…and I’m very proud of myself! I’ve been a huge fan of John Petrucci (guitarist for Dream Theater) for several years now, and he has mentioned in several interviews that he practiced for six hours per day every day throughout all of high school and college to get to where he is now. I never believed that I would be capable of practicing for that long in a single day, but I recently decided to take my music to the next level, and yesterday it just all came together!
Any stories of senseless all-consuming dedication that ya’ll would like to share?
When I first moved to NYC in 1989 I had a lot of free time on my hands while I lined up work and classes at a drum school. I drove back east from Colorado and spent most of that time listening to Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, John Fahey, and other fingerstyle guitar music. I just had to learn some of this stuff. At the time I could play a couple of simple tunes and had an ok ear for figuring out chords.
During this time when I first arrived in NYC I spent as much time as I could from morning till night until my fingers couldn’t stand it anymore practicing guitar. My friend lent me a John Fahey book that has songs with alternate tunings. I consumed that and figured out tunings to a bunch of Bert Jansch tunes and learned them by ear. Figuring out one thing led to another and another. I worked up a repertoire of maybe a couple dozen songs that I’d play for friends and wrote and performed a song for my friends’ wedding. It was a fun time being so obsessed and having the time to indulge it.
