THE SECRET LANGUAGE, FLYING FREE
HOW AND WHY PLAYING THE GUITAR MAKES A BETTER PERSON OUT OF ME
Over the last couple months, I’ve given a handful of guitar lessons to a couple of friends. And it’s been fascinating to give them some serious peeks under the musical hood, helping them decipher cryptic secrets of musical theory by things as simple as laying out all the notes on the neck, so they can begin to suss out the patterns.
In the process, I’m probably playing more acoustic guitar than I have in years. Harkening me back to the days when I pretty much lived with an acoustic in my hands, as I improvise licks over their chord progressions, upping the musical voltage of the experience while allowing them to witness first-hand how those patterns play out when you’re conversant and limber enough to make them dance in unexpected ways.
And here’s the thing: I loooove wiggling notes till they turn into something else. Somewhere between the tones of the known, the expected, and that dizzying somewhere-else where even YOU don't know where the fuck it's going next.
It throws me back to an amazing night of jamming, a couple years back, with a cool Brazilian-flavored jazz guitarist. Improvising melody lines, chordal drapes, and occasional wild riffage over his constantly-shifting and sonically rich harmonic changes.
At that point in the musical dance, you're reaching out into the zone for not just the right notes for whatever chord he's hitting, but the lead-in to the chords he's about to hit. Which could be a natural familiar segue, or something so off and out-there you couldn't possibly anticipate it. Unless you're right there with him. And where he goes, you go.
There is no explanation other than telepathy for how people play jazz, or any other mind-bogglingly complex music that isn't written out on a chart in front of you. You're totally going into a zone of the unexpected, where you surf every wave as it hits. If you're tuned in, you ride that wave. If you're not, you wipe out. And every note will tell you which.
Improv is not just the soul of creativity, but the process by which it is both exhibited and experienced. Cuz it is a fucking experience. It's a tuning-in to every frequency already running through you, where you open your circuits, and the only thing being repressed is your inhibitions. At which point, SHIT FLIES OUT! All kinds of amazing shit.
The rational mind is a back seat driver. The unconscious is the one at the actual wheel. And when you let it drive, you find out what you've really got to play and parlay.
Art is the process of developing the skills to communicate these things, in ways that ring like soul bells from our toenails to our skulls, then convey it all to others, ignite their circuits as well, and create the flow that most deeply connects us at those profound wiggle-zones of meaning.
Fact is, I am a better person when I play the guitar, or any other musical instrument. And not just because the world sounds better around me. But because I tune into something deep and powerful, that I always want to be tuned into. And is useful for everything else.
I know this all sounds esoteric as fuck. But to me, that's the math that differentiates between the art that truly moves me and the pre-fab fantasias that tell me what I already know some more.
Me, I like the element of surprise that only comes with the true unconscious deep dive. Where the notes wiggle unexpectedly. And I am forced to surf the waves between. All circuits open.
The secret language, flying free.
Thanks for continuing to play the guitar.