On definitions:

I’ve been playing the guitar since I was a teen. I’ll be the first to say I’m no good at playing the guitar, but that’s no surprise – I’ve had no formal training, and I have never really practiced properly, so I am technically very limited in what I’m able to do.

Here’s an odd question, then: Am I a musician?

If it’s a question of profession, I’m obviously not. I haven’t made a penny from music and am not expecting to do so in the future. Likewise, I have no formal qualifications.

Perhaps it’s a matter of quality, then: the word ‘musician’ could be an honorific, awarded to people who are above a certain level of accomplishment or expertise. I won’t judge myself by that standard, but I wouldn’t be offended if I was told I don’t make the cut.

I thought that was where the matter stood, until my wife (who counts at least three working, bona fide musicians among her immediate family) told me that I was a musician by inclination. ‘You’re one of these people who, when they enter a room and there’s a musical instrument in it, immediately feel the urge to start messing around with it’, she said, ‘that’s what a musician is’.

I’m happy to go along with that.

Speaking of messing around with instruments:

On messing around with instruments:

One thing I consistently find is that whenever I have a chance to fiddle around with a new musical instrument, or a piece of gear (an amp or effects box or some such) two things happen: The first and obvious one is that everything sounds terrible, as you’d expect from someone playing an instrument they have no idea how to play. the second is that if I have more than a couple of minutes, I almost always come up with an interesting tune, phrase or riff.

I suppose  that part of it has to do with the interesting sounds and new possibilities that the new instrument provides, but it also has, I think, a lot to do with being unfamiliar with the interface: if I take up my guitar, my fingers automatically know where to go to make pleasing noises, so they go there. If I want to produce a combination or I’ve not heard before, I need to make a conscious effort. But faced with a banjo, or a mandolin, harp, keyboard or double bass, all my instincts go right out the window, and when my fingers try to go to their usual places, they produce unusual, and – occasionally – interesting, sounds.

case in point: the very first time I tried an alternative tuning for my guitar (DADGAD, for all you guitar players out there), a tune started emerging almost immediately. It took me years of desultory doodling to build on that basic theme, but it’s now one of my favourite things, and the first one I recorded when I finally managed to find some studio time.

(you can listen to it here, or here)

On technique 

Looking back, I can see that whatever technical progress I’ve managed to make over the years consistently followed a pattern: I find a piece of music that I love so much that I just have to learn how to play it properly. then I sit and painstakingly learn it and practice it until I could play it. And every time that happened, I would find that an entire landscape of tunes and possibilities had opened up to me.

Hardly surprising; that’s exactly the way most people progress. I’m mostly frustrated by the fact that I went through this process only a few times. Had I been more serious or more involved about music, this would have gone on every month rather than every five years.

I’m sure that had I been more motivated and/or talented and/or a more determined sort of person, that would have happened more often and I’d have been better at playing and making music and enjoying it more. But there’s another factor that I didn’t pay too much attention to

On gear:

Here’s some advice: Get good gear. The best you can possibly afford. Buy at least one level above your current level of seriousness as a musician.

If you start out with a shit instrument, you have a higher chance of staying a shit musician, because it’s hard to overcome the limitations of your instrument, especially when you’re just starting out and aren’t sure whether you’re going to carry on. Good gear makes whatever you’re trying to play sound better; and if it sounds better you’ve got more motivation to keep going, while crap gear saps your mojo without you even noticing.

I just wish I could heed this advice more often. I usually don’t. Whenever I did, the dividends were plentiful.

On mastery:

The people I’m most envious of belong to that class of professional musicians who have music so inherently hardwired into their being that it takes them hardly any time at all to learn to play another instrument. It seems to me that all they do is take the time to figure out where the fingers need to go in order to produce the notes or chords, and they’re off.