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| Jamming on the guitar |
Right now, you are checking out a website for guitarists.
This means either you already play and are looking for a little vindication of your obsession, or you’re a beginner looking to find out whether you chose the right instrument. Well, here is every reason you need to quiet that little voice in the back of your head asking, “Why am I doing this?”
Anyway, here are the top 10 reasons to start playing guitar:
10. Mating
Boys, admit it. Whatever your purportedly purist goals were, you had visions of female affection racing through your mind when you figured out the riff to “Enter Sandman.” After all, it pays off when the fairer sex sees how well you can use your hands.
Conversely, girls, though you often don’t get proper recognition as players, you automatically have the rapt attention of every male music-nerd who dreams of dating a guitar heroine.
09. Piss off Your Parents
Rebellion is a natural expression of individuality. Since several generations of adults were raised on rock music, it takes a bit of creativity to get under the folks’ skin. A gentle, new-age acoustic interlude could drive Slayer-loving parents bonkers. And if you want to get artsy, assembling a dozen friends to rehearse an atonal Glen Branca guitar symphony should do the trick.
08. An Alternative to the Sporting Life
Too short and skinny to play football? Pick up an axe. The average jock’s self-esteem — not to his mention knees — collapses shortly after high school. For guitarists, life just gets better, as there are years of gigs, jam sessions, and musical explorations ahead.
07. Improve Your Vocabulary
Learn the arcane meanings of common words like action, bridge, gauge, stack, shred, and pickup. Using their secret meanings around the square crowd might lead to embarrassing and potentially dangerous situations, but when you speak them around another guitarist, he will recognize you as one of the club and doors will open.
06. Be the Life of the Party
People are drawn toward guitarists in social situations — as long as those guitarists play (rather than talk about gear). It’s the guitarist’s responsibility to lead the campfire sing-alongs as well as make night club audiences gasp at ripping-good riffs or solos. Lamp shades and chicken buckets are optional.
05. Form a Band and Join the Circus
It’s a great way to meet friends and gain attention. If the combo is good, you could stay away from home for weeks at a time, eat a steady diet of fast food, associate with mentally unbalanced characters, get ripped off by club owners, and then return to a lousy job so you can save up money to do it all again.
04. Head start on a Psychology or Management Degree
You’ve seen This Is Spinal Tap and The Commitments. Once in a band, you get to observe the twisted little minds of musicians. If you figure out how to make the insane drummer, egomaniacal singer, absent bassist, (ahem) insecure guitarist, and redundant yet snobbish keyboardist get along and show up for gigs on time, document it and put it on your college application. Dammit, sociologists get published for writing about musician subculture.
03. Versatility
You can’t play chords on a violin. You can’t slur notes on a piano. You can’t play counterpoint harmonies on a sax. Pete Townshend couldn’t have beaten up Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock if he had played bagpipes now, could he? It ain’t perfect, but the guitar has a vast range of musical possibilities for those who take the time to learn it well.
02. Slay Your Idols
OK, Nietzsche (pictured above), once you master “Eruption,” the next step is proving you’re faster than Yngwie, more inventive than Hendrix, and more athletic than Angus. You will dominate the guitar universe and lay your heroes to waste! Good luck. Don’t attempt to be a god. Strive for guru status, develop a cult of followers, and sell them instructional videos.
01. Enlightenment
If you wade though all the other reasons for playing and make it a lifelong activity, the realization will hit that you possess the gift of communicating with people through the sublime language of music. Ever walk away from a gig or a jam session and felt as if you had just been in another world because your playing was so good? That’s the ticket to nirvana, brah.
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| Guitar frustration |
First things first: We don’t want you to stop playing guitar. After all, Guitar World is a magazine for guitarists, and so playing guitar is something we promote.
Pursuing a special interest, however, has its hazards. For one, approached with the wrong outlook, your hobby/vocation could lead to pathological behavior. Indeed, much like The Force, the guitar, once mastered, can be used either for good or for evil.
Consider yourself warned.
10. Guitar Lingo Cramps Your Game: Convinced that strapping on a guitar is akin to bathing in Spanish fly, you get the idea that mentioning you are a guitarist is a tremendous pick-up line. See how her interest wanes as you wax eloquently about the Spanish Phrygian scale, the scale of love. Keep this up and you will spend the rest of your life alone.
09. You Can Make More Money Selling Lemonade: What, playing the guitar isn’t making you rich? But those rock magazines made it look so easy — as though any dunce with a savant-like talent for plagiarizing Zeppelin riffs could make a down payment on a new Jag. Yeah, right. Unless you can diversify your talents, you’re better off busking by slapping beef tongues together. At least that way you might actually catch the attention of passersby.
08. To Curb Your Flagrant Ego: Caught up in the fiercely competitive (yet small) world of guitar hotshots — where the main objective is to play faster than the dude sitting next to you at Guitar Center — you have forgotten one thing: in the big scheme of things, relatively few people on the planet care if you are the alpha dog of the Strat. And yet, operating with an inflated sense of self-importance, you have broken up good bands and destroyed friendships. What’s worse, the old-time guitar teacher with a love for folk, who can no longer compete with you, has gone out of business and is living on the street. Thanks, arsehole. Widdly, widdly, widdly …
07. You’re Worshipping False Gods: Clapton is not God. In fact, it’s possible that the pressure put on him by the mere suggestion that he was God drove him to booze and drugs — well, that and the endless line of stalkers looking for parables about string bending. Have you been tempted into this sort of zealotry by your favorite soloist? If so, you are a fanatic. Please stop before your lust for guitar playing destroys the world, as predicted in Revelations.
06. You’re Running Out of Floor Space: Apparently, the latest trend in home decorating is clutter. Yeah — some long-winded yuppy showed it to me in one of those glossy lifestyle magazines. I’m kidding. Hey, pack rat, try selling some of that gear—the various stompboxes, 14 wah pedals, and busted A.D.A. — you’ve been collecting since high school, and you just might have enough room to invite some people over. As a bonus, you may be left with enough cash to pay rent for another month.
05. Because You’re Bumming Us Out: Hey, guitar is great therapy. No doubt about it. But keep in mind that personal sessions are subject to instrument-patient confidentiality. Setting your personality disorder to Am–C–G–D and inflicting the depressing results on a captive audience is not only embarrassing — it’s downright cruel. Either refine your craft or invest in a sense of humor.
04. A Professional Injury: In your pursuit to be the ultimate string-stretching guitar hero, you have now damaged the tendons in your wrist. Technical term: carpal tunnel syndrome. You’ve tried awkward wrist braces. That didn’t work. Now your thumbs have curled in on themselves. You are less than human. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, don’t sue us or the guitar shop when it does. Oh yeah, and be careful with those pointy heavy metal guitars.
03. The Malmsteen Effect: You’ve hit an existential crisis. You’ve seen Yngwie … and Van Halen, and Buckethead, and Paul Gilbert, and Michael Freakin’ Angelo. You’ve tried to play like them. But no matter how you train your fingers and study your theory, you never get it right. As your eyes become voids of despair, you ponder whether it’s worth continuing with this guitar, this … monstrosity. Despite that, your chops are in fine form.
02. There’s Nowhere Left to Go: Hell-bent on taking yourself to the top of the guitar heap, you’ve secretly developed techniques and products that are sure to get you noticed: things like using six amps on stage (one for each string), playing a five-neck, putting alligator clips on your strings, and swallowing a pack of D’Addarios and playing them internally. In short, your fixation has driven you mad.
01. Thou Shalt Not Covet: Remember the scene from This Is Spinal Tap where Nigel Tufnel shows off his guitar collection, including the one that has never been played? Is this you? Do you keep your guitars in plastic and sleep with the Blue Book of Guitars under your pillow? Guitars are meant to make music, not to be bought and stored. Have a heart: Some Third World countries are experiencing guitar shortages. In addition, your obsessive habit has driven up the price of common used guitars. Quit now before you single-handedly collapse the economy.Those are just a few reasons to pick up, or put down, the guitar. There's a good chance you could add more to either list, but this is some good "food-for-thought." If you're on the fence about playing the guitar, some of these reasons could push you one way or the other. Regardless of which way you go, have a good time with it and do it for good reason.
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Have fun and stay tuned!
Mike
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