Mann's World

I have officially become an old fart. Last night I was riding in my car, listening to Queen's "Somebody to Love" on WRDU (that's proof of old fartdom right there). As Brian May (No. 2 on my list of greatest guitarists of all time) launched into a majestic solo, I thought to myself, "why should I even care about new music when I can listen to this all day long." Then I realized what I'd done and just about cried. The fact that I'm going to be 38 in just a couple of weeks compounded my misery.

The whole thing reminded me too much of my old guitar teacher, who looked just like Jeff Lynne and told me I'd never be a good guitar player because I was a girl and my fingers were too short. When I played him a tape of "Crazy Train" and told him I wanted to learn it, he just rolled his eyes.

"That guy's not playing," he scoffed. "If you want to hear some real playing you need to listen to Spyro Gyra." To this day I have deliberately avoided listening to Spyro Gyra.

So that's what I've become. The type of music snob who thinks these young whippersnappers don't know real playing. I'm going to try and correct that by making more of an effort to seek out music outside of my comfort zone.

That old anger at my guitar teacher has also inspired me to restart project AC/DC, which is my ongoing attempt to learn to play "Back in Black" straight through, solos and all. (So much for venturing out of my comfort zone.) I had made good progress, having gotten all the rhythms and a couple of solos down -- except for "Let me put my love into you," which proved to be more difficult than I thought. But for various reasons, none of them really good, I quit practicing and got a bit rusty. So here I am publicly declaring I will practice and be able to play the entire album -- at least passably -- by March, after which I will work on my long-time dream of forming Mannhandlyr with Jessica on vocals and a drummer who will only use one arm.