John the Cousin

Hmm.

I've got a cousin named John, and he's recently started taking guitar lessons from me, which might be both a good and bad thing because I am incredibly opinionated... and that might rub off on him especially since he'll be learning guitar every weekend with me until the 3rd of January.

Muahhaha... another soul to corrupt.

Ok, not literally, but I have passed him some Led Zeppelin, Neil Young and CSN&Y CDs for him to listen to. I find that John is one of your typical quiet, unimposing 15 year old who sees and listens more than he talks.. which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For one he would make a good student because he soaks things up readily, but on the other hand he also can't learn as much as he doesn't ask much questions.

John and myself have never been able to strike up conversation well because we come into contact with other so seldom, it's only when there's family gatherings like CNY or when some distant relation comes to town, and the family gathers at Gramp's place whereby we do see each other and we say very little.

John's terribly shy, and he needs to pick up his confidence and also the desire to find out more. He's always been very quiet, and hopefully I can bring out some fire in him.

Today Uncle Tuck, John adn myself went down to Lawrence's shop and we got John a beautiful Cort acoustic guitar which I deem is well worth the money. I was pleased I managed to get Lawrence more business, and I guess Lawrence was equally grateful.

I've decided that for my cousin John, especially since he's pretty green to what music is relatively guitar-friendly.. he's into stuff which is only remotely playable on guitar. Sort of reminds me when some drunken bloke asked me once if I knew how to play 'Reach' by S Club 7.

Anyhow... I've decided to let John listen to some Led Zeppelin and Neil Young, and his task is to think about what he feels about a particular song.. whether it's fast, slow, intense, light-hearted, groovy, psychedelic etc and the album in perspective s (to me) an excellent choice, 'Led Zeppelin III'.

Why do I feel it is a good choice? First off, Led Zeppelin III is one album in which they fuse songs which are both electric-guitar driven (Immigrant Song, Celebration Day) and folksy stuff (Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, Gallows Pole) and which features one of my favourite Led Zeppelin numbers 'Since I've Been Loving You', which is a studio live recording where the spirit of live Zep during that period in their touring days is captured and crystallised in one simple yet powerful recording.

Apparently (ok, snippet of rock history here), Jimmy Page couldn't get the right sound from his Marshall, so he found some british amp sitting outside the studio room, plugged it in and recorded the song. Also, the song also features John Paul Jones on keyboards and foot pedal bass. Cool huh? Right.

Anyway.. I've decided to take this course of action in educating my cousin because I find that being an individual who simply abhorrs manufactured music, it is only appropriate I expose my cousin to music which I find valid rather than letting him listen to stuff which is completely irrelevant. Complementing that fact is I literally listened to those records inside out, and paid so much attention to all the pannings, volume swells and arrangements it increased my relatively scant musical vocabulary in ways I didn't realise was possible.

Tomorrow afternoon is our session together, and hopefully I can get my SG back in order as I've just changed the strings and cleaned up the fretboard and body.


Cheers,

Crawldaddy