It’s a scene from the classic movie, The Matrix. The recently enlightened Neo (Keanu Reeves) has various skills/talents/abilities downloaded straight into his brain, one being the ability to instantly kick butt in various forms of martial arts.
…how do you expect me to solo over a song in the key of Bb!? You know I’m strictly Em!?!…
I for one wish I could download several kick butt guitar skills. “Where’s my Mixolydian/Phrygian hybrid upgrade!?”, “Super-speed shred download NOW!!!”.
Unfortunately for me, my in-built computer ‘Says No‘.
With the busyness of life; work, family etc, I find it difficult to find the time to practice, and any spare windows of opportunity I do get to plugin and play usually finds me experimenting with my amp settings and/or effects pedals, leaving little room for learning new riffs or techniques.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this situation.
To offer some encouragement to others who desire the ability to download numerous patches of black-belt guitar skills, there’s a couple of aspects to guitar playing progression that’s really helped me to be satisfied with my current abilities/inabilities, despite the ‘constraints of life’:
Sure, there’ll be times when I’m given the nod by the person leading the band prompting me to play a solo, and you can bet my mind will be racing with fear; “What, you mean now? But I’m not ready… I’m not in ‘the zone’, and besides, how do you expect me to solo over a song in the key of Bb!? You know I’m strictly Em!?! Arrrgghhhh!”
But if you play with your heart, draw inspiration from the musicians around you, and play with enjoyment, you’ll probably find that you won’t long to plug into The Matrix.
Well, not that often…
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