The music

"A long long time ago, I can still remember when the music used to make me smile..."

High school choir.
High school band.
(The Beatles.) 

Teen age rock band that we took on the road to local bars and street dances. Maybe we did this to meet girls - maybe not. But we did meet girls. And once we started dating, the band - and making music - slowly got pushed into the attics of our lives.

And into the attic of my life.

Three years ago my life dropped me into an empty old house for three weeks. Alone. Separated from my family and from the world of internet, TV, and even radio.

But I had my guitar and a memory of how to play - and how to sing.  But memories don't make the muscles perform - either in the fingers or the vocal cords.

But I was in a great place acoustically; with bare wood floors, hard plaster walls, and high ceilings. It was like singing in a shower.  And I was bored.

So I started plucking the guitar. I tried to pick out the cords to "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. Pretty basic stuff, chord wise, but the picking will take work (lots of work).  So I started with the first verse  ( I remembered the words from hearing it so many times in "Shrek" ) and I quickly realized that my voice was no longer capable of holding a note. Wow, I guess if you don't use your voice for 20 years it can get out of shape. But there was nobody around to criticize so I sang, and I sang, I and played until my fingers hurt (no callouses to protect my finger tips).


"... I know these walls and I've walked this floor ... "

As I went about my business each day I would work on the words to the song. I'd go over each verse until I had the whole song memorized.  And then in the evening I would work on getting the words to fit the chords and the rhythm - such as it was. And so I would sit on that warm radiator after a days work and relax and play and sing to myself; to the room, and to the empty house.

It's not the same, you know: learning the words and learning the song. You can memorize the words and you can learn to play the music but when you try to put them together you have to re-learn them both. At least, I do.

Anyway.

After a week or so, my fingertips started to harden up and my voice stopped shaking and wandering around on it's own quite so much.  I had the words and the chords pretty much down and put together. And I was ready to move on. Okay, I was getting bored. It has always been hard for me to master anything because I get bored too quickly.  So I tackled "Ghost in the House" by Shenandoah (and covered by Alison Krauss). It seemed appropriate in this old house (and not TOO scarey). This was harder on my voice because it was higher (I had no capo) and some of the notes hit right in pitches where my voice didn't like to stay very long. But it was fun and fairly easy to chord (again, I wasn't too worried about the picking - yet).


"... I knew if I had my chance, I could make those people dance. And maybe they'd be happy for a while ... " 

But this was fun and I kept at it even after I returned to 'civilization'.  The empty house was replaced by my car and I would pick up the guitar while watching TV quietly pick over scales and progressions under the noise coming from the set.

I would think of songs that I liked (either the words or music - or both). I started listening to Pandora's Indie Rock channel and found some new sounds that I liked. A couple clicks on Google and I'd have both the words and the chords (and the tabs - if needed). The world was at my feet.

Between Pandora and Classic Rock radio, I started picking up songs - maybe a new one every week or so. My confidence and my chops have gotten stronger and I think I am slowly getting better. Soon maybe even good enough to play for someone other than an empty house (or an empty car).

My repertoire has grown to about 30 songs of all types and sizes. Last week I tackled the timeless classic; "American Pie" by Don Mclean. I confessed this to a kid that works for me and he said; "Yeah, everyone does that one - at parties and stuff." The way he said this brought to my mind a certain scene in "Animal House". But I don't care. It's a fun song to sing - and to sing along with - and I'd like to see someone try to smash MY guitar.

"... And we were singin'; bye bye miss american pie .... "

I keep a list of songs that I think I'd like to try in the future and now that I have American Pie down, my mind is already starting to wander over to the first verse of the next song.  In the back of my mind I have a fear that what happened to me in a certain college organic chemistry class will happen to me again if I keep trying to cram more stuff into my memory. It was the night before mid terms and I had all those CO radicals laid out in my mind perfectly. I tried to push just one more page into my head and then something broke. The next day at the exam my mind was a white piece of paper. I had nothing. And the worse part was that it never came back. But I can live without remembering organic chemistry. But music?

I do believe that the mental exercise of memorizing all these songs is something that will help me as I grow older. Maybe it will help me stave off alzheimer's or dementia many years from now. But I worry a little about pushing too hard. What if I try to push just that one more page and it all goes white - again.  But then again, I have an iPad with all the lyrics. So if push comes to shove, I can always cheat. My muscles won't forget what they've learned (either fingers or voice) over these past few years. And should keep getting better even if I have to read the words. I don't have 10,000 hours left to master this but as long as it's fun - what the hell. Huh?