it coulda been worse...

coulda, shoulda, woulda… i really don’t like thinking about unrealized potential like that. it’s kind of hard not to sometimes though. i've been messing around with the guitar since i left college. i've never really had anyone to play with, and my musical talent is pretty minimal. basically, i've struggled for most every little skill i've learned……pilcher and i have been playing for a couple of months now. he really doesn’t have any inbred musical genius either… we’re both doing it for fun. but seriously, he basically learned in two evenings a song that took me probably a year… to piece together, to learn, to polish. he’s so much faster at picking it up from me than i am, trying to learn it from a piece of paper and listening to recordings... i really think it's a matter of time until he absorbs everything i know… and i can’t learn fast enough to keep having more for him. but of course, i'm not one of those people to try and hold something back for themselves… i don’t need to *look* important. i *am* important. and arrogant. :) i was always told that the learning curve was much faster if you had someone to play with… i just never thought it was that extreme.of course, all this makes me wonder in retrospect where i might be at if i would’ve been playing with someone who challenged me. …apparently, not that far.we were sitting outside playing the other night… it’s getting warm here, so it felt like a late summer night, with a nice breeze. so it’s just the two of us, and we’re playing “you were meant for me” by jewel. now, remember the discussion over how i really can’t sing something by smashing pumpkins? well, jewel really isn’t pilcher’s range or style. admittedly, the range is a stretch for me… but really, it’s just for fun… and for the interest of learning and getting the timing down, it’s one of the ones i sing. …so the breeze is blowing, we’re playing, i'm singing… and ack comes out to smoke. (just to set the scene, ack was in the process of quitting to go home and is a very unhappy person right now.) he proceeds to interrupt us mid verse and tell me that i “really just need to lay off the high notes, because it really doesn’t sound good.” of course, we didn’t miss a beat and finished the song regardless… …now, i know it’s not my best… and yes, it’s out of my range. so we won’t submit that one to american idol, ok? i can also absorb where it’s coming from, and see his state of mind behind it, even if i don’t really understand the motivation. but why would you say something like that to someone? not a big deal to say it to someone like me… i never really cared what he thought of me one way or the other. i won’t say it didn’t sting, because of course it did… that’s what it was meant to do. but what if frankie would’ve been the one singing? he’s sensitive about his voice as it is… it took weeks just to get him to try… even just singing along with me. what kind of damage would that have done? i think something like that might have seriously hurt his feelings, if not broke his heart. i guess ultimately i'm glad it went the way it did…