I mean, I can play guitar. I can write songs and play other peoples songs. I mostly play the riffs but I have been known to crack out a solo or two in my time but I am not a "real" guitarist.
I have come to this conclusion because of one thing these other guys do that I don't. Its all about the gurn.
You see, I love playing. Music is my life for the most part and I get untold pleasure from doing it but am I missing something? Why don't I have the guitar face? You know that face that loads of guitarists get when they go into the solo, they are playing in a typical toilet venue in Essex and yet you can tell by their face they are on a cliff top with the wind flicking the last few hairs of their comb over romantically in the breeze while a majestic eagle soars overhead. They gurn like they have never gurned before and the faces they pull make them look like that bit in Inner Space when Martin Short's character has his face change back from being the Cowboy (search Inner Space face change online and I am sure that someone out there will have put it on youtube, everything else in the world is there).
Am I playing wrong? Because I'm just not feeling it like that. I love playing and I feel the guitar parts coming from what may be my soul (or at least from the Mexican food I had for lunch) but it doesn't make me pull those faces.
I need to know if I am missing something? Will I one day unlock the key to playing guitar in such a way that suddenly it makes me look like I am on the verge of an orgasm with stinging nettles in my pants? Will I reach this spiritual plateau where I "become the music, man" and play on a cloud of dreams and ecstasy? Or am I just not into the theatre of it all?
I pull faces when I play too. I do the concentrating face because I am staring out the fretboard making sure I hit the right notes and I also do the wah face (less nowadays as I have learnt to control it) where you uncontrollably mouth the wah wah sound, but thats about it. Sometimes I manage a pained half gurn like the real guitar gods but thats mostly just sweat getting in my eyes and stinging like a bitch.
So whats going on with these other guitarists? Do they have any control over their own features?
If this is some out of control contortion of their facial muscles then it really must be an affliction for these poor guys. It looks painful to me, what if it really is.
If it is out of their control and it happens whenever they start to shred then it must look pretty weird when they are just sat on the sofa in their boxers practicing guitar at home to an audience of one cat thats busy licking itself.
Maybe the face only does it in front of an audience. It has an automatic switch to "LIVE MODE" and suddenly all hell breaks loose.
If it isnt out of the players control then I need to know this. Who is it for? Is this face for them? Does it make them feel better as a guitarist? Does it even make them play better? Putting all that effort into pulling stupid faces would put me off my game big time. Maybe these guys are just that pro that its all part of it.
Maybe the face is for the audience. They look up at the guitar god and think "Wow! That guy looks so fucking pretentious he must be great" maybe if we took away the distraction of the faces we would listen to the player and think "Actually he isn't that great". Who knows.
I guess all I know is that I don't do it when I play guitar but I know a shit load of guitarists that do and some of them just look fucking ridiculous. Am I a fraud for not feeling overwhelmed by the power of the shred or do I just not want to look like a pretentious tool who thinks he is playing Wembley when he is next to the cigarette machine at the Kings Head Public House.
Im off to play guitar while staring at my feet and not moving a lot like the big fake I am.
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