The record button was flashing on the ADAT machine, awaiting my command to engage.  I checked my guitar's tuning and made sure that the sound was dialed in to my satisfaction.  I started the recorder and readied for the drummer's opening clicks to begin the song.  Taking a deep breath, I tried to focus on the moment and summon some kind of Zen-like awareness, hoping to make the grandest statement that I could for the tape.  The music began to play.  I attempted to settle into the groove.  My mind wandered and analytical thoughts clouded my head.  "Damn!" I yelled as I hit the stop button.  "I didn't play that phrase with the proper feeling or technique," I lamented.  "I can do it better."

Twenty minutes later after repeated takes, I still hadn't gotten the vibe I wanted.  "I'm not liking my sound.  It's too thin and buzzy," said the ever-present internal critic.  "My licks are cliched and monotonous. To heck with it!"  I placed the guitar in the stand and headed down to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Rubbing my eyes with frustration, I contemplated why I even continued to play.  "I mean, here I am, a guitarist since my early teens and I can't seem to do any better than my unfulfilling efforts in the studio.  What am I doing?  What is my direction?  What is it that I have to say that makes me continue to play this humbling instrument?  What do I have to offer as a musician?  Is it my ego that makes me expect perfection?"

I remembered something ironic that Eric Clapton said in a 60 Minutes interview for CBS.  He called himself "an egomaniac with an inferiority complex."  I wondered if I might be something like that as well.  Of course, how could I even bring myself to compare my endeavors with someone of his stature?  "What in the heck have I ever done to merit attention or any expectation of producing any music of a high standard?  I'm just sitting here in my apartment in North Carolina going nowhere fast."  Maybe I was relating on a very basic level to a musician I admire a lot.

The clock on the wall read 4:00 p.m.  The gig was coming up in a few hours.  Guitar strings needed to be changed and the car needed to be loaded with equipment.  After my usual last-minute scrambling to get it all together, I headed out on the highway hoping to get to the club early enough to set up and take a few minutes to settle down before the show.  I popped an old Albert Lee CD in the stereo as I drove west, leaving nowhere behind.  Lightning-fast riffs blazed away as I unknowingly increased the car's speed from tapping my foot.  "Man, what I would give to be able to play like that!" I pronounced.  I was inspired and discouraged at the same time.  "How do these guys do it?  Do they practice eight hours a day?  Do they cut some deal down at the crossroads?"

I arrived at the bar in time to get everything in place.  There weren't a lot of people there yet.  Perhaps it would be a late-arriving crowd.  The band kicked off the first set with a swing tune as I listened closely to my amp in order to make adjustments.  My solo was nearing and I needed a little more gain to get the volume and tone that I wanted.  I launched into my break, wondering where my fingers would take me this evening.  I was hearing things in my head that I couldn't get my fingers to do.  The same feelings returned that I had experienced earlier in the day at home in my studio.  "My solos are boring.  I'm not a real swing player and everybody's gonna know it because I can't get out of this pentatonic box for some reason tonight."  My hands were fighting me, stiffening up and bringing my level of inspiration down to almost nil.  "Why is it that I haven't been channeling the spirit lately that makes the great nights seem so effortless?"

Next up was a shuffle.  My attitude was souring as I tried to groove in a format I had thrived in countless times before.  The same old songlist was driving me crazy.  One-Four-Five progressions no longer moved me to create with reckless abandon.  I longed for something new.  The witness inside of my head calmly took notes of my dissatisfaction with everything.  Before I could ask anymore analytical questions of myself, the guitar went silent.  Unnerved, I reached down on the floor and diagnosed that a cable in one of my pedals had loosened, causing the problem.  The stress of discontentment sapped all of my enthusiasm for playing.

I managed to get through the set and muttered with disgust to myself about how I should be able to handle this kind of adversity with more grace, given my years of experience.  "Jason, you have the equipment you want, you occasionally teach guitar, and you even have a Web site where you offer advice and opinions to other musicians.  For goodness sakes, you should be doing a lot better than you are," the critic railed on.

As I headed to the bar to refill my glass, I was approached by a man in his early forties.  He held out his hand to shake mine and said "You sound great.  I just want to let you know that you are getting sounds that I've had in my head for a long time that I don't know how to produce."  He went on to explain that he had been playing guitar for several years, and that he gigged every couple of weeks with some friends in a part-time band a few blocks away.  "Thank you for the compliment," I half-heartedly replied.  There's no way in the world that I felt comfortable with his praise.  I was so disheartened with my sound and overall presentation that I couldn't accept his approval without qualifying everything in my response.  "Well, I'm having an off night," I said.  "I'm using a different amp than normal and trying to experiment with some new gear."  He wasn't buying any of it.  "You are playing well, and I would love to be able to do some of the things you did in the first set," he countered.

Driving home after the show, I felt exhausted and my ears were ringing.  It wasn't the good kind of fatigue that had followed me home on past inspirational nights.  It was the specter of restlessness and a sense of not living up to what I wanted to do which wore me down as I tried to stay awake on the ride home.

My mind drifted back to the man's comments at the bar.  He had seemed genuinely touched in some way by my performance.  We had exchanged e-mail addresses at the gig.  I was surprised to find that he had already left a message for me by the time I got home near dawn.  "Jason, I just wanted to thank you for discussing your equipment and techniques with me," the e-mail read.  "I had been thinking about giving up the guitar because of my frustration with my lack of improvement, but your encouragement and playing made me want to keep at it."  Suddenly, the gig didn't seem like a lost cause.  I had actually accomplished something worthwhile in spite of not totally pleasing myself.

The next afternoon, I cued up the ADAT tape that I had been working on.  I played the tracks back, and you know what?  They sounded pretty good.  Removing myself from the frustrations of the previous day had given me a fresher perspective on what I was hearing, almost as if I was listening to a different player for the first time.

I've always liked to refer to my musical experiences as an ongoing journey.  I keep hoping that one day I will feel in complete command of my abilities as a guitarist, and that I will somehow fulfill an untapped potential as an all-round musician that I have no concept of in the present.  I am searching for a way to express something that I don't even have a real grasp of right now.  It's not just one thing.  My expression yearns to be manifested in tones, techniques, words, singing and anything musical.

In spite of the fact that I have been playing for awhile now, I feel like I don't know anything sometimes.  I take comfort in knowing that even my favorite guitarists sometimes go through the same experiences and feelings of doubt in what they do.  While I wouldn't wish frustration on anybody by choice, I do find that there is a certain nobility in struggling with the process of playing.  Sometimes the difficulties can help me to appreciate the whole experience more, including the triumphs and times of inspirational expression.

For instance, Eric Clapton is someone I respect greatly as a musician.  My admiration for him goes well beyond recognizing him as one of the obvious icons of guitar playing.  I see a marvelous pattern in his musical development over the course of his career that I would only dream to emulate on my own level.  He started out as a very basic instrumentalist who improved into an explosive guitar hero, garnering God-like status from rock guitar-crazed fans of the 60s and 70s.  Then through the ups and downs of his career, he emerged with a greater all-round level of musicianship.  He is not only a fantastic guitarist capable of creating subtleties with his instrument in stark contrast to his blatant guitar-slinger riffs of years gone by, but he is also a very expressive singer and writer in my opinion.

Clapton is an easy target for critics because of his popular success and his experimentation with different musical styles.  He also draws the ire of some guitar fans expecting a consistent virtuosity commensurate with the nickname of "God".  I love him not because he is the greatest virtuoso in the world ( there are many players who are infinitely more technical than him), but because he makes great music in the face of unrealistic expectations, and does so with a very humble character from what I can see.  Eric seems to be more at peace with his status and music now that he is getting older, yet he continues to grow and try new things.

I cite him again here to illustrate how even the most highly-regarded players can become somewhat insecure in their pursuits of musical fulfillment.  The June 2001 issue of Guitar Player features an interview with EC, and I was inspired to find his own description of his evolution as a player:

"I gained confidence in my own musical intuition.  All the time that I knew that I could play blues, I was still very insecure about my standing as a legitimate musician..  I didn't feel that I could sit and have a conversation with a jazz player about music because they were on a higher level than me. Yet I've found over the last few years that I can approach any kind of music and bring a unique point of view to it.  For example, when I toured with the Legends Band- which included Joe Sample, Marcus Miller, David Sanborn, and Steve Gadd- I thought I wasn't worthy to play with them.  But even though I felt I wasn't in their league, when we talked about music I realized, 'Hey, I do know enough to stand alongside these guys and play.'"  ---Eric Clapton in the June 2001 issue of Guitar Player

When I hear someone like Eric Clapton question his standing as a legitimate musician, it shows me that even the most accomplished players encounter times of doubt in their playing.  It offers a sense of hope to me when I go through the same feelings with my own guitar, not because I'm anywhere near his level, but more due to how the basic principles of  playing apply to all guitarists.

We all go through the times of searching for something that may not be evident in the present.  On some occasions, the something we are trying to attain is clear while other times it may be elusive.  In either case,  it revolves around a desire to play music to the best of our abilities while hopefully making ourselves and others happy in the end.  It's natural to want other people to like what you do.  I am always flattered when people express an interest in my music.  I also want to like what I do.  Sometimes I don't like what I play or how I sound.

Lately, I have been searching for something.  I think I have found it fleetingly in the past on those inspirational occasions where I have felt completely on-purpose with the guitar in my hands.  It may be impossible to always have that feeling of total peace where I am happy with my sound and my playing, but I will keep on trying to find it and sustain it.  That is the goal of every musician.

The journey is only just starting........
 

Jason