By Kirk Lorange
http://www.lorange.kirk.net

FOR THE LOVE OF IT
The other day, through a link in this great GuitarSite.com Newsletter Neil puts together every week, God bless him, I found a great site - Vision Music: http://www.visionmusic.com/jamtracks.html

There must be sixty or so midi files of blues feels, bossa nova feels, jazz swings and rock feels. Each comes with a simple chord chart. When each track finishes, it loops and starts up again. They are all very stripped down, clean arrangements by Mark Stefani, perfect for jamming along to. Good work, Stefani.

I spent the whole of Saturday in front of the iMac and I played through each of them at least a dozen times. Really. I had a million other things to do, but I couldn't tear myself away. I went hungry, didn't eat, couldn't have cared less. I just had to nail this one so I could go on to the next. They were like crossword puzzles. My arthritic finger even loosened up with all the playing I did! I couldn't get enough.

When I woke up this morning, I realized I'd just come out of a dream where a huge fretboard was somehow central to the plot.

It got me to wondering why it is I still do this playing the guitar thing I do. How is it possible that an instrument has kept me this interested for this long? How could 12 repeating notes give me so much pleasure after all these 38 years? I've been trying to figure it out all day.

Here are some possibilities:

I suffer from obsessive behavior, in other words I'm sick. It's the new weed that just hit town. Since I do it for a living, I practice to stay in work; It feels good to make those sounds, especially when you get it right; I still want the girls to like me; I still believe I'll make a million bucks out music; It's still a challenge.

I guess all of the above might have something to do with the reality of it, except like all lunatics, I don't really see myself as sick, but the fact is, I LOVE IT!

There is something about practising an art which is also a skill that involves your hands, coordination, intellect and heart, that uses time as a main ingredient, the outcome of which is music, that is totally addictive. I got hooked in 1961 and I'm still hooked. I've given up cigarettes and a few other toxins over the years, but I'm still thoroughly hooked on music. I just love making it. Whether to a room full of people or just to myself -- I don't really care who's listening.

The system we call music, those twelve notes and their octaves, and the infinite possibilities (once we throw time in as it's medium), is too strange to comprehend really. The fact that our inner ears are lined with microscopic hairs which vibrate at certain frequencies according to their length, and that guitars have six strings which vibrate at certain frequencies according to their length. ?!

Absurd.

And that these little hairs know when the frequencies coming from the guitar (or any other instrument) are perfect fractions of each other, and when they are, we enjoy it.

Mind boggling!

And that we guitarists can manipulate these guitar strings in such a way that we purposely blend frequencies, in the midst of time, in order to please some part of our audience's brains via their ears?

Cool.

When it all comes down to it, unless you do it for the love of it, you're wasting your precious time on Earth. I do it for a living, not always a good one, but I can't imagine doing anything else. When I started out, I figured the more I learned the less I'd have to learn. Wrong. The opposite actually holds true. The more you know, the more there is to know. The endless challenge of learning as many facts about music and then using them to shape a solo, or set up a feel, or write a chord progression that moves you, keeps me hooked.

The fact also that you can't touch or see music is endlessly fascinating to me too. Some musicians can look at a written score and see the beauty of the music there. I can't. I have to be hearing it. That involves time, in the form of the ever present moment.

I once read somewhere that it is music which sets us apart from the rest of the creatures, that music is a uniquely human endeavor. So be it.

Now, grab that guitar out of its case, go to http://www.visionmusic.com/jamtracks.html and get those strings a'vibratin'. You'll love it.

Oh, and if you want to know the trick to getting around the fretboard, visit my site.

All the best - K i r k

Home Page: http://lorange.kirk.net

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