While my guitars languish and collect dust...

History and waxing nostalgic is something I like to write about. It also seems the steem/it/busy community really likes it when people reveal more about themselves. I am somewhat of a music fanatic. For a good portion of my life it was probably one of the largest pillars around which my life revolved. This is not as much the case now.

My instrument of choice was guitar. Though I have also played keyboard, and Cello. I started as wanting to play Bass guitar as I was very inspired by Cliff Burton in my youth.

However, all I had access to for awhile was my father's acoustic guitar. I had a friend who was a skilled bass player and had played in quite a number of bands. He'd blast out funk, Rush YYZ, Iron Maiden, Play that Funky Music, you name it. He was good. I wanted lessons.

I started learning guitar instead as that is what I had. Eventually I'd decide to just stick with the guitar. The only type of guitar I don't own now many years later is a Bass Guitar though it turns out I ended up being a pretty good bass guitarist as well.

I practiced and played for years. Though something odd happened.

I really stopped trying to learn other people's songs. I just did what I would call doodling or noodling. I'd pick up a guitar and just start playing and making up stuff as I went.

Sometimes I'd make some very cool stuff up, and people would say "Wow, that was really cool, what was it?" To which I'd respond "I don't know, something I just made up?" They might say "Can you play it again?" and sometimes I'd be able to and other times I'd say "I don't actually remember what I did, I was just in the zone and played something". This is kind of like the zone I sometimes get in when writing poetry as @ChaosPoet. I actually use a very similar approach there. I blast out words and sometimes they are pretty profound and I have no clue how I thought of them. I would do the same thing when noodling on my guitars.

I haven't played my guitar I believe in over a year and my wife and one of my daughters keep hinting (not subtle at all about it at this point) that they want me to start playing again. My Daughter wants me to teach her step son, thus my grand child to play guitar and asked me last week to think of a day of the week to do it. Then made the comment, "I really want you to start playing guitar again". So there is a very strong likelihood I'll begin doing that again VERY soon. That means I'll have to struggle through getting my hands back into shape.

There was an interesting thing about the fact I noodled. I'd jam with people who memorized a lot of people's songs and people would be impressed with them, and my noodling may or may not be that impressive unless I happened to be in the zone.

So for years and years of pushing myself and just noodling I really had no comprehension of whether I was actually very good.

Then I worked at a place where there was a guitarist who was a manager of a department. I'd moved back to Denver. He played some music he and friends wrote, and talked about jamming every week. I said "Do you mind if maybe I came and jammed with you some time?" He didn't say much.

A few days later he and the guy that had the garage they'd sound proofed and where they jam were in his area and they had a guitar case. They opened it up and it had a nice Jackson guitar in it. Now I've always wanted either a nice Jackson or ESP guitar as out of the many types I've played so far those are the two brands that had designs that really fit me and seemed to bring out sounds I didn't play other places. He jammed some and then handed me the guitar. I'd experienced this before and this is kind of to me like some people might pass a joint around a circle when they are smoking marijuana. It was the pass the guitar game, and it is one I've done many times as I don't smoke marijuana.

So I pick up the guitar say something like "This is a nice guitar, I'd like to get something like this" and commented that the neck thickness was thinner than any I'd tried before. Then I started noodling.

He and the other guy start looking at each other then they nod and say "He can come." and like that I was allowed to jam with them.

I hand him the guitar back and think we're doing that pass the guitar game and instead he just sticks it back into its case. He had only brought it in to see if I was worthy of jamming with them. I of course did not know this until after the fact.

So I showed up and jammed with them numerous weeks and I felt myself growing and I started imagining myself actually being able to play pieces I hadn't before.

They actually played songs I liked but never had played. I picked up and learned things like White Zombie's Thunderkiss 65 on the spot and liked the song. I'd also noodle and they'd say "ooh what was that" and we would swap stuff.

I remember saying "Yeah, man but you can play Satriani" to that other guitar player and he said "You can too" which was a big compliment to me. That was the high point of when I had pushed myself the furthest I ever had.
I'd have been hard pressed to play this Satriani song though - some of his songs I likely could have done

I switched jobs and stopped jamming with them after that. I kind of regret that at times. I should have kept jamming with them. I stopped really challenging myself after that.

Before I stopped playing with them I had found a song to push myself that I thought I could pull off. So at my pinnacle the following song is one I thought I could probably manage to learn. Then I stopped. :(

Minus this intro solo - I wasn't quite that fast

Yet, that did answer a question for me. When it came to technique and ability I guess I was pretty good from what people tell me. Yet I had all of that concealed because my playing was pretty much spontaneous stuff that I made up rather than memorizing and performing songs for people. It was almost meditative for me.

Apparently this is what my family would like me to get back into doing...

Now another point of nostalgia. I have a Guild Classical guitar I was given for High School Graduation in 1989. I only use nylon strings on it. I have two six string acoustics, and one 12 string. I have a beat up BC Rich Warlock as my only electric guitar. (I had a Gibson electric when I was younger and before I was a father that I sold to come up with a down payment on an apartment).

My B.C. Rich is nothing fancy, but it has huge nostalgic memories for me. I fixed a lot of computers with a computer consulting business for 9 years in a remote part of Colorado. The B.C. Rich I have was given to me as payment for fixing one guys computer. He had lost the Tremolo/Whammy bar for it, one of the pickups was missing a screw, and the back panel for the electronics was missing.

My father (now deceased) and I cut some clear plastic out and screwed it in place on the back, and the pickup is actually held in by a wood screw. It is not the easiest thing to play, and the sound is okay. Yet this guitar has huge nostalgic reasons for me simply due to the fact it was repaired by me and my father working together.

I do know when I played guitars of higher quality I can do things that I don't seem to do on my B.C. Rich but this is a guitar I will never get rid of simply due to the nostalgic meaning it has for me.

Thanks for letting me share some more of my personal life. Some people seem to like it when I do, and today this is what I felt like talking about. This all came up because people mentioning they thought I might have an insane typing speed. This might have a bit to do with that.

Steem On!