The learning curve of playing isn't a neat straight line that curves gently into the clouds while angels look down beckoning us upwards with harps and choirs. Oh fuck no. The God Apollo, son of Zeus, has been known as a god of music, truth, and prophecy, plague, poetry, and more. I believe his dad Zeus was a doctor, famous for cooking green eggs and ham with lightning or something. Look it up. At any rate, whoever's in charge makes it hard for us to truly connect with music. The curve is all ups and downs with steep precipices full of cougars and pumas waiting to bite our bleeding blistered fingers off as we fall screaming to our musical demise over and over again. Sure the angels are up there beckoning, but they're mean and badly dressed angels tossing down little glimmers of heaven to keep us stumbling along for their amusement. Music is the path to God and us mere mortals can hear that, we just can't always play it. Once in a while when playing or listening we can transcend our lowly planes of existence and catch a moment. The band locks in and the dance floor is full. Everybody connects and His Dudeliness appears. You hear a great song cranked on a good stereo and you get a bolt of pure communion. But most of the time we just putt along slightly out of tune with the world hoping for a shot of musical nirvana. Hence the drinking. The reason music is the path to God is because seeing is observing, but hearing is a more direct path to the soul. We see God in a blade of grass or sunset, etcetera and so on. Theological types drone on a lot about that, but it's all observation. When we hear God through listening or playing we are resonating with God. Resonance is a deeper connection. Anyways. The curve is lumpy. We go through high mountain top meadows where we leap and cavort with gay abandon, and deep dark valleys of black depression where we question our existence and lament our wasted lives. The reason for this is because when we add more chops to continue our quest we need to figure out how those new skills add to our resonance with The Big Guy. And off the cliff we go. We're playing well but our music falls flat. I watched a video of a gig we did about a year ago, then right after watched an ancient vid of myself from twenty years earlier. I was playing better in the older vid than in the recent. You'd sorta think all those years bumping along the path I might have improved some. I was serious pissed, by golly. After ten years of learning, I was going backwards. I'm like the Benjamin Buttons of guitar playing. Doomed to slowly devolve into a 2 year old flailing at a guitar and shrieking "BAH BAH BAH BAH!" at the top of my lungs. After wallowing in the pits for a while it occurred to me I was on a peak in the earlier vid, and in a valley in the recent one. I had some cool new chops that I hadn't yet integrated into my quest for resonance with God, and they fell flat and uninspired out of my traitorous fingers. The tiny bulb lit up and I realized chops have little to do with with actual music. I blame Audley Freed. I ran across some of his stuff on youboobs and stole a bunch of chops. Those chops are just now starting to become part of my attempts at resonation with He Who Toys With Us. When I first learned them they sounded great yet didn't sound terribly like music. In fact... when I went to find the link to Audley's stuff I got stuck watching them again and realized there's lots of stuff I didn't steal yet. Looks like more wallowage is coming my way. SO as you learn you suck more, then you get way better as the new chops are integrated into resonance, then you suck again, then you get even better, then suck, then great, suck, great, etc. It's like a fun ride. Up and down and up and down trying not to throw up on the down parts or pee your pants on the up parts. Whee. So what does this have to do with recording you might ask? Well shut up and I'll tell you. Nothing really. But it does have to do with production and creating a song people like. If you're production is in order, the parts all fit well, and you're lucky enough to be at a peak while you sing or play your tune, and if the mic is set right, and the record button is lit and billion other things, you might wind up with a great tune that people like. It's actually easier than it sounds. There are however many details that can sidetrack the whole thing. The way through all those deets is focus. Hire a producer so you have somebody to blame if it sounds like an accordion full of badgers falling down a stairwell. Do the thinking and analyzing before you go in then try to pay attention. So pay attention while I tell you about my latest song. First verse goes: "BAH BAH BAH! BAH BAH BAH!" And then there's a solo with a big whammy bar exit, then second verse goes BAH BAH, then I start to cry. It's gonna be awesome maybe.
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