Unlearning

As a member of the East Tennessee State University faculty, I get to take one class for free every session, should I choose. I do. I have taken graduate-level courses in incorporating software into teaching, a number of entry-level fitness classes with the ROTC program, and, lately, guitar lessons through our Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music program. They have all presented challenges, but the guitar classes have required me to unlearn years of habit, assumption, and seeming familiarity.

I got my first guitar when I was in my early teens, and I never had formal lessons. With the guitar, I got a book that offered chord diagrams, and, in those days before the Internet, I had to resort to music books and playing by ear. I was pleased to learn particular patterns in learning rhythm guitar, and, since I was playing mostly to relax myself, I felt comfortable with what I had accomplished. There lay the problem, being comfortable.

In the intervening years, my relationship to the guitar changed. I took it to college, and even before my wife and I had children, I was still playing regularly at home, mainly to relax. When the kids starting coming along, though, I had to start putting some personal things aside. They required so much attention that between home responsibilities and work responsibilities, it was all I could do to keep up. I still feel that way, but as the kids got more and more self-sufficient, other matters arose.

About three years ago, I decided it was time to start reclaiming some of those parts of myself that I had neglected. I started getting up earlier in the day so I could have some selfish time. I started running. I started paying more attention to my creative writing. I decided that I wanted formal guitar lessons. I found out that I should have always been running. I found out that I missed creative writing. I found out that there are a number of ways to play guitar, and I had cornered myself for years.

My guitar teacher, Dave Yates, started my off by asking why I was thrashing, a churning style of playing chords that I grew to understand could compromise my effectiveness in accompanying a soloist. He encouraged my playing by ear. He emphasized that there is more than one way to play a chord, and that it is better to select a particular configuration for the given situation than to assume that the same configuration is right every time. He wants me to "stop thinking too much."

Why is it that so many people tell me that I think about things too much?

He means that I should practice and let a combination of growing familiarity and muscle memory take over until I can talk while playing--maybe singing later, but he should be wary of that step--and I am working to get there. Right now, he is wanting me to learn to play "When You Say Nothing at All," a song covered by Alison Krauss, and even when I get the guitar part to where I will be comfortable to play in front of others, my vocals will never be as sweet.

Someone will probably tell me that I am thinking about it too much and that I should just sing.