This is the way it was meant to be played.
Parker Millsap.
He’s coming to play at the levee in Charleston on June 20th.
He sat in the break room, feet up on the table, guitar across his lap, and played the same riff over and over. It was a tricky combination of finger-picking and a shuffle strum that would take him a while to learn. He could make it easier: slow the rhythm, alter the chord progression, or change the tune altogether. It was his own composition, after all.
He played it three more times, each time, a little faster and a little smoother. There was no rush. It wasn’t on his playlist for that evening; most of those songs he could play in his sleep. But he knew when it was ready, when he was ready, it would be worth all the work.
The speaker on the wall of the break room crackled.
Customer needs assistance in electrical.
“That’s you, Chet,” Doyle said from his chair on the other side of the room.
He stopped playing and looked at Doyle. “Chet?”
“You’re too young,” Doyle said. “Chet Atkins. He was the guitar player when I was a kid.”
“They had guitars on the Mayflower?”
“Let me see that thing.”
Trevor dropped his feet to the floor and walked across the room to Doyle.
“Can you play?”
“No.”
Doyle held the guitar and ran his left hand up and down the neck, his fingers buzzing on the strings while his palm slid along the varnished maple. With his right thumb, he strummed the strings, muted by his left hand. He lifted his fingers and strummed again. Even though he played no chord and there was no tune and no music whatsoever, Doyle couldn’t help but smile.
“I can teach you.”
Doyle looked up and down the guitar, admiring the curves and shine and worn strings and that distinctive aroma that all musical instruments possess. Then the smile disappeared. “I’m too old.” He held the guitar by the neck and pushed it back to Trevor.
“You’re never too old.” Trevor put the guitar back on Doyle’s lap and arranged his arms and hands in the proper position.
“What are you doing?”
Trevor twisted Doyle’s left hand so that his fingers hovered over the fret board.
“Take this finger and put it here.” He positioned his ring finger on the second fret of the fourth string. Doyle’s fingers were thin and bony. Had they been more plump, Trevor’s experiment might have failed, a realization that came upon him a bit too late. He placed his middle finger on the second fret of the fifth string, and his index finger on the first fret of the third string.
Customer needs assistance in electrical.
“Now press,” he said.
“You better go,” Doyle said.
“See how your fingers are flat against the strings?”
Doyle nodded.
“Straighten them up. More vertical.”
“It hurts.”
“Yeah.” Trevor moved Doyle’s fingers slightly, making sure they weren’t touching any other strings. “Now hold that.” He stepped back.
Doyle looked hard at his fingers, willing them to stay in position.
“Now strum.”
He did. Doyle played his first chord. He strummed again. And again.
“Got to go,” Trevor said.
Doyle strummed again.
“That’s an E chord, by the way. You wouldn’t believe how many songs start out with that chord.” He wasn’t sure if Doyle had heard him. He plucked the srings one by one. His first arpeggio.
copyright 2015, joseph e bird
The preceding is the opening of my current unnamed work in progress. It will likely change as the writing progresses and the inevitable editing occurs. More to follow.
Guitars and music on my mind.
I’m not really a big John Mayer fan but he knows his way around a guitar and this song can get stuck in your head. In this clip, he teams up with another guy with pretty good skills, Keith Urban.
Laid back and bluesy.
An afternoon in a café
a drink on the scarred wooden table
watching the life on the sidewalk
laugh and whisper
and glance with that look.
Copyright Joseph Bird, 2015
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be in the vines;
the labor of the olive shall fail,
and the fields shall yield no meat;
the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
and there shall be no herd in the stalls.”
Do you hear me? Do you understand? There will be bad times, brother.
In my eighty-one years, you better believe I’ve had them.
Three years ago I lost Nita.
We’re supposed to get wiser as we get older, and I guess I have.
Even so, loss is hard and lonely.
Here’s what I know.
Listen, now.
“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet,
and he will make me walk upon mine high places.
To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.”
I didn’t always know that.
When you’re young, you think the fig will always bloom.
You think there will always be fruit and cattle in the stalls.
Now don’t be dense. You know what I mean. Even if you’re young, you know what I’m saying.
But this isn’t my story. It’s Trevor’s.
Trevor for sure didn’t know.
To this day, I don’t know if he’s taken hold of the truth.
It’s not profitable for a man to express his faith in these days and when you’re young like Trevor, you’re not inclined to go against everything the world says is right.
One has to be tried, tested, and hardened by fire.
That boy.
He’s a remarkable boy.
There’s a guy I know named Maxfield Martin. Just met him. He’s in his 80s. Plays the guitar. But not just any guitar, the steel guitar. You know, the kind that sits on a stand horizontally across the lap. A steel slide in the left hand, picking the strings with the right.
Anybody remember Roscoe Swerps? That’s what he played way back when. Sad country songs.
But not Maxfield Martin. Man, that guy can play. I mean, yeah, he can make that guitar cry, but he can flat-out tear it up with screaming foot-stomping rockabilly phosphorescent bluegrass.
Maxfield Martin told me a story.
I’ll share it with you some day soon.
This is the next installment of my poetry jag. This was written as a reflection of family trips to the beach. I don’t expect everyone to fully connect, though there might be some resonance for those with similar experiences. I used InDesign to incorporate photos with the text, but couldn’t figure out how to cleanly post the finished document. I decided on the Portable Document Format, aka as the PDF. And to see the post requires one more click. We ask that you please bear with us.
Writers (and writing advisors) like to talk about voice.
“You must find your voice,” they say.
I hear it so often that it must be true. I can think of a couple of authors that have an identifiable voice. Cormac McCarthy. Kurt Vonnegut. I might be able to identify their writing in a random setting. I just looked up and down my bookcase to see if anybody else jumped out at me. Lots of good storytelling on those shelves, but not necessarily a strong authorial voice.
Here’s another spin on the idea of voice that might be more important than the author’s voice – the characters’ voices. In the hands of a good writer, the characters in the story will all sound a little different. And I’m not talking about exaggerated regional (hillbilly/southern/yankee) dialect. I’m not a fan of dropping (droppin’) the g off words or having your character say bar when, in fact, it’s a bear chasing him. It’s more subtle than that.
It’s in the pacing. Some people speak slowly, in measured words. Others are rapid fire pontificators. Some use certain words and phrases, you know what I mean? Some are loud, others are low talkers.
Stephen King’s short story, A Death, which was just published in the New Yorker, illustrates this principle. (Although the story is not in his horror genre, it does have a couple of graphic scenes that might spoil your appetite. Don’t read it before eating.) Pay particular attention to the character Trusdale. You can literally (not literally, but almost) hear his voice. Same with Sheriff Barclay. We hear the characters, not Stephen King.
Here’s the story. Enjoy.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/a-death-stephen-king
Mr. Bojangles, a melancholy song from years past. I didn’t know the story was true. It is said that Jerry Jeff Walker, the writer of the song, met a homeless street performer in New Orleans when they were both locked up in the parish jail. The street performer used the name Mr. Bojangles to keep his true identity from the police. While in lock-up, they talked, of course, and by and by, Mr. Bojangles told the sad story of his dog who had traveled around the country with him for years, but at some point, had died. They asked Bojangles for something to lighten the mood, so he danced for them. One of my internet friends, Alpha Whisky Foxtrot, recently suggested a Spanish Guitar station on Pandora, and while listening, I discovered this gem by David Bromberg. Maybe the best version of Mr. Bojangles ever. Enjoy.
Joseph E Bird 