The Yellow Guitar, 1994
I don’t understand why people think it’s so difficult to learn to play guitar. I found it incredibly easy. You just pick a chord, go twang, and you’ve got music.
–Sid Vicious, Sounds, 9 October 1976
Wasn’t planning on doing a Look Back piece this morning. Took forever to get to sleep with my mind racing last night. Too much wired for my tired, I guess. I finally slept a couple hours, getting up later than usual, which left me running behind. I decided I simply wanted to play some guitar music from guitar wiz Tommy Emmanuel and call it a morning. But if I was going to share some music, I figured I might as well share a painting with a guitar and a quote or something about guitars.
The painting was easy. I have painted a number of pieces with guitars as the seeming object of the painting. Something about the shape of a guitar and desire to make music that pulls me in. I was never a player though I stumbled along in fits and starts with guitars for close to fifty years. The first loan I ever took out was to buy a guitar, a Yamaha folk guitar that hangs on the wall of my studio. Its decorative quality has outshone its musical quality in my hands.
For a few years beginning in 2018, I buckled down and, determined to learn to actually play rather than follow Sid Vicious’ admonition at the top, did play a lot and progressed quite well. I could play a number of songs and my hands easily moved up and down the fretboard. It was a thrill to feel that I was actually making music rather than treating the guitar like I was beating as an old mule, as the saying goes. For the record, I have never beat an old mule.
Then a couple of years ago, I simply stopped playing. I don’t really know why. I have four guitars within easy reach at this moment and could easily pick one up and play. Just the will to pay was gone.
The guitars have returned to their status as decorative elements for the time being.
Maybe I stopped because of the distraction and worry coming from the outside world. Or maybe it’s that I felt I should focus my dwindling time to work on art that I could share with the outside world rather than just for myself. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter in the long run. I do sometimes pick up my Fender acoustic and play a bit just to remind myself that I can go back to it at some point and try to catch up with what has been lost in the last few years. It’s reassuring to feel my left hand go into position on the fretboard from what muscle memory remains.
I don’t remember much about the painting at the top from August of 1994. I must have liked it enough at one point to go ahead and sign it. It was at a point where I was close to having what I consider my Eureka! moment. I can see elements of the paint handling in this though the result was much different than what was to come. That’s probably why it never made it out of the studio, only getting glimpsed at briefly every year or two.
It is different than my regular work from then or at any point in my body of work. That might be its appeal to me. I like its somewhat sloppy feel. Suits me. It’s one of those pieces that I spend more time over now when I do take it out. I think that is the What if? factor. What if I had followed this style at that time? Would it have satisfied what I needed to get from my work? Would I be able to communicate fully in a way that came across in the same way as the work that I ultimately did create later?
The What If? game is tantalizing to play but is never satisfying. So, I just take what is there and what I know came after it and allow myself to simply enjoy the piece as it is, for better or worse.
Okay, let’s get to the guitar music from Tommy Emmanuel. Here’s his mashup/take on two favorite songs from the Beatles, Day Tripper and Lady Madonna. Good stuff to kick off a spring Saturday.
Redtree Times 