#1 No Pain, No Gain

Well, what a first week that was! I’m not one for writing down my thoughts and feelings so bear with me as I attempt to make sense of it all. I’m told reflection is good for the soul so here goes…

My first week started off, well, painfully! As you can see from the picture below, going from zero practice to full pelt is not, and has never been a particularly good idea. After far too much string bending (ooh err) I ended up developing a monstrous blister that even Dr Pimple Popper herself would have trouble dealing with.

I arrived at Pirate Studios, Manchester on a dreary Monday morning all sprightly and full of beans, armed with a plan that had me utterly convinced I’d be making sweet, sweet blues guitar music in no time. Like some sort of guitar playing pioneer searching for gold in the Mid-West, I’d decided to split up my time into categories so that I could document and work on each little piece of the blues playing puzzle without becoming overwhelmed (radical I know!). My session plan consisted of blues rhythm, blues lead, improvisation, transcribing and technique; allowing myself 30 minutes to an hour for each section.

So there I was at 10am – no warm up, no recap, no awareness – jumping head first into transcribing a guitar solo by the great Josh Smith. 

12pm came around in an instant and I was still transcribing. “What is this trickery!?” I muttered as 2pm sauntered around the corner with a pair of shades on. I’m still frantically trying to learn a part consisting only of string bends with my baby soft fingers.  “Right” I exclaimed, looking at the huge monster developing on my finger “Let’s move on to some rhythm!”

I think you get the picture.

I’d started the week off like an eager teenager in my bedroom and finished it realising I was a middle aged, out-of-practice Electrician. By the Thursday, the term “consciously incompetent” came to mind! It was a complete shock to my system; I’d literally had my arse handed to me on a silver platter. The little confidence I had, was completely shot and I wondered whether I’d been a little bit too ambitious. 

Friday rolled round and luckily, I had a mentor session booked in with my long time tutor, Jason Brown. He’s always had a way of bringing me back into focus and it was just what I needed. The week had taught me that I needed some proper structure to work within and more than that I needed some accountability. I needed someone other than myself to moderate my work and help me mould this project into something practical and realistic. Jason set clear objectives for me and I came out of his session feeling reinvigorated with a sense of direction. 

All in all this week has been a real eye opener but as I hung the guitar up on Friday evening I was confident week 2 would be much more positive.