LESSONS PART III

What a week! I don't know where I've been.

I took my first ever guitar lesson with Charles Bissell from the Wrens. I'd met Charles before; a very good friend of mine turned me onto the Wrens right before their last album 'The Meadowlands' came out. We saw them in North Philly; they played a set of originals and then a set of covers, where they invited audience members up to sing and play. When they launched into 'Don't Change' by INXS, I waited until the whole song was over, and then offered up my rudimentary keyboard skills. they ushered me onstage and we played the whole song over again. For about 3 minutes and 30 seconds, I took the Wrens to a level they've never realized before or since. At least, that's how I saw it.

To the present--The Wrens launched a new website two weeks ago and on it announce that Charles is giving guitar lessons again. I figured there'd be a rush to that front door, but when I showed up he intimated I was the first lesson since he'd made the offer, and thus the first student in 7 years.

Aside about lessons:

I've never had a guitar lesson before. But I learned music theory on piano as a kid. I remember distinctly that my first lesson was a week before my 5th birthday. When I was 7, my parents unleashed a 120-pound manic grad student on me. He lived in Oakland, and he drove me like a garment maker. He'd hold recitals in his apartment and all I can remember is nervousness and dust.

At some point he signed me up for some standardized skills test, where an instructor sat next to me and asked me to play minor 4ths and augmented scales. In my unreliable memory, I remember this taking place on some vacuous plain, somewhere between Cloud City, the labs of NIMH and the video set of Tom Petty's 'You Got Lucky'. I think I passed.

Later he told me I'd be playing a recital and taught me Beethoven's Minuet in G, which I performed on a stage in front of at least 50,000,000 people, and I've never been more freaked out. two weeks later i'm outside playing a spirited game of kickball with friends, and my mom comes outside and tells me my piano teacher is on the phone. WTF? (I didn't know the f word at that point, but I assure you that I said What the F?)

I get on the phone and he tells me that I just earned $25. My reaction is legendary: $25 in 1981 to a 9-year old is like $50 billion to Warren Buffett today.

I ask him about the 'earned' part. He tells me that the recital I freaked out in was a contest, and I came in 2nd place. I lose my shit. (And I'm 9, I still don't know what shit is, either). I had instanteously learned that I was (a) competing, and (b) lost. Enough of piano!

In the deal of the century, I negotiated (a) discontinuation of piano lessons, and (b) a drum set. In return, I gave up nothing. back to the guitar lesson!

The first 30 minutes were a little rough as he sussed out that I had fairly good technique (I had no idea; I must have learned it from watching the misanthrope play for several years). but he was intent on teaching me something, so we finally negotiated a couple scale exercises.

At one point I asked him about how easily knowing scales on guitar translates into playing over actual songs. I don't remember what he answered, I just started playing C - G - F on my guitar and he played over it for about a minute, and the shit he played was better than most of the new music I'll hear all year.

We talked a little politics, made some Yngwie jokes, and discussed the virtue of recording to a click track (the wrens generally don't). I told him I'd seen him play solo, where he records 1-2 guitar loops live and then plays and sings over them. he told me he'd be interested in a more equipment-themed approach at a future lesson, and is also working on getting his laptop set up for recording at guitar lessons. So
I could conceivably be recording ideas with him at future lessons. Fun.