Friday, October 19

more is less

There is a general rule of wank when it comes to one's ability to play a musical instrument and the amount of extras used by a wanker to play that instrument. Whoa, that made no sense.

Over the more than fifty years of musical excellence that Arnica has been involved with music, Arnica has had the opportunity to play with many musicians, and those many musicians all had varying levels of ability to play their instrument. Over time, Arnica has developed a general rule that has applied to most every person he has played with. That rule is that if you claim to play guitar and show up to a jam with a Marshall half-stack, an entire rack of effects, a seven string Steve Via limited edition Ibenez or a classic 1965 soap bar Les Paul; you probably suck. If you claim to play drums and show up to a practice with a 13 piece set with a double kick pedal and use four sizes of sticks and have a custom throne; you probably suck.

Arnica had the pleasure of selling guitars at a guitar selling facility for a short time, and it seemed to always be the case that when a guy walks in window shopping and wanting to play a guitar, Arnica would ask what kind of rig he plays to find out what guitar to let him play, and the guy who answers that he has a '68 pre CBS Strat and '57 reissue Les Paul and plays through a blah blah blah amp with blah blah blah effects, usually sucks. The guy who came in the guitar selling facility, and when asked about his rig, says he has a no name guitar and an old amp; he usually was a good player.

"Where the Fiz-uck is Arnica going with this?"
Are you ready? Here comes the point. If you love music and playing music, you play it on the instrument in front of you. If you suck at playing music and love pretending to play music, you collect instruments and talk about them.

"When is he going to shut up?"
Soon. This video is of some Chicago kids playing bucket drums. You have seen these guys or guys like them. Watching this video inspired this rant. So blame the internuts.

Shutting up now.

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