How Musicians Go Soft

These last couple nights, I've been doing things different. Shaking a things up a bit, riding the walrus, taking the road less traveled if you will. I've been taking chances and going for the throat in this crazy little turnstile we call life.

I've actually been picking up instruments and playing the damn things.

I know, I know, it's strange for a musician to actually utilize instrumentation that is designed to make music, but work with me here. It's not something I've actually done a lot of these past few months. Oh sure, I'll occasionally pull out the guitar and strum out a well placed E minor, or even attempt to sync up with whatever music is on TV. There were a couple of times I even tried to write something. Sure they were weak efforts, but it still counts on the galactic scoreboard right?

Okay, probably not. If this were Animal Planet, there would be footage of me getting fat and complacent, and eventually I'd get eaten by a lion. If I had any actual laurels to rest on, I'd probably be resting on them right now. I've been investing too much time in other pursuits, spending too much time in kitchens, too much time writing gibberish, and way too much time in my most cherished of pastimes: doing nothing. Yes, I admit it, I've let myself go to pasture like the fat lazy cow I am. I've fallen off the path and I'm ashamed, so very ashamed. But acceptance is part of the healing right? It's easy enough to climb back on the tricycle. and get yourself moving. And boy have I. I've invested a great deal of time lately in fine tuning the old workhorses, putting in some serious playing time, and actually getting back down to the necessary responsibilities of making some music.

And boy am I paying for it.

The tips of my left hand are completely thrashed and causing great discomfort to my person. My wrists are creaked and make loud popping sounds when I move them too fast. And my back? Well the less said about my back the better. And while this all sounds physically uncomfortable, the truth is the body pains were nothing compared to what this was doing to my emotional state. All these aches and pains were simply a testament to how far I had fallen.

You see, through all these years of mischief and madness, I treated these aches and pains were all part of the stepping stones to becoming a decent musician. When you bust your ass mastering a craft, you'll have wounds to show for it right? So I was going for the biggest, sickest, nausea inducing wounds I could possibly get.

The first year I had picked up a guitar, I started to build up callouses on my left hand. A natural part of the process in playing guitar when you have your fingertips on nylon or steel for extended lengths of time. But, me being the overenthusiastic little bastard that I am, I went and overdid it. I played so hard for so long, that instead of the subtle slightly discolored callouses that most mortals get, I developed these sickly looking fingertips that made people question my long term well being. They were these thick bulbous spheres that protruded from my fingertips in this icky shade of pus white. They were so big, that they left me without a sense of touch, and they had the look of something that was eating away at my skin. More than one poorly minded high schooler with a distinct lack of medical training observed my mutated fingertips and queried as to whether or not I had cancer.

A few years down the road from there is where it all got very interesting. By then my musical routines had only gotten more intense, with lapses into large gauged guitar strings and ridiculous compound bending only upping the ante. By this time my callouses were indestructable folds of dead skin. I loved nothing more than to sit in a room of strangers and tap my tank-like fingertips on my battle scarred left hand on the nearest glass coffee table I could find. Then I'd enjoy the horror of perfectly innocent people watching my hands. Hands that should've sounded like soft taps upon that glass, instead sounding like falling gravel. It was a statement, as far as I was concerned. It said I was a good musician, and was only going to get better.

Then in later years, when I switched to bass, I was only more excited. My preference for fingerstyle thumping would only mean that I'd soon have two full hands of thick powerful callouses to stake my claims with. No longer would I just have the single mutant hand, I'd be ready to attack with both barrels. And when the world asked why my hands looked and felt so bizarre, I could say it was because I was a time tested musician. And I could clench my crippled hands into proud fists, and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Of course, life isn't all callouses. There were also wrist pains. the four to five hour long sessions of madcap guitar playing that left your hands so cramped you couldn't turn a doorknob. True, a few minutes of stretches could've probably saved me all that pain, but where's the glory in that? Oh no, when the pain hits, you roll with it. Any good musician would do the same.

And those are just the basics. From there you have things like soldering iron burns, sore backs from heavy instruments, sprained wrists from guitar cases getting caught in doors, stabs in your fingertips from broken strings, and of course the rare, but embarrassing bruise on the head from a headbang gone awry. You musical types know that one.....the head goes down, the headstock comes up..... yup, we've all been there my friends.

So I have thrived on my ability to foolishly put myself through merciless pain. Suffering for the art, it's all part of paying the dues. And I have welcomed any duty related injury with a sense of pride on my face, knowing it only made me better.

So imagine my fear when a few mere days of musical effort ended up resulting in hefty amounts of pain. And not just any pain mind you, novice pain. The pain of people who haven't busted tail trying to be a badass musician. I mean, it's not like I've invested thirteen years of life trying to do this kind of shit. Not like I've burned tons of time and money into bettering my musical skills right? So there's no reason I should have to go through this again.

And yet, here I am. My once formidable callouses have now gone soft and gentle, the only survivor being a small little trooper on the side of my knuckle where I hold my kitchen knives. My beaten paws actually feel like real hands these days. My twelve pound, five string bass now has a permanent reservation in the closet, while I spend my days entertaining the lighter 4 string gals. My tolerance for high volumes has been severely reduced, and I actually catch myself turning down the volume on my stereo. My hands can cramp up fast now. An hour into a jam, I can feel the small dashes of pain in my palms, a warning that things are only gonna get worse if I don't slow down.

I've gone soft loyal reader. I've let age and laziness beat my disgruntled musical corpse into something much more civilized. I've lost too many nights to books, writing nonsense, and other such pursuits, all the while my instruments, my valued tools of the trade, have gathered dust in the corner of the room. Sometimes I got the sense that they have looked upon me, and remembered the days of granduer. When I would play riffs and pointless improvising just to feel the joys of steel and wood against skin. And of course there was the creation of the BGO. Playing those same parts over and over again so that they'd be perfect. Trying to keep the momentum going after Fuzzy was finished, I had a sound now, and now I had to defend it.

And now, here I am back at ground zero. Soft plushy hands, muscles unaccustomed to the rigors of sonic repetitve motion. Ears that can't handle the high decible atmosphere that we musical types often operate in. I feel estranged now. Estranged from my medium of choice. Like I let myself go weak and now I'm open season for the wolves of the world.

Of course I suppose I could just practice more, but what fun would that be?