By Jeff Burrows
Okay, I show my age a bit by spoofing the often repeated lines of Dr. McCoy in the original Star Trek Series. Are you a guitar player, or are you a Doctor, or something else? If you do play the guitar, do you really play the guitar when you play? Are you really making music?
I might as well show my age some more by referring to a Far Side comic strip by Gary Larson. There was a dog professor conducting class with a bunch (pack-ha) of dutiful and attentive dog students. The dog professor had a pointer and he was pointing at the blackboard. On the blackboard was an elaborate and intricate blueprint drawing of a doorknob.
You see, the doorknob was a crucial and pivotal lesson to be learned by the dog students. Without knowledge of the doorknob meant a world filled with nastiness; sleeping under a tree, scrounging through trash for snacks, getting rained on, running from that little chihuahua down the street (what's his problem anyway!). A world with doorknob knowledge meant getting to go inside the house, and a world full of sunbeams; laying by the fire, a never-ending bowl of food, drinking from the toilet bowl (I know he says, I can't help myself, it's the way I'm wired), barking at that little chihuahua down the street (through the window of course).
Before you read the next few sentences, your brain needs to do the equivalent of running a few laps, and then doing a few sets of sit-ups and push-ups. A lot of human learningrequires us to use symbols and types as representations for the thing itself that we are really interested in. People often get confused and tangled up in these symbols and types when trying to understand the thing itself. People often mistake the symbols and types for the thing itself. Okay, here are some smelling salts. Lay down on the bench and take five.
I remember George Martin (the musical producer of the Beatles, not the author of Game of Thrones for you youngsters) relating how he was charmed, when the Beatles harmonized the ending to one of their early songs with a major sixth chord. You see, to them, it was a MAJOR SIXTH chord. It was an organic thing itself. It was a living, breathing part of the music. Now it is fairly straightforward to learn how to play major sixth chords on the guitar. We get out big chord books and learn lots of ways to play these chords. I will play a major sixth chord. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. I will now add a dominant ninth chord to the major sixth chord. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. There's a Bible verse (2 Corinthians 3:6) that says, "For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life". It is one thing to play a major sixth chord. It is another thing entirely to play a MAJOR SIXTH chord. Ah, this is getting interesting you say. Let's continue then.
Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel. - Jimi Hendrix
Let's go back to the dog professor illustration. We want to be inside the house laying in front of the fire.We want to be chewing on a bone. We want to be dreaming about running through a sunny meadow chasing a slow, overweight rabbit. (More specifically, we want to be free to make beautiful music unhindered by physical or mental limitations.)
Some players can rip through scales and arpeggios like Terminator running a wood-chipper in the backyard. And I'm not talking just up and down. They can play them backwards and forwards, invert them, break them into sixteenths, and triplets. You name it. They can do it. They can probably even play them upside down dressed as Batman. The point is, that's really just the diagram of the doorknob. We could even allow that it could be the doorknob. However, it's not in the house. Remember, we want to be in the house.
I'm going to boil this down for you in the back row. Here comes the main point. If this were an NFL football game you would hear swishing and swooshing sounds, and see morphing graphics. Since I am also a Mathematical Statistician, I am going to put this into an equation.
Chords + Scales + Arpeggios does not equal Music
Now, chords, scales and arpeggios can be a part of music. However, by themselves, they are not MUSIC. They are only the doorknob or the door. There is much to be said for studying these elements of music. Through musical knowledge, a mind-blowing number, maybe even limitless, amount, of doorknobs and doors can be discovered.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. - Lao Tzu
However, we need to remember our goal is to get inside the house. Our goal is not to learn about doors and doorknobs. There is a moth-to-the-flame attraction about Terminator running the wood chipper in the backyard. However, it's like the old sideshow barkers trying to separate people from their money in order to see the bearded lady or lobster boy. In the end, now, like then, I think you will be disappointed. There is so much that awaits us, if we can only find our way through the door. Let's go inside together, and warm ourselves by the fire.
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