A Big Misunderstanding
Published: Fri, 06/30/23
I shouldn't say nonsense; it made sense to someone, namely the analysts whose work we were readying for publication. We bright young things back in the copy editing pool would routinely mark up these bond reports in an attempt to ungarble some of the more hopeless phraseology, only to be told "Oh it's ok, the people who read these things know what we mean." Really? 'Cause we're all pretty fluent in English, and we have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
I treated this job with all the delight and dedication of someone completely positive it was all a big misunderstanding. Someday soon, I trusted, my former colleagues and I would be laughing about that year I wore khaki pants and sat in a cubicle correcting financial-speak – ideally, while hanging on my tour bus during a homecoming run of five sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden. This job didn't even have real hours – I started at noon, for some reason, yet still got full health insurance, and compensation for any "continuing education" I might choose to partake of, which somehow included the lessons I was taking at the time from an ingenious, soft-spoken jazz guitarist named Peter Einhorn.
Of course, twenty ounces of coffee is enough to get anyone good and wired, and one day, post-3pm, I found myself halfway out the window at the back of our floor (imagine! An office building with windows that still actually opened) trying to land a paper airplane in the airshaft of the Woolworth building. History does not recall what draft of which report I chose to craft my flying machine from, nor does it mention any actual consequences for this high-spirited act of youthful indiscretion. Nevertheless, I left the employ of the analysts soon after, and began curtailing my caffeine intake accordingly as well.
My jazz studies continued on fitfully for a while, despite losing their corporate subsidization, culminating in my acceptance into the jazz composition program at the Manhattan School of Music. It only took a semester, however, to realize I cared more about playing roots music than parsing the collective improvisation of Herbie, Ron and Tony. Plus, the same spring I enrolled in grad school, I played my first real record sessions, and while it wasn't Madison Square Garden and I rapidly discovered all I didn't know about working in the studio, I felt like I was already doing the thing, and didn't feel like sitting around studying the thing anymore, at least not with people who were willing to hand me A's in class but not any merit-based scholarship cash. Even the analysts at my day job had been more forthcoming than that.
Fortunately, after a couple decades in the wilderness, I've found my way back to both coffee and jazz, and if I want to chuck paper jets out the door of my studio, the only thing stopping me is the 100 degree weather – right now, I'm not opening that door in the middle of the day unless I have to, and I already have all the coffee I need safely inside the A/C zone, thank you very much. But after a few months of Freddie Green chords, swing scales and bebop licks, it's time to regroup with some new fingerstyle lessons on the Youtube channel. Starting with today's video, on how to make a classic tune feel more like your own by re-imagining the groove.
Specifically, what if you played "Hesitation Blues" with a steady bass? Find out at the link below:
Make It Sound Like You
More soon,
David
The Fingerstyle Five membership offers organized, ongoing lessons to help you strengthen your right-hand groove, build your repertoire and start to improvise. Learn more and sign up at fretboardconfidential.com