The Zen of Rock and Roll: Life Lessons from Playing Guitar

I picked up the guitar at the age of 17. As a teen, I loved hard-rock music: Bryan Adams, Steven Curtis Chapman, Eric Clapton, Metallica, and many more.  The brawn and sizzle of an overdriven guitar was the soundtrack of my youth.  My mother bought me my first guitar and amp: a black Squire Stratocaster, and a Fender Champ amplifier.  She also paid for guitars lessons ($15 for a half hour in 1996).  Cory, my guitar teacher, wore long hair and earrings.  His virtuosity seemed unearthly. He would shred to Van Halen and fall back to the easy groove of Hendrix, gliding up and down the neck with grace and ease. Inspired by his prowess, I practiced scales and chords, studied songs and solos. Gripped by the blues, I learned to improvise through classics like Crossroads, Hoochie Coochie Man, and Born Under a Bad Sign. The bug bit me, and I couldn’t put down the guitar.

I remain under the spell even decades later. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t hanker for a strum.  My study is cramped with guitars, amps, and pedals. Playing the guitar is not simply a wonderful hobby, it has opened doors for me wherever I went. While living in Japan, I walked into a church and soon started to play for Sunday worship. While living on an off-grid island, I joined neighbourhood jams, performed at open-mike nights and was thus initiated into the community. Further, playing music has afforded me access to the ineffable, a form of expression that transcends language and ideation. Music is a marvellous refuge; immersed in rhythm and harmony, the notes transport me into a realm both ethereal and sublime.  Time disappears, the parochial self dissolves. There are numerous ways to achieve the flow state, but for me, music offers that rare state of transcendence in which strenuous effort disappears into exalted form.

In my years of playing guitar, I have gleaned a few lessons that apply both to the mastery of an instrument, and conduct of life itself.  Here are a few vignettes that hold wisdom for all of us, musician and non-musicians alike.

Time equates. Choice differentiates.

 I was visiting Tom Lee Music on Granville Street in the summer of ’97.  A young man of similar age plugged in a Stratocaster and began a riff that caught my ear.  He was coaxing double-stops and fast licks with a fury worthy of Hendrix himself.  Impressed by his skill, I asked him how long he’d been playing.  “A year,” he replied. Although I had not been playing much longer, I could not muster the fluidity and flair so evident in his playing. I left the store feeling sheepish. Although we had been playing for roughly the same amount of time, the intensity of his practice had paid dividends in ways that mine had not.  

Although we all come from various backgrounds and occupy different stations, we are each afforded the same 24 hours.  Time is the great equalizer. How we use those hours marks the difference in the direction of our lives. Someone who consistently spends an hour each day on learning an instrument will soon possess a proficiency that others perceive as mastery. The same is true of other activities.  Spend 30 minutes a day in physical exercise, and over the course of years, health and vitality become evident.  Scroll social media for two hours a day, and our minds and lives will reflect an entrenched habit. Some people, due to economic hardship, cannot easily choose what they do with their time.  For them, work and survival are always the foremost priority.  Even then, how we direct our attention during the hours of commute, what we do when we get home, have a bearing on the fruits our lives will bear.  What we do with our time is what we eventually become. How we spend this hour is how we choose our fate.  

Yes, you can too. . .

I remember several moments with Cory, my guitar teacher.  Once, I had asked him to teach me the opening riff to Lynard Skynard’s classic Sweet Home Alabama.  Cory taught me the riff, a simple D-C-G progression.  At one point in the lesson, we alternated the rhythm part and each took turns soloing over the progression.  I was impressed with his skill, his tasteful weaving of melody and harmony, the occasional flurry of notes for effect.  “If I could play like you, I’d be playing all day, every day,” I said.  “Well, you can too one day!” he replied. I could not believe him at the time.  That level of proficiency seemed outside the realm of possibility.

However, over the course of many years, my own skills grew steadily.  I was inspired by, and learned from, many master guitarists.  However, I was not measuring myself against anybody else.  I pushed myself, learned new material, refined what I knew, and integrated new knowledge into existing repertoire. I followed my taste and curiosity. If I heard a song on the radio that I liked, I would try to figure out how to play it on guitar.  I studied instructional videos and learned styles from different genres.  Alas, without consciously measuring myself against anyone else, I too am able to improvise a coherent solo over a chord progression.  I can shred or lean back into a groove. Left to my own, I could indeed spend hours playing guitar.  Cory was right.  I too, could become a proficient player.

Mastery always feels impossible. That’s a wonderful thing, because mastery is never the aim.  Instead, we only focus on a manageable task in the here and now.  Forget the pyrotechnics of Eddie Van Halen.  Work on these 3 notes.  Learn to play them clean and true.  Then, learn to play the next 3 notes. Then, put them together slowly.  Practice playing them a bit faster, keeping each note clean and defined.  Watch for sloppiness. Soon, we find ourselves doing something previously thought impossible. We can never accomplish anything grand at once; rather, we stay faithful in the little things, and in so doing, overcome the insurmountable. Whether it is completing a degree, finishing a novel, or learning a language, faithfulness in the fractional portions leads to a sum greater than the parts. Mastery is a happy accident. Minutiae is all.

Plateau is foe

When musicians reach a level of proficiency, their skills enable them to create and enjoy music.  No level of proficiency is insignificant.  The ability to coax sound and emotion from an instrument provides one of the finest joys of life.  However, each level of skill comes with its own temptation.  One can be seduced by the pride of proficiency and remain tethered to its familiarity.  

After I learned the pentatonic scale, I practiced patterns and groupings that slip effortlessly from my fingers. Once integrated into muscle memory, I would run these patterns mindlessly every time I picked up the guitar.  This becomes the “noodling” that annoy audiences and other musicians.  What I play when I “noodle” indicates my plateau, the solid skills that define my proficiency; they serve me effortlessly when I need to fall back on something familiar. On the other hand, they spell the limit of what I can do.  Music becomes stale when I only play what I already know.  The guitar no longer invigorates the soul.

To break from plateau, I need to challenge oneself with something new.  I often look for songs to learn, new techniques to try, new chord voicings and progressions, new genres to explore. Last week, I spent hours learning a picking pattern developed by Chet Atkins.  It was tough going. Each time I learn something new, I revert to a hapless beginner. The deftness of my existing skill leaves me. My fingers are clumsy and my hands ungainly. Overcoming a plateau requires a willingness to begin again, to face the messy frustration of trying something new.  Only in re-investing in our practice, returning to the beginner’s mind can we reinvigorate the craft.

Similarly, our journey through life takes us through plateaus.  A certain level of comfort and stability can feel like a nurturing shelter. Dwell in the comfort too long and stasis soon sets in.  Inertia and lassitude take over, and soon our passions start to fade. This is how the soul atrophies.  The affordances of the familiar can dull our faculties and blunt our fervour. Instead, we can keep challenging ourselves by pushing our own horizons.  Try a new skill, open yourself to a different experience.  Within the bounds of what is safe and reasonable, do something that you never thought you could do.  Your choice to do so will feel strange and uncomfortable; that’s the mark of beginner’s mind, a new spark illuminating from within, even if only a flicker at first.  In challenging ourselves with something new, we skate closer to that part of us that blooms in anticipation of possibility.  We also contact the child within who is riveted by what the world offers.

These lessons I have gleaned after 30 years of playing the guitar.  I still feel excited when I see the strings gleam against the fretboard.  After a day at work, I long to strum a lush chord.  Music is among the finest gifts of life.  The practice of making music is analogous to how I make a life.  My music is the effort and attention devoted to craft. The same is true of life. Neglect practice for a week and soon the callouses soften and the chops fade.  It can be hard to return to my previous proficiency and enthusiasm.  Neglect my work, relationships, and contemplative practice, and soon things fall out of kilter. What makes a fine musician – the hours spent in quite practice, picking, strumming, perfecting each note and line – also makes a fine life.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *