What Is This And Why Is It Here?

(Maybe we can start with “How did you find this?” because I’m surely not advertising it anywhere and this domain has been a placeholder for a project that never really got going so…how do you find yourself here?

I’ll probably never know and that’s OK.)

Right now, this feels like a story. A personal history with an instrumenent. The experience is not singular. I studied for years and had many friends and colleagues who studied instruments and developed a practice - developing a practice being different from practicing though one happens inside of the other. It’s feels more complicated than it is and that’s why I’m writing it down.

I have come back to my instrument after many years away from it. I never stopped playing, but I didn’t have a practice. I would grab a guitar and strum it. Sometimes, I was with other people. Sometimes I was alone. I made recordings. I collaborated. But I didn’t have a practice and honestly I didn’t practice much.

Way Back When

I was a classical guitar performance major for a time. I started playing when I was in 7th grade. While I wasn’t going to be the next Manuel Barrueco, I also wasn’t too bad. With the encouragement of a great teacher, I started to study with college level instructors and was eventually admitted as a music major. Not bad! it Then, in my junior year of college, I was in a car accident that did some really bad things to my shoulder. I couldn’t sit and practice for 8 hours anymore. I could barely pull off one. I’d been double majoring in composition, so I simply moved on to that and kept up with the guitar for ensemble work. The dream of solo performances drifted off and out of reach.

I didn’t realize at the time what a trauma that was. This was putting an end to something that I’d been doing for 8 to 10 hours a day, every day, for 10 years. It just…stopped. I never sat down with that and thought about it. I was too busy with other things and had plenty of other nonsense occupying my mind. Taking time to grieve wasn’t something that I could consciously do.

Now…

Today, my life is very, very different. My kids are getting ready for takeoff. There are more hours in the day for me. During a capitalism enforced sabbatical, I rediscovered the solo guitar and the pieces that meant so much to me. There was some frustration in realizing that my skills with the instrument had dulled with disuse, but something inside of me said that a little time in the woodshed would get me moving. I’ll never be as good as I was, but I can be good enough for myself.

There are no dreams of concerts or recitals. No thoughts of anyone hearing me play other than the people who live in my house and walk by as I practice. The only things in the world are me, the instrument, and the piece of music in front of me. I’m here to move my fingers, listen, and hope that Music stops by to visit.

Anything can happen, right?

So Now What?

I’ve picked up some old pieces and felt a lot of powerful emotions. I’ve noodled with some works that are new to me. I’m reading about the instrument and the repertoire and really thinking about it.

And I’m playing. Every day. Logging it. Making sure that, like laundry, dishes, and dinner, it gets done. After all, if I don’t spend an hour a day with the instrument, can I really call myself a guitarist? Robert Fripp seems to think that’s a metric. Perhaps it is. Or not. I’ll play and find out.

Documenting this journey is purely a selfish exercise. It’s one part accountability and one part making notes for Future Me. Read along, if you like. Maybe there will be something useful here someday?