A lot of your favorite rock stars have done something similar, though. Without ever learning music theory or even reading music, people like Eddie Van Halen, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and countless others have aspired to and reached the greatest heights of musical stardom, success, and influence. How did they do it? They played a lot. When I say a lot, what I mean by that is A LOT; as in virtually every waking hour for years and years. They had the necessary passion to do something very difficult with only the most basic tools.

Having a passion is great, but if you are like 99.9% of the world and don’t share the same passion as the musicians above but still want to play an instrument, I suggest you use as many tools as you can get your hands on. It will save you a lot of time and make it so you don’t have to give up your job or your kids.

What I’m talking about specifically is learning to read tablature, standard notation, chord charts, and rhythmic notation at least. Music theory is another good idea. Each of these things helps you to perform different jobs in just the same way as different tools on a job site will help you build a house. Tablature is great for learning exactly which fret and string your favorite guitar player uses to play that guitar solo or riff you’ve been wanting to learn, but it looks cluttered and confusing if the song is performed with mostly chord strumming. Chord charts will perform that job much more simply. If you want to play with other people, standard and rhythmic notation will make it a lot easier. Before I learned to read standard and rhythmic notation it would take my band a week to put a song together. We all played different instruments and didn’t really know how to speak each other’s musical language. Standard and rhythmic notation are the common language for all instruments. When I learned those and played in a band with other people who also spoke that language, we were able to put together as many as a dozen songs in a single rehearsal. It really does make that much of a difference.

A lot of music students resist learning to use a lot of those tools though. A lot of people say to me that learning to read is too hard and Clapton didn’t read music so why do I have to? Well, you don’t have to, but from my experience I can tell you that not learning to read is harder. I understand the desire to do things the way your musical heroes did them. Like them, I prioritized playing music above sports, friends, parties, and other hobbies. I shared the same passion as The Beatles and Van Halen. I also had the time to do it. I was a kid when I played that much and didn’t have a whole lot else to do. I don’t have nearly that amount of time now, I’m lucky that I do it for a living, otherwise I don’t think I’d get to play much at all.

If, then, you are like me and the vast majority of other people on the planet, I suggest that you take the time to learn to use all the available tools. Otherwise you are making it more difficult on yourself than is necessary; like building a house with just a hammer and nails. We’re all trying to have fun here so why not make things easy on yourself?

The kids were alright. In fact, they were better than alright, they were great. First up to be judged was a band to which Simon Cowell would have been mean. I think Simon Cowell is a dolt, however, and that he makes a great living by doing mean things that were probably done to him as a child – things that will probably get cleared up after some time in therapy, and I think that the earnestness of the two lead singers was great and that just like everyone at the beginning, with some practice, the talent will come to match the desire. The rest of the band, who ably backed up the leaders were like flies on the wall, so in the comments field of the judging form I was dutifully filling out as if they would be given to the bands later as a helpful bit of critique, I wrote something that I tell myself and my band members and anyone else who’ll listen all the time because I have faith in its validity. “There is seldom much difference between an audience’s reaction to you and its reflection of you.”

One down, five to go. I was becoming more comfortable with my lot and eager to hear what the future of the evening had in store.

A band came up with a couple members I’d known before. They had once been part of Rock ‘n’ More’s Rockology class and, after a few quarters, decided to go out on their own. I can’t blame anyone for that. That’s our goal at the school. I’m sure it’s much more difficult but, hopefully, more rewarding to know that you can book a gig without Dace’s help.

This particular band had its earnestness knob up to ten. The singer sang songs about love gone bad and about love gone right and about cruising the strip with his buddies looking to pick up on chicks. I didn’t know there was a strip around Maple Valley where a group of friends could drive and pick up on chicks, but then again, I didn’t grow up around here. I grew up on the Eastside where cruising down the street adjacent to Lake Washington had been outlawed. I had heard that the rule was that if a cop saw your car on that street more than twice in one night, you’d get a ticket. It was all pure hearsay, but I believed it. I only went cruising once. I went with my friends Pat and Geoff in Pat’s 60-something-or-other Chevy muscle car. There were so many cars that it felt like we were stuck in a traffic jam. I thought it was boring. Didn’t pick up on a single chick. The singer of this band clearly did not share a history of cruising with me. Whether or not there was a strip to cruise; that he did or did not cruise it; or that he did or did not pick up on chicks simply did not matter. When he threw his mic wielding arm high above himself and cocked his head to the left where the guitar player was throwing down sermons on his Les Paul, I believed that he believed it, and that made the audience believe it, and who was I to do anything but to believe it myself?

To be continued next week…

I could go on to draw a correlation between the personnel turnaround in our bands and any sports team in the world or the personnel turnaround at the company where you work and ask you how you expect a band of hobbyists to keep it together ad infinitum, but I think I’d rather take a more positive approach instead and ruminate about Eric Clapton.

I’m sure the vast majority of people reading this know who Eric Clapton is. He is a legend in rock ‘n’ roll, blues, and guitar circuits. He is considered by most guitar aficionados to be one of the best rock guitar players of all time. He’s hung out with Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles and they were big fans of Clapton. In fact, Clapton has had such a prolific career that he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times!!! That fact is the true source of this meditation.

No one else has been inducted as many or more times as Clapton. In order to be inducted that many times, he’s had to have been a member of at least three extremely successful and/or influential bands. For Clapton, three bands is nothing. Looking at the list of bands he’s been a member of, you might think he could go through three bands before breakfast. In fact, in the eight years from 1963-1970 Eric Clapton was actually a member of 8 different bands! Count ‘em: The Roosters, The Yardbirds, The Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Dalaney and Bonnie and Friends, Derek and the Dominos, and another band as a solo artist. The Yardbirds, Cream, and Eric Clapton as a solo artist are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In that time, and since, Clapton has played and recorded with numerous acts such as George Harrison and John Lennon, but I think you get the idea by now, so I’ll digress.

Eric Clapton has been in a lot of bands. He could have gotten frustrated about not staying together with one of these bands and quit but he didn’t. Instead he led most of these bands to success and made the most of every opportunity he had to play. That’s the point I’m trying to make here.

Whether or not you decide you want to be in the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame is up to you, but as long as we’re dealing with people who possess the freedom to do what they want and the desire to exercise that right, neither you nor I can force any band member to stay in any band. I think it’s safe to conclude from the data gathered here that if one’s glass is half-empty, one would probably notice that one’s Rockology band might not last more than one quarter. If one’s glass is half-full, I’m sure one would be delighted to find out that one’s Rockology band is going to be together for at least three months and one would get to play a gig with these people. You are a free person, so you get to decide which of those two options works best for you.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve realized that the t-shirts and jeans that Metallica, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were wearing were costumes. It’s all part of the image. The image of those bands is that they don’t have an image and that attracts people who think that bands shouldn’t have an image. Sounds twisted, huh? Twisted or not, the world of entertainment is all a mirage. Once I really got that into my head, I stopped taking myself so seriously and had some fun instead.

So now the rule of thumb I tell my Rockology students to use is to look different than the audience. Make sure that people can tell you’re a performer and not just a face in the crowd. Over the years we’ve had bands that have dressed in themes like when all the members of Sumo Nightclub wore suit jackets or when The Fire Extinguishers all wore firemen’s helmets. I’ve noticed a bit of eyeliner on a few dudes besides me. Sunglasses, kilts, furry jackets, crazy hats, formal wear, and even hot pants (by that I mean Doug Geiger in his flame-print pajamas) and loafers have all taken turns onstage at Rockcitals.

In my band, Sealth, we become caricatures of ourselves onstage. Anything we do offstage we do times 10 onstage. Why? Because when you play music in public, you are generally trying to get peoples’ attention and make them experience something beyond just the sound of the band. By the time you’ve put together a band and started playing gigs, you’ve hopefully got the music down, but if all you had to give to the audience was music, why wouldn’t they stay home and listen to their iPods? Music is pretty much free these days, and really easy to get. If people are getting up and leaving their homes, sans iPod, to go see you perform, you should be flattered and work to make it worth their while. Therefore, a live show has to be about more than just the music, it’s also got to be about the experience. At a Madonna show, it’s about the dancing and costume changes. At a Metallica show, it’s about headbanging, moshing, fist-pumping, and other manly things. Besides the music, why should people come to see your band? What kind of one-of-a-kind, personal experience are you going to give to your audience?

There are elements of movement and emotion that should certainly be part of your live repertoire and we’ll get into those topics in the future. Cool explosions and drum risers that go upside down over the audience and huge laser shows may be cost-prohibitive for your band right now so we’ll talk about those way later. First off, try being creative with the way you present yourself visually. Become a caricature of yourself. Have some fun. Here’s the equation (Me + fun) × 10 = me onstage. Good luck

From left; Me, Scott

Quick. Name three bands that have been together for more than five years and have never had any lineup changes.

Did you get past U2? Remember when Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best were in The Beatles? Pearl Jam had at least four drummers come and go before Matt Cameron joined about ten years ago. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have had roughly 15 kajillion guitar players in their band.

The moral of the story being that it is a good idea to be together with people who share the same ambitions as you. Yet, even if you do, humans have a horrible habit of changing through time, so you can never tell for sure how long your band is going last; even if you try really hard.

Speaking of hard, learning morals and thinking about stuff is hard. Let’s stop thinking and start reading about the ultimate demise of my first band, D-Day.

Chapter IV

The Greatest Band in the World Cuts a Record

In April of ’94 we managed to pool together enough dough to make an album. After about two years of rehearsing three hours a day five days a week, it only took us two days to record our first album consisting of our nine finest original metal songs. We were planning to do 6 but, by that time we were so tight we had time for three more. We knew we had a winner of a record with tunes like “Black Cat Minded” (a song about being a stalker), “Chasing the Blade” (about war), and “Shuttle Driver” (about being a shuttle driver).

Hear “Shuttle Driver” and “Chasing the Blade” here www.myspace.com/daceanderson  

It sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 copies. It likely could have sold more but that spring and summer Darren and Hans decided to not like each other any more so the band broke up one night.

Three years of hard work down the drain due to one dude’s opinion of how things should be. It had nothing to do with me. Darren just said “on to the next” and took his stuff. I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought it sucked that the band fell apart so easily after all that time.

Anti-climactic, eh? That’s what I thought.

Now what do I do?