Kung Fu Guitar Skills

This morning I felt pretty lousy. Tara had a sore throat and stayed in bed. Could be related. But I went to the basement and practiced my new song for a while. The first time through I was almost perfect on the guitar, but the more I played, the worse I felt, especially when I tried to play with the drum track. I went up and ate a banana--no help. I knew it wasn't the song that was getting me down, because I still like it, and I've been thinking of different ways to sing with it that make me even more excited about it. But developing the skill to play it is hard on me mentally for some reason.

Then I remembered that I can slow the drum track down and work on the fundamentals of the complicated rhythm. I had to slow it way down in order to count along. I can do it well, and I can build up from here. I can thank last week's film, Master of the Flying Guillotine, for this idea. The main character hops onto the rim of an empty wicker basket and walks along its circumference. I read more about this online, and there are old teachings for how to build up to this ability by starting with a big stone pot full of stones. Once you get good at walking along its rim, you remove one stone at a time until you can do it without any weight inside. Then you switch to a wicker basket full of stones and go on from there until you seem lighter than air. It's all fantasy, of course, and wires were used in the movie, but it's a good way to approach a difficult skill one wishes to develop, as I do.

Starting next week I hope to gradually speed up the drum track until I can play along with it more comfortably at normal speed. Then I can record the rhythm guitar part and move on, and I'll have developed a great skill for the rest of the songs I hope to come up with. I knew kung fu would be useful for this album somehow.