L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Your Cheatin’ Guitar

September 2, 2009 on 10:04 am | 2 people have joined the conversation. We need you too. | In Backstage Pass, General Musing, Music

I play keys. Not fabulously, but well enough to accompany myself for the most part and I lean on my band for the rest.

One particular musical rite that I’ve never been able to pull off is jamming. I’ve been to jams – generally the lone keyboard in a sea of guitars. They are filled with people who seem like mortal humans and yet no one has a problem keeping up. Except me. Jams tend to be noisy affairs and I can never hear the keyboard well enough over the din of guitars to be sure I’m on the right chord. As much music as I’ve played over the past (ahem)-ty years, I’ve never played pop or Americana so I don’t know the chords from past learning and I’ve pretty much never played I-IV-V songs. Add to that the hassle of being tethered to the grid. No electricity? No jam for me.

This all came to a head a few weeks ago at a music-intensive conference in San Francisco. I did not travel with my keyboard or amp. A keyboard had been promised at the SF end. But these things being as they are, there was no keyboard for most of the event. (No fault of the promisers. They struggled valiantly on my behalf and I felt like a troublesome, high-maintenance diva, swanning about and sighing over the lack.)

For four days and nights, spontaneous jams sprouted in parks, lobbies, hallways and hotel rooms. Jams I longed to be a part of. I don’t even like John Denver, but damn! my fingers itched to play. Jams are the music of the road. My ancestors did not flee the shtetl dragging amps and cables.

I turned to a guitar-wielding friend and begged, “Teach me!”

My first guitar lesson happened in a hotel room packed with seventeen musicians all going full-blast. It was even captured on video:

And here’s the dirty secret I learned: Guitarists cheat! You don’t need a great ear to jam. Once you know the chords, you can follow by LOOKING. I could be stone deaf and still know from across the room that we’re on D. It was one of those scales-fell-from-my-eyes moments. All this time I’d been thinking I sucked because I was the only one who couldn’t tell just by listening what the chord was. I may still suck, but I’m on to your little game, guitarists.

A keyboard finally did show up the last night. An hour before the big concert. The guy who brought it handed it over with the casual comment, “Oh, I forgot to bring the power adapter. Do you happen to have eight D-cell batteries on you?” (Oh yeah, it’ll be a relief to get them out of my pocket – they’ve been pulling my pants out of shape all night.)

Hand me that guitar. I’m heading to the jam. If you’re there, though, go easy on the barre chords. I’m still learning.