Literacy Narrative

Seth Crandus
Nancy Lafever
WRD 103
24, Sept. 2020

Trials and Tribulations

Try and imagine the feeling of doing something over and over and over again
with no guaranteed signs of success. What you put in is what you get out, though even
then I wouldn’t say I’m particularly gifted. Ever since I was little I feel like I’ve always
been drawn towards music, specifically that of the instrumental variety. Despite my
interest and passion, I didn’t actually start playing until I was 13. Since then it’s been 7
long years filled with many ups and downs.

I had taken some piano lessons before but they never really clicked with me. I
had even taken guitar lessons a few years prior but that didn’t do it for me either. Even
though I didn’t stick with it initially, the interest remained and I have my best friends’
older brother to thank for that. Whenever I’d go over to his place I’d hear the whir of the
amp feedback softly humming from under his doorway. As far back as I can recall he
had been playing guitar, and whenever I’d end up hearing him practise without a doubt I
would always think it was amazing. Despite the fact that in hindsight he was probably a
little off key and definitely still learning, little me was mesmerised. ‘How did you learn to
do that?’ Such a simple question wasn’t uttered until a few years after these initial
encounters. I was a pretty shy kid and even though I looked up to him he was still 5
years older and kind of scary to me. When I did get around to it I had realised that I was
sorely mistaken. From then on I would ask him some stuff when I’d see him and get
some advice. While I can’t remember the exact words he would say I do remember the
impact they had on me.

I think the definitive moment for me going down this path was when I got my first
guitar on my 13th birthday. I was really into metal back then so the musicians I typically
idolised were all guitarists. I remember going to the nearest guitar centre and getting
this used, beat-up old BC Rich Warlock and a Line 6 Spider amp. For those of you who
don’t know, this is a signature beginner setup. Back then I was entranced by the fact
that I could make ‘music’ and ended up spending hours trying to teach myself whatever
I could find the tabs for and actually learn, ain’t nothing like a bad rendition of a System
of a Down or Metallica song. Guitar was one of the things that provided an outlet for me,
especially in tough times.

At this point I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I’m fairly good but that obviously has
not always been the case and there’s still much I need to work on. The consistent
themes impeding my progress were a mix of my ADHD and my lack of proper guidance,
which in turn, is what carried over some bad habits and led me to neglect a lot of
technical stuff over the years. I didn’t actually know I had ADHD until I was 15 though
which definitely didn’t do me any favours. Even now it’s kind of troublesome.

Without someone to point me in the right direction or even point out my bad
habits I was left to stumble blindly through the process that is taking up an instrument. I
unfortunately learned this the hard way and only started taking steps against this within
the past couple years. The worst factor in this was my lack of attention to detail and
relatively short attention span. My ADHD is particularly hard to deal with when I’m
bored, additionally when something might take a while. This manifested itself in how I
would switch around from song to song without really learning the full thing though I
admit it was initially due to lack of skill. Effectively, I didn’t actually know any full songs

until I had been playing for a couple years. Furthermore, contrary to how one should
approach music, I thought of learning songs more as overcoming a challenge than truly
learning it. Namely that as long as I hit the note I’d be satisfied even without really
taking feeling, fluidity, or clarity into account as much. While I’m not saying it’s wrong to
challenge yourself, the way I was approaching it was very shallow and limiting.

My practise routine had always been sporadic for lack of a better word. I would
basically never warm up, use a metronome or practise techniques. To further this, I
would only play metal so the only techniques that I’d work on for the first two or three
years would be tremolo picking, chugging, and primitive forms of tapping (most of which
was only really applicable to metal). The reason this was such a blunder is because
when I later branched out I not only had a lot of trouble breaking from my mold of not
very versatile skills but also found it difficult to learn different techniques. These are
another set of blunders that stems from my lack of musical tutelage and my ADHD for
discombobulating my attention span.

It wasn’t until junior year of high school when I actually started to get decent and
stray away from my path of one genre. While I still played a lot of metal, it was at this
time when I started learning more jazz and eventually math rock. Math rock, AKA emo
jazz, is a genre that incorporates complex instrumentals and rhythms. There’s a lot of
variety within this and I’d most closely compare it to progressive rock or metal. This was
all quite different and very new to me and in a sense really expanded my
horizons. Sure I could play some fairly hard metal riffs at the time, but let me tell ya, it’s
really easy to hide behind the distortion and get away with stuff. From then on I subtly
realised that I’d have to change both my approach, playstyle, and gear soon after. Since

I started playing with only light distortion or none at all I was somewhat forced into
confronting my inefficient ways. Shortly after I even started to try my hand at writing,
though since I don’t know a lot of music theory, it turned out to be quite the ordeal. I
would have to feel out every riff, note to note across the fretboard until I found what I
was looking for in my head.

Despite my shortcomings and the many challenges I faced, I just couldn’t stop
playing guitar. It’s been one of those consistent things to centre me throughout my more
recent life. It’s been a means for me to find and express myself to some extent and has
been much needed at times. I’ve even been able to apply the skills I learned into other
hobbies and things. While I acknowledge that I’m being a bit harder on myself here, I
think it’s a necessary thing to do in order to acknowledge and make progress.