…but it is killing my arm.

This past Saturday I had pulled out my basses and guitar to twiddle around on them, nothing too serious but I ended up having such a good time that I wondered why I had put them down for so long. I haven’t played any of them in some nine years and it has been even longer since I sat and read music so on Sunday I decided that it might be fun to get my chops back. My arm is not thanking me as it is stiff, sore, and generally wants to assume the position of a knotted crab claw.

Interestingly, age has bestowed on me a greater level of concentration–surprise!–and I’m now able to sit through tedious finger exercises and repetitive scales as I try and limber up my hands and get my mind back into the feel and sound of the fretboard. Back when I played with a much greater frequency I had a miserable time staying focused on exercises, particularly on the bass. My music background consisted of an emphasis on rote learning and sight reading and it is how I was trained on the saxophone, trumpet, and french horn. Exercises consisted mostly of mind numbing scales, arpeggios, and intervals all of which are great warm ups and downs but does induce absolute boredom. When it came to music lessons for the bass I didn’t last long, already knowing how to read music I just wanted to just play so I quickly dropped out of formal lessons.

Here I am, some eighteen years after I first picked up the bass sitting in the kitchen with my Washburn AB-20, its buzzing D tuner frustrating me, and a dog-eared copy of Dan Dean’s Electric Bass Method, while the metronome clicks away quietly working through those same finger exercises that drove me out of my mind all those years ago.  But it feels good.  Like the book and the sounds of practicing are connective tissue to my past, to days squandered and days enjoyed.  If I’m lucky my fingers and brain will meet up and I might just be able play music like I had always wanted to.