Monday, March 24, 2008

Grave Gravity

I am a waging a battle these days! All alone and none of existing strengths and skills would stand me in good stead. And the army of well wishers and friends that I have can do nothing about it either.

This guitar thing was a dream. The image of faded jeans with a guitar in hand and playing it like Jimi Hendrix is what perfect fantasy is made of. And if you didn’t have one like that, they are already searching for you in mental health institutes. Well, I am not one of the fugitives. I had this fantasy even before I had I grew hair in my chin. But then, fantasy is one thing, making it happen is another thing. Sometimes it was a distant dream to even think that it might happen.

Then I made it happen. The fantasy almost came true. To be precise it came 66.66% true. I bought a guitar and faded jeans. After all this is not an appraisal. There is no weightage associated with this. So 2 out of 3 is 66.66% anyway. The only thing that didn’t happen was the Jimi Hendrix part. The first guitar I bought served me right in the first two, so I carried it around with me to parties and somebody else would play that. And it broke one day. I have already written about my suspicion of that being a suicide by the guitar.

After 2 long years, I managed to find a master who would teach me at home and was I delirious? It is a different thing altogether that the string broke on the first day. I don’t believe in bad omens. For that matter I didn’t even think of that as a warning the Goddess of Music. I restrung it and bought another one and also got gifted another ‘out of the world’ guitar. The problem started when I had to learn.

The master insisted on carnatic music. I was very thrilled. And I thought Prasanna is an easier thing to emulate than Hendrix. And in carnatic they start with a simple lesson of Sa Pa Sa. Can’t really explain the nuances! You sing these 3 swara’s up & down if you really want to do something meaningful in carnatic. And after all this drama, I can sing that while going up, but I miss the Pa when I come down.

That is some serious gravity problem. It kind of becomes a free fall. I am simply unable to reproduce even such an elementary stuff. And that dashes my hope about me being anything in music. You may ask why I am bugged, after all I play the guitar and I am not going to sing. But then who knows. I haven’t shown how I play that to anyone who knows music. What if they find out I do similar mistakes in that too?

I have some serious thoughts. I am convinced that this has got something to do with gravity. So, I am going to stand in a pendulum type device when I play and some one else will turn me upside down when it is the turn of coming back. I am approaching MGM and other theme parks to get that kind of device built for me. Alternatively, I can consider settling down in Moon, where they don’t have such silly gravity issues.

After all, in the Moon there are no living things and what I create is what would be music. But if guys in NASA pick something up with their snoop satellites and you still suffer from my music, please remember one thing. Gravity is earth’s problem and just don’t blame me.

2 comments:

sidwho? said...

I feel you can still be a Jimmy Hendrix. Take the following quiz and find out if you can-
a)Can you play the guitar with your teeth?
b)Can you get stoned on 5 different narc at the same time and choke on your own puke?
c)Can you put the guitar betwen your legs and play?
d)Can you fondle and carress the guitar like an object of sexual desire?
e)Can you put fire to your guitar after you have finished all of the above acts on stage?

If you have answered yes to all of the above , you still have hope.
If you have answered no to any of the above, try to idolise someone else- maybe the guitarist of Boyzone or Backstreet Boys, if they had one..
If you have already achieved all of the above feats, WELL DONE, JIMMY!!!

sidwho? said...

:)