Are You Going to Play That Guitar or Are You Going To PLAY THAT GUITAR!

Do you want to play that guitar, or do you want to PLAY THAT GUITAR. That was the question of the day I went home thinking about after one of my recent guitar lessons.

I love to jam at The Gathering Place when ever I can. The goal of course is to stand on the stage and play your you know what off for one maybe two songs through the night and give backup to whoever does their song. I’ve been in Jeff Healey mode for a few months and I love the guitar in “Stuck in the Middle with You.” I have the song down pretty good, it’s a simple I-IV-V progression with some minor 7ths thrown in that I play in C.

I wrapped up my lesson yesterday playing this with my instructor. I was feeling pretty good, when I was done, Mike says to me “so Sarge, are you going to play this song or are you going to just play it”? I knew what he was saying. I’ve been playing the song fine but he was trying to get me to see that there was more to it than just play it. He wanted me to realize that I need to practice it to the point where it was more than just playing. To the point where when I played it, I played that bad boy like I owned it.

So what will it take to “own” a song? It’s going to take hours of dedication a day concentrating on the song when practicing. The hours of work to separate you from everyone else that is jamming. Hours of practice so that when you are done you can look at the people there and you see that look in their eyes that says “dang, that boy nailed it”.

So what’s it going to be? Are you going to play the song or are you going to PLAY the song?