Subtitle:  Stevie Ray Vaughan taught me how to treat the guitar.

The first time I ever held an electric guitar in my hands was probably 12 or 13 years ago.  I was in Myrtle Beach with my Uncle Dan, Aunt Dorie and Cousin Rob.  I was sitting at the dining table in the living area of our suite, and my Uncle put the guitar in my lap and tried to teach me how to play “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty.  It’s a memory I don’t think I ever will forget, and I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I didn’t pick up a guitar for the next 3 or 4 years.

I was a freshman in high school and my brother was looking into buying a guitar to play in a band with his friends.  Naturally, I wanted to follow my brothers every move, so I began shuffling through the music catalogs he had, trying to find the right guitar for me.  The guitar I chose was a Squier Standard Fat Strat, color purple.  I don’t know what it was about the color but it was different, I knew it would stand out.  Despite being afraid of people calling me gay for having a purple guitar, I received that guitar for Christmas that year and began taking lessons.

In my lessons I learned a lot of songs and chords, ranging from bands like Blink 182, to Matchbox Twenty, to Aerosmith, and Metallica.  Blink 182 was definitely the band that caught on for me, and I developed a small obsession.  But it didn’t last very long.  Shortly after discovering Blink 182, I also discovered Stevie Ray Vaughan.  This is where my guitar playing took a huge transformation.  I loved his command over the guitar, I loved what I felt when I heard him play and could only dream of what he had felt while playing.  It was an instant connection that has never been broken.

This is a story all in itself, but ever since I could remember, Pearl Jam has been a part of my musical life.  My cousin Dan and my brother Steve were huge fans and so I knew of them and all of their songs but didn’t really attach myself.

On August 24th, 2000, I attended my first Pearl Jam concert ever.  It was at Jones Beach in New York.  I remember driving to the show with Steve, and my Cousins Dan and Rob.  My cousin Mike would arrive later with a friend.  We were blasting Pearl Jam the whole way.  This normally doesn’t happen, it’s against the rules.  You can’t play the band you’re going to see on the way to the show.  But for some reason I got the sense that Pearl Jam fans were different.  I was right.  When we got to the parking lot, it was filled with people tailgating, throwing footballs around, barbecuing, and, yes, blasting Pearl Jam.  It was unlike anything I have ever seen before.

My life changed that night.  It literally changed.  It’s a moment I will never forget.  I was standing next to my brother and watched PJ come out, Ed softly saying “good evening” into the microphone and the band starting into “Of the Girl” a new song off their new album at the time “Binaural.”  “Of the Girl” is a softer song, very toned down.  I can picture Ed dancing.   The song ended, and this was the moment I’ve been talking about.  The band bursted into the intro to “Breakerfall”  which is an obvious omage to “I  Can See for Miles” by The Who.  Out of the intro I saw Mike burst towards the edge of the stage, swinging his head back as if he was looking to the stars for his inspiration.  The lights were flashing frantically.  The music exploded, chills shot down my spine and I suddenly realized that the guitar I had on its stand at home would never leave my side.  That I would be playing guitar for the rest of my life.  I knew that whenever I thought life was taking a shit on my chest, I could turn on some music and be completely lost in it and feel whole again.  I also knew that no band would ever mean as much to me as Pearl Jam does.

The show that night was being broadcast on K-Rock 92.3, and as my brother, cousins and I left for home, they started to replay the show.  And again, as what seems to be against the rules, we listened to the entire show we just saw all over again on the ride home.

It was truly one of the most important days of my life, and ever since, Pearl Jam has been the number one influence in every single thing I do on a guitar, in a band, or even in the designing I do.

Which brings me to this.  Mike McCready taught me how to play guitar.  I’ve never been the type to learn full songs.  I’ve never sat with an acoustic and learned the vocals to a song.  What I would do every day was turn on a Pearl Jam album and plug my guitar in.  I would just play over the entire album.  I would follow Mike’s guitar parts through the song like they were someone with a torch leading me through a dark forest.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that if I could just find the notes he was using and try to mimic what he was playing, I would be fine.  And that’s exactly what happened.  Doing things this way helped me to have a guide, a teacher, but also helped me develop my own way of playing, because I wasn’t just learning his every lick.  I had to improvise because I didn’t know everything he was doing. Not just his playing either, but his stage presence too effected me.  When you see pictures of me on stage with my head back, looking up at the ceiling, you now know why that happens.  It’s because when I was learning to play, Mike made me believe that the right notes to play are written on the ceiling.

I never got to see Stevie Ray Vaughan play live, he died well before I even knew who he was, but I did obtain ever DVD that has been put out since.  Unlike Mike McCready, Stevie is way harder to feel comfortable about learning from.  He is just too good.  There is something about him that no guitarist has ever and will ever touch.  I did, however, take the same approach with him as I did with Mike.  I would put on his albums and play along to them too, but he was very hard to follow at times.  To this day, I can only follow him so much when I do this.  I can hear a lot of his licks but I can easily get lost trying to keep up.  So it was much harder to learn from him than Mike.  But what I did learn from Stevie was how to treat the guitar.  I don’t mean treat as in wipe down the fretboard after I play it or keep it clean and in it’s case.  I mean I learned how to treat it as an extension of my voice.  What many people will learn from blues players is that soloing is all about space and phrasing.  You don’t want to just noodle, you want to form some kind of phrase as if you’re having a conversation with your guitar.  Most people walk away from this thinking too hard about what notes to end a phrase on and how much time to leave before their next phrase.  But what I learned is a bit different from Stevie.  I learned that the first not you play after a space is the most important note.  I learned that note is the only one you think about when you’re not playing.  Not what lick am i going to play next, but what note am I going to play that will open up a new phrase, maybe a phrase I never even played before.

I am by no means an accomplished guitarist.  I don’t consider myself a great guitarist, I know I have loads to learn still and that I may not even reach my full potential.  I can’t shred, I can’t play a ton of different styles.  What I try to do is play to the best of my ability while always making sure to channel something beyond normal thinking.  I take my chances, prepared to fail, and if a lick sounds good, I repeat it. Formal music education can teach you a lot.  It can ground you technically, as well as in theory.  But the real goods comes from finding your Mike McCready or Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Someone who can teach you more than just pencil marks in a notebook.