It goes without saying that most, if not all, guitar players started their careers with single-minded purpose- namely to impress and seduce girls. It sounds crass, but after years of interviewing guitar players, that’s the story I’ve heard over and over again. Disregard the sentiments you hear from some stating that “I needed to express somehow the profound and mysterious feelings within me, which seemed caged and seeking to rip my insides to shreds in search of freedom and release.” It really gets down to the pickers and strummers wanting to get the girl naked! But that’s a story best told by others. Here’s a different guitar story.
My first guitar was a Stella Harmony 6 string bottom of the barrel instrument. It could be tuned and played just barely. The perfect beginner’s instrument. My parents had encouraged me to learn to play both guitar and piano, but an overbearing and smelly piano teacher drove me into the arms of guitar. I took some guitar lessons, as a lad of 11 or 12 years old, but couldn’t seem to get a grip on how to make the guitar sound good. I was working as a paperboy at the time, so always had money to spend on music books, and was convinced that learning to play by mastering the songs by my favorites was the path I needed to travel, if I was to play well enough to impress a girl enough to get naked and frolic with me.
It wasn’t working out for me though. I couldn’t make the guitar do anything but sound like shit. I recall listening to “I Can See For Miles” over and over, a hit song by The Who, and wondering if perhaps I just didn’t have what it took to play like Pete Townshend. Another earth-shaking thought I had at the time was that it appeared to me that it seemed that all the good songs had been written already, so why bother trying to add my two cents worth, and to face reality and move on. These were not kind thoughts for a 7th grade punk to be having. So I made a decision.
I took my music books into the yard, along with the Stella Harmony, and constructed a pyre with the intent of exorcising it all from my psyche. After smashing the 6 string against the house foundation, in honor of my hero Pete Townshend, then carefully placing the wreckage upon the mound of music books, I then lit the pyre and watched my dreams go up in smoke and flame. I was released. It’s then that I embarked on a life of crime.
A couple of years later I’d been busted and convicted of serious crimes, and grounded for a six month period by my enraged father. They were dark days indeed. But then, one day my mother handed me a new 6 string guitar and said to me, “This will help you son.” The guitar was another entry-level instrument, but had the scent of a Stradivarius, given my circumstances. I was back in the game!
I’d heard Lightnin’ Hopkins and Leo Kotke and really liked their playing. Not to speak of Pete Townshend. And Duane Allman’s slide playing was sublime. I took a new tack in my quest for guitar competence. I would not try to learn to play other people’s songs, but would only play my own songs, if I could ever make one up. I would though be deeply influenced by their playing styles.
In the boredom of being grounded for 6 months I learned ‘single finger blues pickin’. So for hours on end I would make my thumb keep time upon a bass string, all the while calling out to the universe for inspiration. Tedious to be sure, but necessary if I were to be able to play without someone else keeping time. Eventually the thumb had a muscle memory going on, so I worked on making my index finger do things without interfering with the thumb’s autonomy. An example of this ‘single finger blues pickin’ is the song Fleeting Sparrow. Another example is the song Vino Veritas. It’s alot like brick laying, which I’ve also done alot of in my life. The first few thousand are a bitch, then it just becomes muscle memory.
If you’ve ever seen Pete Townshend play guitar you see that he treats his instrument as if it’s a log needing to be split with the axe of his arm, then hewn to his own peculiar artistic purposes. I followed suit by learning to assault the guitar strings as if I were pummeling the bullies who surrounded me and taunted me. I had the greatest fun learning to abuse the guitar in such a fashion. And of course, slide guitar playing like Duane Allman is every strummer’s dream, and I can assure you that it ain’t easy to do, but sure is fun. My cohort JS Bowers once said that “Nobody plays guitar like Butchvarov”. Could be, given that I spent so much time learning from the masters. Another guitar philosophy I’ve held close is that I prefer to play cheap instruments. My latest electric guitar cost $99.00, plus tax. And it plays good! But that’s another story I’ll write some day. “Cheap Guitars and Cheap Cigars”.
CP Butchvarov 2024