I'm not a psychologist, but if I had to identify one key difference between the way I think and the way that most humans think, it's that I feel an insatiable need to improve at whatever thing I happen to be doing. At the most basic, fundamental level, I do not understand how a person can be satisfied with their abilities. The reverse is also true: at the most basic, fundamental level, most people do not understand why I feel this need. This disconnect is perhaps best encapsulated by a conversation I had on Friday night:
Me: "Alright, I gotta go home and get some sleep, I've got a long day tomorrow."
Person: "What do you got going on?"
Me: "I'm going to try to practice guitar for 10 hours."
Person: "Why?"
Me: "I'm in the middle of a quest to practice guitar for 1000 hours in one year."
*Person stares blankly*
Person: "Uh, okay, cool."
It's easy enough to paint others as being useless meatbags, but the reality is that those meatbags are generally happier people than I am. When you don't view every single action as a challenge, you don't have to deal with failure as often. Some people call this inexplicable itch "motivation". I don't really know what to call it, though I do wish that I could turn it off from time to time. It has been an aspect of my being for about as long I can remember, even back when all I wanted to do was eat cookies and play video games -- not exactly what I would call a "motivated" person.
I think it's important to note that this urge to improve one's own abilities is, at least in my eyes, distinct from the urge to win and be better than other people. When I was obsessed with Halo 2, a first-person shooter on the XBox, I played through the single-player campaign over and over again, each time adding arbitrary restrictions to try to make the game harder. Eventually it got to the point where I was trying to make it through the game on its hardest difficulty setting without firing a shot. Multiplayer matches, on the other hand, were of no interest to me whatsoever. Even when I developed an interest in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which is necessarily a competitive activity, I never found myself feeling frustrated after a loss, nor did I ever feel the need to gloat after a win. In fact, I enjoy losing a hard-fought battle against a more experienced opponent far more than quickly submitting a novice.
Regardless of whether the activity is solitary or competitive, I find that I semi-consciously judge myself by the highest possible standard. If a professional gymnast can consistently land an aerial cartwheel, then I should be able to also! I'll disregard the fact that they've received specialized training and just throw myself at the problem -- quite literally, in this case -- until I've got it. Same thing with chess, same thing with speed solving a Rubik's cube, same thing with guitar. Some people look at the elite and say "Wow, I would never be able to do that," and then scamper off to do whatever it is they do with their spare time. I watch for a bit longer and think "How do they do that?", then scamper off to try to figure it out for myself.
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A few weeks ago, I was watching Youtube videos of Steve Vai, who is without question one of the most technically proficient guitarists in the world, when I noticed a thumbnail of him playing an overhand tapping riff in a song called "Building the Church". As this is one of my favorite techniques, I got very excited as I waited for the video to load. When I saw and heard the riff, a most curious thing happened. I was expecting the usual rush of "I should be able to do that!" followed by hours of tedious practice as I sought to bring my abilities up to his level. Instead, for the very first time, I was disappointed with what I saw. It was fast and it sounded cool, but there was nothing intricate or complex about it at all. It was just the same finger pattern played over and over again with different chords. I quickly forgot about the riff.
Last week's blog post focused on my efforts to master a particular John Petrucci solo using overhand tapping. I posted the videos on the John Petrucci forum to see what the other guitar nerds thought. Much to my surprise, the very first comment was "I'm betting Vai's tapping in Building the Church poses NO problem for you at all! Crazy stuff!". I was astounded to find that I was not the only one who thought my overhand abilities had surpassed Vai's. However, I was not going to let this matter be decided by random dudebros on the internets. I had to prove to myself and to "CaressOfSteel@2112" that I was truly up to the task. I focused my efforts on learning the Vai riff, as well as writing some tapping material of my own.
Here, after exactly one week of practice, is what I was able to do with Building the Church by Steve Vai. Notice how each finger is assigned to one string and how the same rhythmic pattern is used over and over again. One other aspect of the solo that makes it easier than it looks is that no two consecutive notes are ever played by the same hand -- the entire solo alternates between a finger on the left hand and a finger on the right hand.
Not perfect, but not too shabby considering it has only been a week since I began learning the piece. The following two videos are my attempts to write more complex melodic ideas with overhand tapping. Both incorporate unusual time signatures, polyrhythms, changing string assignments, and consecutive notes played on one hand:
None of this is meant to disparage Vai or imply that I'm a better musician than he is. This would simply be untrue, and as I described earlier, my urge to improve has never been about winning some stupid dick-measuring contest. The point of all this is to illustrate that if you consistently judge yourself by the highest possible standards, and if you put in the time to make it happen, you will eventually get to where you want to be. Better yet: you'll go farther.
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Week 13 total: 24 hours
Grand total: 320.5 hours
Required pace: 250 hours (+70.5)
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