guitar!

for the past week or so, i’ve been trying to teach myself guitar. so far, i know the E, A, and D chords, and if i try hard enough, i can even transition between them!

learning an instrument doesn’t come naturally to me at all, but i know i have to do it anyways. my life has felt recently like it’s missing a certain something, and, like, 90% of the things i like doing (live shows! clubbing! making character playlists!) relate back to music in some way or another. i’ve always secretly wanted to be on the production end of those equations, and there’s no reason not to pursue that. looking at it one way, i’ve got all the time in the world!

and there’s something rewarding about trying to learn something that i am like the opposite of prodigious at. i TAed a class in my last year of college on the psychological processes behind learning, and one of my favorite topics that we covered was neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to constantly adapt and rewire itself in response to new input. all those adages about your brain being done with development at age 25 or a person’s inability to learn a new language in adulthood are complete myths. there’s no cut-off point for learning. my students often described learning about neuroplasticity as “reassuring”, and i’ve always thought so, too. i enjoy that my mind is something i can wrangle into the shape i want it to be in, even if it takes a lot of effort. immediate understanding is overrated.

two of my biggest inspirations for playing guitar are karly hartzman and xandy chelmis of the band wednesday. when i saw wednesday live in 2024, all the other bandmates were otherwise occupied, so it was literally just karly on this tiny little stage. before she played “bull believer”, she warned the audience that she hadn’t played it on her own before and felt kind of daunted, and requested that no videos be taken. fine by me cause that performance was literally burned into my retinas for the rest of my life. seeing her scream over guitar alone on stage for nine straight minutes was insane and visceral and i was like damn if i don’t get to do this at least once in my life then what’s the fuck all point. xandy is also fucking awesome on their recordings… pedal steel… waow…

ryland heagy of origami angel is also very much someone i want to take pointers from. i think a lot of the reason origami angel has received so much acclaim despite having a lot of the markers that get a band immediately branded as unserious (not that i’ve ever bought into that branding) is because those guys both just have this total insane complete command over their instruments. the guitar in “666 flags” literally feels like a beautiful crashing waterfall. i want to make stuff that sounds like a beautiful crashing waterfall!!!

practice is slow going, but that’s kind of the nature of most things. i work full time and have a lot of other shit to take care of, but i try to find free moments where i can. hopefully i’ll get good enough to have something to show you guys at some point. :)