Coming Full Circle

Wow. I just had about as close to a ‘spritual’ experience as I think I’m ever likely to have.

So, here’s the scenario. I’ve been reading my ass off trying to get ready for my MBA start week (which kicks off in about six hours nd I haven’t gone to bed yet. Typical.), when finally at 1:30 am I say, “Enough! I’m not going to learn any more Operations Management at this hour.” So, I do the logical thing, and pick up the guitar and start strumming very softly, so as not to wake Ann, who is sleeping about thirty feet away and one floor above me.

Sometimes I just get things stuck in my head. The last example was Coldplay’s “Til Kingdom Come”. There’s just something about it. I love it. I needed to learn it. So yesterday, after another break in studying, I looked up the tab for it on the Internet and it looked fairly straightforward. Only one string really. The neat effect is produced by the fact that it’s in Open C tuning.

I know. I was thinking the same thing. “What the hell is ‘Open C’?” Well, thanks to the marvel of the Internet, I found out. I feel a bit proud that I’m at the point in my guitar playing career where I can look at funny squiggles on the Internet and then properly tune my guitar by ear. Of course, I only tuned by ear because my piece of shit, ten year old electric “Qwik Tune” doesn’t have anything other than EADGB on it.

To make a long story short, after much frustration at the few errors in the Internet version, and then continued frustration that I didn’t sound like the guy from Coldplay, I got to a point where I could play the song. And that was good. I felt good. Accomplished. My life was full of meaning and I was the conqueror of my own ignorance and satisfier of my own neurotic needs.

But then I realized something. This “Open C” tuning sounded a lot like what was used in “Bron Yr Aur”.

Dare I make the attempt?

Most of the time when I look at Zeppelin tab on the Internet I stare at it for a little while then snort, “Well, screw THAT!” and pretend like I never wanted to learn “Going to California” anyway. But Bron Yr Aur is different. Bron Yr Aur is one of the two songs that made me want to learn how to play guitar. It’s one of the major unfilled holes in my soul that I never was able to figure it out with my stupid non-Jimmy-Page fingers and my complete lack of musical ability.

Why God! Why did you curse me with such a desire to play this damn song!!!

I had tried it no less than three times over the past ten years. The first time I had already been playing for four years. The second time was two years after that. Then I put it away in my brain under the heading “You will NEVER be able to do this” and forgot about it.

Until tonight.

Long story short: I did it.

I don’t know what changed. What was different. If anything, I have been playing the least in my whole life since I got to the Netherlands. But for some reason, I was able to figure it out. It was a bit like Sudoku actually. You look at it and you see a glimmer of an answer, just a hint of how to fill in the structure. Then you get stumped and you pluck around for another fifteen minutes trying to make it click in your head and with your fingers. And suddenly, it just does. Suddenly you do it without thinking. THen you think “I did it!” Then you can’t do it anymore. Then you patiently try it again and again, and eventually. It happens. Repeat fifty times, and suddenly you’re doing it without thinking about it.

AWESOME!

I finally put down the guitar at 2:17, feeling more accomplished than I ever did before. And feeling strangely empty. Like when you finish a book that you’ve been reading for a long time and subconsciously reach for it. I’ve done it. It’s not there anymore. I know I can do it. Even if I never do it again, that box is thoroughly checked and can never be unchecked.

I think Bron Yr Aur is the most beautiful guitar song ever written. And now I can play it.

Go me.

(Oh, and tonight, I won at Colonisten against Ann, Ian and Julia. I came from third place and snatched victory in the last turn before Ann was going to win. I AM THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE!)

(Oh, and the other song that made me want to learn guitar: Little Martha by the Allman Brothers. Nailed that one like five years ago. Also in a funny tuning. Damn I am good.)

(And I have to be sitting in a desk ready to receive a whole seven hours worth of lectures for five days straight in exactly five hours and twenty minutes. I am so dumb.)