Guitar hero

I appear to be reborn as a guitarist. What feel likes half a lifetime ago, I played lead/rhythm guitar in a post university band. We weren’t very good, but I always thought that had circumstance been a little more in our favour, we could have made a better fist of things. Since I left the band nearly four years ago, they’ve continued, changing their bass player but retaining the name and sound.

Since then, I’ve found myself drifting away from music a little, and certainly the guitar. I’ve dallied with the bass, piano, singing, drums, clarinet, accordian (and I long to buy a trumpet); I’ve familiarised myself with home recording techniques, and managed to record a few of my own songs, despite making things more difficult for myself than they needed to be, and I’m currently attending a night course in music technology. I cannot deny I’ve longed to perform music in public again, preferably as part of a band; however, I’m cautious about responding to adverts looking for musicians because I don’t think I have any talent whatsoever. I feel much more comfortable playing with people I already know and like, as I had with my previous band. Around six months ago, I found myself playing drums with two friends as we tried in vain to get some kind of band off the ground, and recruit a bass player. Presently the band would merge with another group of musicians I’d found myself in the company of, and now the six of us are trying to work out a sound and who should play what instrument. Although F is a better guitarist than me, he’s expressed a desire to play bass or drums, so after a few years of prodigal dabbling, I find myself the principal guitarist of our outfit.

I haven’t been completely neglecting my six stringed instruments however. I have been striving to get a few, fairly tricky songs down pat, to prove to mysefl that I’m not as bad a guitarist as I think I am. And, in the last few months, I have finally mastered ‘Sultans of Swing’ and ‘Breaking Into Heaven’. Well, 95%. I’ve also finally broken a couple of mental blocks with ‘This Charming Man’ and ‘A Design For Life’, which I put down to eventually realising I’d had my fingers in the wrong places.

Hopefully this latest attempt at forming a band comes off. I no longer possess the same dreams of writing the great British album that I used to hold so dear, but there’s something incredibly enjoyable about playing music with other people, in public.