3—INTONATION – Musical Interlude to the Infinite
My brother is 15 years younger than me and a fantastic guitarist. He’s been a fantastic guitarist ever since he picked up a six-string at the age of 13. I remember teaching him a couple of chords early on. Six weeks later he was trying to get me to understand the concept of using a capo and how I could drop the tuning on a string to bring in more depth to a chord. Needless to say, as the proud older brother, I developed all kinds of excuses which kept me busy enough that I wouldn’t have to sit down with my little bro and be humbled by his understanding and execution of music. Everyone touted his “gift” and how easily he was able to learn things on that guitar. And, yes, he certainly did exhibit an enormous amount of talent early on, but what no one gave him credit for was that he worked tirelessly developing each and every technique.Day after day J-man would come home from school, dump his books on the couch, and go to his room to get his hands on that fret board. Long evenings led to long nights of tirelessly repeating sequences, runs, and riffs. There was always the emergence from the room for food and bathroom breaks, but right back into that room he would go. There were times of frustration, times of epiphany, and times of sorrow that he experienced trying to learn to master that instrument.
And, yet, he wasn’t performing at the time. He wasn’t earning a living on stage. He wasn’t even allowing
