherwise unstimulating room and go, G C D G C D G C
D, etc. for hours at a time. Occasionally I go, G C G C G C G F C C C
C F F F F Em Em Em Em F F F F, which (holy crap!) is "Getting Better"
by the Beatles. Once I accidentally went, G D Em F C D, which is
"Free Bird". I almost choked with embarrassment upon realizing that I
had played "Free Bird", and then proceeded to practice it for the rest
of the night. What a great song. Like driving around in high school,
but only one third the normal number of guitars.
On to something from "1984". Poor K couldn't be less pleased.