Learning A Cover: Tenacity

Learning Your Favorite Guitar Part

Learning a cover of an existing song is one of the best ways to improve your playing and advance your understanding and mastery of music. Most of us can remember that first thing we tried to play when we picked up a six string. Mine was Jimi Hendrix’ Voodoo Chile, which was nearly impossible to play on my first steel string acoustic with an action about half a centimeter off the neck. My 15 year old niece gravitated to Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks and did a pretty good job pulling that off really quickly. No matter what it is, we as guitar players all share in this common experience.

Now obviously, the first time you pick up a guitar, and maybe even after years, you are not going to be able to whip off your favorite tune by your favorite artist with a note perfect rendition. As we learn, we build our skill set over time that allows us to do more and more. That skill set is both physical and aural. We are learning to listen and here as much as we are learning to play.

Learning a cover forces us to listen and compare; asking ourselves question,  “Do I have it right?” There are usually two answers that arise and they’re the obvious ones: Yes & No.  Yes is awesome! Celebrate! No is equally celebratory because it begs a second question: What am I going to do about it? If you answer “Keep digging till I get it” the music Gods toss back a drink in honour of your tenacity.  If your answer is “Close Enough” or “Good Enough“, or “I’ll never be able to do it“, then you have resigned, and are missing out on one of the greatest opportunities become a better musician that befalls any of us.

Miyamoto Musashi & The Principle of Stick-To-It-Iveness

It might be unusual to talk about learning your favorite guitar part while referencing the ancient sword fighting techniques of Master Swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, but there are many lessons we can learn from him that we can apply to our lives that have nothing to do with the sword.  Musashi wrote A Book of Five Rings in the early 1600’s during feudal times in Japan, distilling the wisdom learned during his life as a swordsman, master strategist, and martial artist into a five volume folio. In the water volume he talks about the principle of stick-to-it-ivness and the importance of committing to a blow after it has been parried by your opponent. Musashi says you should stand strong against the parry; even moving your body in closer. He talks about the importance of tenacity and makes a distinction between sticking to it and entanglement.

When learning a guitar part, and hearing that you don’t quite have it right, it is important to stick to it — for your opponent in this is your own inner voice that is telling you to quit, or that it is “good enough“.  Think about the idea of resistance training in isometrics. It is precisely this resistance that builds muscle – that builds progress. Although he talks about stick-to-it-ivness with respect to a blow or sword strike, you can take Musashi’s tactical maneuver and apply it strategically to the campaign as well. The goal is conquering the challenge of learning a song and adding to your vocabulary those licks and techniques that are components of what you are trying to learn. The deeper you dig into the parts, the more you journey into the nuances and inflections of the notes and articulations in the music, the richer your experience as a guitarist and musician will be, and the closer to mastery you will become.

Musashi has a lot he can teach us that we can apply in our lives in many different way, but as far as being a guitarist and musician goes – tenacity and a spirit of commitment will help you win battles and make you a better musician. You just need to remember that your opponent in these battles is yourself – and overcoming you is not just some pop psychology catch phrase, it is literally the stuff of “being”.

Don’t Cop Out

The most common justification articulated when someone says that they are happy with “good enough” is that they are “making it their own”. They put forward the justification that they are being creative and that that creativity should not be stifled or that it is privileged over learning something thoroughly and correctly. The problem is that this is not a binary choice. There’s no universe where learning a piece of music or a guitar part to the point of perfection somehow limits or is in opposition to creativity and being creative.  You all remember this scene from Amadeus where Mozart is able to play back Saliari‘s piece with perfect precision after a single listen, and then in real time, rework and embellish it until it becomes something quite magical:

The lesson in this is that far from stifling creativity, mastery may itself enhance it. Equally I’ve heard Eddie Van Halen play a note for note perfect rendition of Eric Clapton’s Crossroads. This certainly didn’t prevent Eddie from developing one of the most unique signature voices on guitar of the last 40 years.

You’ve got to learn to call people on their bullshit. “Making it my own” as a response to the question “Does it sound like the original” is usually just an excuse for not facing up the the challenge of learning it correctly in the first place. It’s a cop-out. But it’s not your job as a guitar player to police your friends — the person you should be calling on their bullshit is you and you alone!

That said — absolutely – go make a cover your own — take what you are learning and turn it inside out and transform it and let it empower your creativity. But don’t excuse lack of mastery or development with intentionality with respect to preserving your creativity. Admit you got lazy and that the consequences of not sticking it out like Musashi suggests, is that you will never master anything because you have yet to master yourself.

Feature Photo Credit: Willows standing bare, by Bernard Spragg, via flickr, Public Domain (CC0 1.0)