On The Horrible Ubiquity of Guitars

I go back and forth about music.  I don't practice enough, don't think I'm getting better, so what's the point of practicing, so I don't get better.  But I actually am getting pretty good, and if I WERE to practice, say, an hour a day, I would be REALLY good. 

But then I go out, ride the subway, walk the streets, and notice that every other son of a bitch has a guitar strapped to his or her back and I think to myself, "Why is it that there are so many guitar players? Why do so many people gravitate, lemming like, to the guitar? Can't some of them play a bassoon? Why didn't I pick up the bagpipes?" 

You know how motorcyclists wave to eachother when they pass on the road? And fans of the same sports team give each other the high five? With guitars there's no camaraderie. I take it as a personal affront when I see someone else with a guitar.  "Who the hell are you?" I shout "Oh, you think you can play? Oh, tough guy with a guitar, Mr. cool with a guitar." The police are called in.

There are so many guitarists In New York that there are rules now for people with guitars: guitar lines at restaurants, movies, bathrooms. And you are likely to get mugged by another guitar player, the enmity is so strong.

I once got on the subway with my guitar and there were so many other guitar players carrying guitars on that car the conductor made us do an open mike.

Now I've gotten into the habit of thinking obsessively about various statistics and probabilities about guitar expertise that somehow favor me:  how many of these, these, so-called "musicians," these silly, ineffectual hopeless morons, these tens of thousands of them who show up at the drop of a hat an the closest dive bar as soon as the sign-up goes on the bar-top -- how many of them can actually read music? How many can actually play more than five chords? How many of these people know how to pretend to play jazz? how many know what a diminished triad is? I don't but I'm just wondering. How many can play a minor 7 flat five chord, a flat nine?  I can, but only if I'm on a bicycle. How many know what a 3/6/2/5/1 progression is? 

Then I feel guilty and silly about the whole thing and begin to hate the guitar, and think I should go back to playing the only instrument I was ever really good at: recorder.

So, then comes the existential question: what is the point of playing guitar if literally everyone else on Earth also plays the guitar? You aren't going to get any invitations to perform in a group. "What do you do?" "I play guitar." "that's too general, could you narrow it down a bit?" "I think so: when I inhale oxygen, I then exhale carbon dioxide." "So you're an animal. We need that."

I guess I have to look back at how I got tricked into playing guitar. I know, I started playing air guitar. That's it. It was air guitar to Alice Cooper. I'd been kicked out of the school band for barking like a dog (see below). Then, unfortunately, I learned to play C, then G. then I think D. I was therefore equipped to play the entire Rolling Stones repertoire. I should have stuck with bassoon.