{"id":1102,"date":"2015-01-08T08:13:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T16:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=1102"},"modified":"2015-05-07T08:15:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-07T16:15:59","slug":"if-i-had-mastery-over-a-musical-instrument-i-probably-wouldnt-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/if-i-had-mastery-over-a-musical-instrument-i-probably-wouldnt-write\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Had Mastery Over A Musical Instrument, I Probably Wouldn\u2019t Write."},"content":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 8th: I Got Skills<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick?<\/em><\/p>\n

Something musical. Guitar, drums, or piano. You should see me when I\u2019m out on the road, going for a run, and something really good comes on the iPod. My fingers twitch, and I\u2019ve been known to air-drum my way past amused on-lookers. Honestly, I secretly hope that one or more of them will, based solely on how my hands are moving, figure out what song I\u2019m listening to.<\/p>\n

Which is a silly dream but what are you going to do.<\/p>\n

I would love to be able to shred like John Petrucci or Rodrigo of Rodrigo y Gabriella (or Gabriella, she\u2019s awesome too) or Anouk or the lead guitarist for Daikaiju. Or any of a hundred other guitar maniacs that get me through my 5ks and 10ks. The way their fingers fly. Such mastery, such precision. I\u2019d sit at home all day and just noodle. I have songs in my head, can make them up on the spot, no problem at all. I just can\u2019t turn thoughts into notes<\/p>\n

Not the way I can turn thoughts into words. And as I\u2019ve mentioned before and will surely mention again, I love how, with writing, sometimes I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s going to be written until I\u2019m in the middle of it. Imagine being able to do that with a wicked guitar solo!<\/p>\n

Or piano. I\u2019m a sucker for the Bach Partitas for solo harpsichord. There\u2019s one in particular that I\u2019ve heard a few different folks play, and this is going to sound super-arrogant, but none of them are playing it right. I don\u2019t have a music degree, I\u2019m no Bach-scholar, but what I wouldn\u2019t give to be able to sit down and play that piece that I way I feel it should be be played.<\/p>\n

Went to a Vanessa Carlton performance, once. In between songs she\u2019d talk to the audience, and as she talked, her hands would just dance around the keyboard, making little things up without her putting too much thought or effort into. Effortless, that\u2019s the key. I have a neighbor who can do that, just sit at the piano and make things happen without any planning or memorization.<\/p>\n

But then there\u2019s the drums. Oh man, the amount of energy that goes into pounding those skins. I\u2019d love to sit down and just go nuts, sweat flying everywhere until my arms are on fire. I love it in a song when the drummer\u2019s not just keeping the beat but workings his ass off.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often told people that I don\u2019t think Danny Carey, the drummer for Tool, is a human being. He can\u2019t be. Not the way he plays. If you kidnapped me 30 years ago and forced me to take lessons and practice drumming and threatened me Whiplash style, I still wouldn\u2019t be able to play half as well as he does.<\/p>\n

Oh, but if I could. Maybe it\u2019s for the best though. If I had mastery over a musical instrument, I probably wouldn\u2019t write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postaday for January 8th: I Got Skills.\u00a0If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick? Something musical. Guitar, drums, or piano. You should see me when I\u2019m out on the road, going for a run, and something really good comes on the iPod. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “If I Had Mastery Over A Musical Instrument, I Probably Wouldn\u2019t Write.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postaday","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-hM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}