The Guitar

Sleepless in Hong Kong, but I don’t want to write about my troubles. I’m always thinking about my problems, today I want to write about something that brings my joy in my life.

Th Guitar.

Ever since I’ve been 18, the guitar has become an obsession for me, albeit a secret one. I don’t know why exactly, but I never felt totally comfortable letting people know I love playing guitar until just the last few years. But that’s not really the point. The point is guitars are my best friends. Better than people most times. I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing them, sleeping with them, obsessing over them, buying stuff for them, selling them, thinking about the various personalities of each, thinking about fingers on strings, amp tones, on and on.  There’s a fucking universe in there.

Guitarists are a moody, pompous lot as I heard a guitar hero of mine Johnny Marr say yesterday. Yes, we think we are god’s gifts and everyone else are idiots in the band. We are the superego of the band, the director and visionary. The singer is merely the lead actor. The bass player and drummer are the lighting guy and boom guy respectively. But guitars are wonderful creations that even the most musically uneducated can really appreciate. The power, the emotion, the release, the god like power to create. And we as guitar players have masted the magical ways to not only tame but also direct this power on others. I have a picture in my head of me as Gandolf holding an electric guitar swaying hordes of orcs and hot women with the reverb drenched notes from my fingers. No body ever cries during a bass solo.

As with any art form, after the initial techniques are mastered, the artists personality eventually reveals itself. I’ve never been a fast, skilled player - you won’t find me shredding 16th notes to Swedish guitar prodigies or comping Jazz standards. But in my simple way I can make that guitar sound like other worlds by painting shades of colors and mood. Guitar is easy to play at a basic level, and even gain some flashy techniques but hard to become expressive at beyond copying other’s styles. That’s why there are so many guitarists skilled guitarists that all sound alike. Most players end up getting stuck sounding like Hendrix, Van Halen, etc. and never move beyond that. All I know, is sometimes when the mood is right, God feels like he is in me playing the notes themselves. And so it’s really cool to see how far I’ve come. Guitar playing is a constant companion in my life that reveals itself deeper and deeper each year and I learn more about myself as I deepen on the instrument. 

In China, I’ve only had an acoustic guitar so I’ve been forced to play only non-amplified guitar which I wasn’t too fond of all these years. But I started to enjoy it more. The simplicity of only having one sound and also the richness that can come from that. I’ve also started to sing more, because no one ever knows the words to fucking songs that THEY themselves ask you to sing. Most people are musically unsavvy. They like what they like and don’t understand why you can’t play their favorite sugary R&B Chinese pop song without the benefit of the rest of the band and electronics on that beat up acoustic guitar at their house. And they only want to hear songs they already know. Particularly in China, my top 3 English language requests are:

Hotel California - The Eagles
Take Me Country Road - John Denver
Yesterday Once More - The Carpenters

This validates my theory that Chinese music al taste is stuck in the 70s. The bad sapply ballad seventies. Not the gods of rock Led Zeppelin stadium rock version. Anyway, I’ve been forced to swallow my pride and play some cheesy songs in order to make friends and be a nice at social get togethers. Nobody here has heard of ‘the Smiths’ or ‘the Cure’. They just want to hear Yesterday Once More dammit. And how about that cool Jay Chou song? “Fucking twats!” I say behind a clenched smile before launching into some middle of the road ballad.

One bright side is that my guitar playing is really opening doors in China. It’s an hugely pleasurable experience to be at a party talking to a hot girl who thinks she’s out of your league, then pick up the guitar and sing a few songs with the folks, and next thing her eyes and body language say it all - asking for you to teach her with doey eyes. What does this say about women? I dunno. Now I haven’t gotten lucky from playing guitar quite yet, that girl at the party quickly dismissed me after one date, but still the guitar opens doors like magic. I even sang live at a folk music concert a few weeks ago. My friend Xixi invited me to see her friends play and during an intermission she prodded me to go up. I ended up playing three songs and not forgetting the lyrics. I thought singing ‘The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge was a good song, considering there are dozens of bridges in Chengdu and about loneliness and love of a city which was very fitting and clever of me. I even replaced lyrics to directly say Chengdu. Nobody got it. Polite applause. I got drunk after with the other musicians who were super friendly and supportive. My first gig in China. Free beer as payment.

Anyhow, I’m trying to get a band together in China now. That’s my next big project here. Watch out Chengdu.