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become a great guitarist, first you have to understand
what the guitar is, where it came from and what
kind of person plays one. You first have to swim
in its spirit and rejoice in its romance.
Betty
- My heart was beating as I waited outside the
door of the little studio where I was about
to get my first lesson on the guitar at twelve
years old. I prayed to God the night before;
"I wanna play just like Jimmy Page."
My new teacher called me into the room and asked
me to take out the $50 guitar my parents bought
me for Christmas. He asked me to take a good
look at it. He then asked me what I thought
it looked like. I didn't know the answer. He
said; "it's shaped kinda like a girl don't
you think?" "Kinda curvy," he
said. He then told me to treat it like a girl.
"Hold it gently, treat it nice and don't
let it get dirty." It's true when you think
about it though. Nobody I know names their guitar
"Pete" or "Joe." They usually
give it a girl's name, like "Lucille"
or something. My guitar's name is "Betty."
Keep
on moving - It is shaped like a girl, but
why? Why did the guitar get built in the first
place? What makes the guitar different from
all the other instruments? I'll answer it for
you. Unlike a piano, you can carry it around
with you. That's why the guitar got invented.
Most historians would agree that it was born
in or around the desert, somewhere in the east,
maybe around the Arabian Peninsula or the Persian
Gulf. You see, people had to move around a lot
in those days; you went where the water or game
was. They couldn't carry a piano around on a
camel (or whatever guys rode around on in those
days) so they wired some gut strings on a wooden
thing with some holes in it to amplify the sound
and carried it around with them. Without a doubt
they used it by itself or in a group to accompany
themselves, probably singing tunes about life
and love and things like that. I must stress
the word accompany. You can carry a violin around
with you, but you are gonna look silly accompanying
yourself singing a tune with it. The polyphony
of the guitar, which would develop over time,
is what would eventually make the guitar the
most popular instrument on the planet.
Those
guitars weren't called guitars in those days
and didn't have six strings like guitars do
today. And they probably looked different, although
it was basically the same thing that Jimmy Page
played on "Whole Lotta Love" that
made me get down on my knees on the night before
my first lesson. The romance of the guitar is
found in its mobility. Even the first guitarists
were rolling stones, travelers, playing under
the stars.
Inroads
- The guitar would eventually find its way into
Spain and the Troubadours would carry it around
Europe singing the same songs celebrating life
in different languages. The guitar would get
all its strings in Spain, become popular and
eventually develop into the modern day guitar.
Appeal
- One of the reasons the guitar is so accepted
by the masses is that it is the true instrument
of the common man. The problem back in the old
days was there was no electricity. These days,
if you wanted to throw a party and get all your
friends over to dance, you would just plug in
a radio and go to it. Four-hundred years ago,
if you wanted to dance you had to hire an orchestra,
since there where no radios. If you didn't have
any cash, you would have to make your own music.
I imagine all the neighborhood cats would bring
their guitars down to the local watering hole
and play some tunes while the girls would dance
and sing and generally have a good time. This
tradition is still alive in Flamenco music today.
The guitar is a radio.
Spending
money - I'm gonna have to go backwards here
and give you a little history lesson. In the
1300s all of a sudden, the European population
got a middle class. It is for a reason you would
probably never imagine: The Plague. The plague
killed off about a third of all Europeans back
in those days. Since all those people died,
a labor shortage was born. Since there weren't
enough workers, the workers demanded better
wages. Europe had some cash and they wanted
to spend it. Since they didn't have Gucci downtown
they wanted silks from the Far East. Also, since
they didn't have electricity they didn't have
refrigerators. Since they didn't have refrigerators
they also wanted spices from the Far East, China
and India. Spices would help preserve or, yes,
cover up the taste of food that was getting
a little too ripe. Spices were worth their weight
in gold. Ever wonder why food around the equator
is real spicy? Anyway, this gave birth to two
things: the search for an all-water rout to
Asia and to the African slave trade. I know,
you're asking what does this have to do with
the guitar. I'm getting' to it.
Birth
of a new musical era - To make a long story
short, Columbus rather than going all the way
around Africa, decided to sail west. He knew
the world was round rather than flat and figured
he would sail into Asia using a shortcut. He
wanted to get there through the backdoor using
an Atlantic route. He misjudged the distance
but in the process he discovered the South American
continent. He never found out the truth, and
died thinking he found India. That's why Native
Americans are known as Indians. Pretty silly
if you think about it.
Anyway,
when the news got out, a bunch of people wanted
to go. Who do you think raised their hands?
Remember that going in a boat to South America
was probably a real drag. It probably took months
to get there and once you got there all you
had was a jungle. I can tell you for sure that
it wasn't rich people. Rich people weren't about
to give up their big houses to go live in the
woods in a foreign land. It was the guys looking
for a new life who went, and they brought their
guitars along with them.
Africans
- That's right, it wasn't the rich, but the
other guys who went. You need a lot of people
to build a New World, so at first the Europeans
used the Native Americans as slaves. The only
problem with this idea was that almost all of
them died because they had no resistance to
the diseases that the Europeans brought over.
That's why the scourge of mankind, the slave
trade, started. On the way over to the New World
they stopped off in Africa and got themselves
cheap help.
To
make a long story short (again), the Spanish
and Portuguese workers brought over their guitars
(radios) with them, combined their musical ideas
with the percussive skills of the Africans and
a new era of music was born. The Rumba would
evolve in Cuba. Meringue starts up in the Dominican
Republic. Argentineans create the Tango. The
Portuguese, trying to get around Africa to East
Asia, mistakenly ran into South America (pretty
funny if you think about it) and since nobody
is around, they claim part of it and call it
Brazil. The music they make is called the Bossa
Nova and the Samba. The Clave, the rhythm that
can be found in all Latin music, is a present
from Africa. If you ever get a chance to hear
some genuine African drum music, you will hear
the same Clave throughout. Even in Louisiana,
blues players used the Clave to build rhythmic
motifs. Check out Bo Diddly's "Who do you
Love" if you get the opportunity.
Birth
of the Blues in America - In the early nineteen
hundreds, ex-slaves started carrying the guitar
around the south with them and playing blues
music for mostly black audiences. The spirit
of the guitar was still the same. It was perfect
to carry around and accompany oneself with.
Robert Johnson would end up making a name for
himself before he dies at the tender age of
twenty-seven in Mississippi. In 1948, twenty-eight
year old Muddy Waters moves up to Chicago from
Mississippi, looking for a better life away
from the South.
Once
again, a man in search of a new life carrying
a guitar with him. He finds the clubs in Chicago
overwhelmingly large. So he, like many of the
guitarists started to do in those days, jumps
on the electric bandwagon and begins to pave
the way for electric blues to become musical
force. Later on in the sixties Jimmy Page and
Jimi Hendrix get into the old recordings of
Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and make their
own versions of their tunes, and I end up listening
to Jimmy and Jimi at twelve and get hooked.
And that's why I find myself at twelve years
old at my first lesson. And keeping with the
tradition, my teacher, on this sunny Saturday
morning, teaches me how to play a medium shuffle
twelve bar blues that I still play today with
the same feeling of adventure that I felt way
back then.
Before
you do anything - Before you start working
on your scales and chords and all the other
things you need to do to become the greatest
guitarist around, start by understanding the
spirit of the guitar. Let's review:
The
guitar is like a woman - Treat the guitar
with respect. When I meet a new student for
the first time I always play his or her guitar
before I do anything else. I check to see if
the guitar is clean and well cared for. It is
a reflection of the student's attitude about
guitar and music in general. The Japanese say,
if you want to find out if the Sushi chef is
good or not, check his knife.
The guitar is a radio - The guitar was
built to move, not for you to play in your room.
It was designed for you to carry with you and
tell your story with it. It was made so people
could listen and sing and dance and celebrate
life. The guitar isn't about chops - it's about
stories. Every time I travel with my guitar,
it makes me feel happy to know I'm carrying
on in the tradition of the Troubadours and blues
musicians of the past. I don't care if the flight
attendant is perturbed because my guitar takes
up all the room in my overhead compartment.
I'm bringing it with me. And when I get where
I'm going, I'm gonna tell someone a story with
it.
The guitar is about adventure - The guitar
was brought around the world by people looking
for new lives and new chances. All these people
where risk takers, and their guitars were their
best friends. Don't be afraid to be a guitarist.
No matter what bad luck comes to you in life,
you will always have the guitar to play. And
don't forget, the greatest joy there is, is
the joy of making music. I would rather live
as a poor, happy guitarist than a rich, unhappy
banker. Always follow your heart and you have
nothing to fear.
Think about these things while I get my next
column together, the one that will deal with
the next step in becoming the best guitarist
you can be.
Check
out these links for some history lessons:
Guitar
History: http://www.classicalguitarmidi.com/history/guitar_history.html
The
Plague: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/plague/effects/soc_econ_effects.shtml
Blues
History: thebluehighway.com
Until
next time...
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