A Meandering Tale of Lost School Reports and How I Became a Stand-up Guy
18 July 2025
The last few days have been revolutionary for me. After posting last Saturday, I rather regretted not inserting an audio clip from the tiny concert to establish my credentials as a true beginner (and torture all your ears unmercifully (no matter how many ears you may have)). Unfortunately, although it was a whole week since the infamous gig I had so far lacked the courage to listen to the recordings myself! What a wimp!
However, I’ve been, encouraged and amazed by some of the early demonstrations uploaded by our brave colleagues and since I can’t work out how to upload an audio clip, I determined to at least listen to the ‘Live Album’ myself.
Girding my loins with cheap girders, I stretched out my trembling hand to the desk drawer where the memory stick lay. I knew it must be since it had lurked in the same place for years. Would I be proved incompetent, mediocre or genius? Only time and iTunes would tell. But horrors! The drawer was as empty as the heart of my mother-in-law.
It didn’t take long for me to realise who the culprit was likely to be. Do you know the concept of the Inner Child? Briefly, it’s part of our psyche which recalls the feelings, thoughts and actions that helped us with difficulties in childhood – kind of a super memory for use when similar situations occur. Often, we don’t notice when it takes over our grown-up lives but I’ve become very familiar with Little Donald over the years and I could see his handiwork here.
You see, I distinctly remember waiting to deliver my school reports to my dad till I was certain he was in a good mood. Donald was worried that my Critical Parent (a memory of angry Dad) would be scathing about the performance and I was sure he was hiding the memory stick, even though I had no conscious knowledge of it. I knew Donald had been instrumental (Haha!) in the performance because I was so frightened at the time. In the here and now (aka. reality), there was nothing to fear so the nerves were from a child-like part of me.
Anyway, I searched the apartment, starting with the rucksack which I’d used to carry all my gear home from Sam’s and widening to encompass the entire five rooms in which I live, and then the car. And then all of those places one more time adding the really unlikely places like the bottom of the cornflakes box and the dog’s bed. I found nothing.
Oh, maybe I’d left it at Sam’s? I called her and it wasn’t there. They would have known, they are minimalists and their house is operating theatre tidy. She offered to send a copy of the so-called music but I declined with a smile saying, “I have a feeling it will turn up.” I also confessed to an odd feeling of relief…
Now, I think little Donald was listening to our conversation and now knew that I was far more amused by his crimes than annoyed. I think I hear his “Phew!” He would also know that a copy was available so there was no escape. I firmly expected that I’d eventually stumble on the memory stick, in a jar of jam perhaps or cemented into the basement floor. I was certainly not expecting a cryptic confession.
That night I dreamed that I found the cashbook/music stick in that little pocket inside the right-hand pocket of my jeans. I leapt out of bed and searched the jeans, even though I haven’t worn them since the heatwaves started a month ago. Nope. I searched all the other pockets of all my other clothes, just in case. Nothing but tissues and poo bags, fortunately unused. He’s definitely talking about a pocket, a secret pocket inside a pocket. Where else do I have pockets? The rucksack, but I’d fingertip searched that at least twice already. I’ll try again.
With a torch in hand, I all but climbed into that bag. I discovered that the inside of the main compartment has some spare material where it’s sewn together. This has curled into a fabric ‘tube’ and inside was the treasure! It was a pocket inside a compartment and until then, secret even from my consciousness. Well played, Donald, well played!) I promised myself (because in fact Donald, Don and Dad are all just aspects of myself) that I’d listen to the recordings with sympathy and kindness, not harsh judgments.
And that’s what I did. I didn’t even feel embarrassed. My heart went out to me during the first two nervous songs. It’s like seeing my actual children in a school play. I was glad when I heard myself getting more grown up and conquering some of my insecurities.
On the tapes it’s often quite difficult to hear my playing over the sound of the backing tracks. However, I think can hear enough to judge the gig fairly, taking into account my partial deafness, arthritis, age and relative newness to guitar, and the fact that I have never before heard a recording of myself singing.
I’m pleased with the guitar work. Most of the chords were on time, on target and fairly clean. Most of the time I kept the time reasonably well. I was able to put some emotion into two or three of the songs and listening to them now makes my eyes moisten a little. I’m very curious to know whether you, as objective listeners can feel that in my Johnny Cash-esque version of Hurt? (It makes the dog anxious for me so I think he might be able to feel it – he comes to sit on my knee when I play it back.)
Much of the playing sounds harsh, caused I think by hitting the strings too hard due to being so tense. I was all a-quiver for ages afterwards. That’s something I think I can fix, now that I’m aware of it.
I was stunned by my singing voice and not very happy. It’s bad, no question. The volume varies at random from a parade ground SHOUT to a muttering whisper, and at times it’s laughably melodramatic. I put enormous amounts of emphasis onto far too many of the words and miss some words completely when I run out of puff.
Subtlety is not my middle name! Some of this is due to my nerves, the acoustics, the uncomfortably cramped seating position on a strange chair, and the too-loud guitar in a small room. I’ve never sung anything (while sober) before this year and never heard my singing recorded. There’s a lot to be done with that voice before I’m going to let it out in public again. I may even seek individual singing lessons.
I have decided against using the app as a combined backing track and security blanket ever again. It’s no substitute for knowing the songs and on the day may have made things a lot worse as I strained to read the words in an ill-lit room. It was just unprofessional. The app is great for self-entertainment and learning from but it’s not a performance tool.
Listening to the recordings has been a valuable ear-opener. I’ve been greatly encouraged by it at the same time as finding out where I need to apply myself to improve. It’s helped a lot with the stage fright/recording fright too. I’ve learned that I’m both better and worse than I expected. Most of all I’ve learned something, and that’s what we are all hear for. Lollol
Doing something, anything, to increase my confidence and reduce the tension in body and voice was clearly top priority.
I’ve written elsewhere in the forum about some posture related pains I’ve been suffering as a result of slumping over the guitar and twisting my neck almost all of the time to look at my fretting fingers. It was very bad form indeed and the pains were enough to send a hypochondriac like me all the way to the doctor for reassurance. After an exam he said, “You aren’t dying and should carry on with guitar, it’s very good for you, but sort your posture out!”
I made a number of changes. I took a saw to the legs of my chair and changed its rake and height. That was a definite improvement. I started using a strap to encourage me to sit straight – the strap held the guitar off my legs slightly and each time I slumped forward it would hit my leg and trigger me to sit up. That was the theory anyway but the habit of slouching is deeply ingrained and again and again I would catch myself auditioning for the role of Quasimodo.
I installed a mirror so that I could see my fretting hand without twisting. That was a disaster as it made the act of looking twice as complicated for my poor old brain and messed up my changes twice as much as before. I KNOW that looking at my left hand in any way messes up my changes. Looking involves my visual cortex in a process where my spinal reflexes are far more effective in putting my fingers in the right place. I don’t look down when I change gear in my car. I don’t look down when I walk down my stairs. I KNOW that I can find the chords without looking, but in the words of the great philosopher E Presley, ‘I just can’t help believing’ that I need to look. There must be a way to bust this silly habit, said I, and there was.
I stood up for myself. And what a difference that made!
I set my strap length unfashionably short, bringing the bridge pickup of my Pacifica and the sound hole of my Jim Dandy to about the height of my elbow. It you could perch on my chandelier and look down you’d see that with my hands off, the guitar swings its neck forward about 30 degrees from a line drawn through my shoulders. Viewed from the front the neck rises from the horizontal by the same 30 degrees. Look at photos of B B King with Lucille. With that big guitar almost under his armpit, he looks a bit strange but the music, ah, the music is beautiful. Would it work for me?
I have already discovered that practicing and playing standing up makes many things very difficult.
- It’s almost impossible to glance down at the positions of my fingers since the fretboard is edge on to me. And I no longer want to. The habit of wanting to look at my fingers has been completely killed by the radical change in posture. I’m starting over with a new set of brain cells perhaps?
- I find it requires considerably more effort to sing so badly when standing up. There’s more breath available, more pressure, more resonance in an open chest so even my voice sounds better. Try singing sitting down and then standing up half way through the song. My voice drops an octave and changes from ukulele whine to Les Paul smooth in an instant.
- It’s very difficult to over-practice at the moment because I get tired and take breaks, and limit my overall sessions to half an hour or so. Just like Justin recommends.
- It’s surprisingly difficult to hook my thumb over the neck and let my arm hang there, all lazy and sluggish. The neck sags when I do that, so I have to hold my arm up with my muscles, forcing my hand to remain loose and ready to move around the neck properly.
- It’s also difficult to generate any wrist and hand pain because the neck is at exactly the angle relative to my body that it was originally designed to be (by Antonio de Torres (1817–1892), the ‘father of the modern classical guitar’ who standardised the guitar shape and size so long ago.) Some (not me) think Chuck Berry looked cool but his legacy was an ergonomic catastrophe. The fretboard was always intended to be on your chest at this angle. Once there, everything is easier even the barre F chord.
- I now find it hard to get tense enough to mess up my strumming. My elbow is closer to my side and the arc of movement is at the ‘proper’ angle. The right arm moves in exactly the plane that it does when I juggle three balls, and come to think of it so does the left. It’s hard to describe this throwing and catching ‘flow’, it’s sort of instinctive and relaxed and sort of what my arms were made to do. I’d saw wood with my elbow in the same place. I’d dance close to a woman with my arms in the same place as I now play guitar – oh my! That must be why male players usually give our guitars female names. Lol
- In fact, standing up and swaying even slow dancing with the music makes it impossible to be tense anywhere in my body. Even when I stand still, I’m standing easy; alert and relaxed.
- Most importantly I’m finding it difficult to feel insecure and shy when I’m standing tall. It’s difficult to slouch with seven pounds of wood and steel hanging in front of me so I’m forced to lean back slightly and take a wide stance. That’s an extremely powerful posture to adopt, looking the world in the eye and the posture builds the confidence.
Is there anything to compensate me for all these difficulties? Well, yes. The relatively unused muscles all the way up from my feet, through my legs, buttocks, belly, back, shoulders to my arms are weak. I ache, and will ache until those muscles grow into the job. This is A GOOD THING for me at 68 years old. I hate structured sporty exercise or gym work, but dancing is a fabulous way to get fitter. Good for strength, suppleness, stamina and possibly balance too, none of which were improved by sitting curled around a guitar for hours at a time like a teenager in a bedroom.
Do I always stand up? No, sometimes I sit down but with the guitar strapped so high it’s well clear of my legs so it hangs in the same place relative to my torso. It forces me to sit up because if I slouch forwards enough for guitar to hit thigh, I’m looking at the floor! Standing up is best but sometimes sitting properly is good enough.
There are Justin Lessons about playing without looking and standing up and to finish, here’s a little clip from a movie that might say more about relaxation and movement than all my verbose circumlocutions, digressive meanderings, arcane footnotes and byzantine references. I hope you enjoy it.
Sundance clip.
Lately, my progress in the beginner’s course has more or less stopped. I’m absolutely fine with that. I’ve been busy. I’ve attempted the course twice before and each time I dropped out at around this stage. I distinctly remember each time that mourned being so close to the blues module but I just couldn’t get there. It would be madness to fall off the course again and in the same place by blindly repeating my previous attempts so I’m investing some time in finding out how I can most efficiently learn and play.
I’m building strong foundations to my musical skyscraper before it gets too tall and begins to wobble once more. I don’t care if I stay on module 10 until Christmas as long as I’m learning how to (eventually) make steady progress. Once my learning skills are all sorted to my satisfaction I’ll consolidate them by tucking in all the loose threads from the previous nine models, which will have the happy side effect of re-consolidating the modules too.
So far this summer I’ve tried these new things; performing to audiences; being recorded doing so; listening hard to my recordings and analysing the faults; and radically changing my posture. All of these have been helpful and I’ve a few more things in mind which I’ll tell you about later.
I’ve twice fallen by the wayside playing the stupid hare, this time I’m the wise old tortoise on track for the winning post.
