New Year’s Resolution 2017: “I want to rekindle my passion for guitar.”
New Year’s Resolution 2018: “I want to rekindle my passion for guitar.”
[…]
New Year’s Resolution 2023: “I want to rekindle my passion for guitar.”

At what point is the flame simply dead?

The past six years saw my passion for guitar playing sour into indifference. I’d let the forces of status-seeking, competition, and academia drive a wedge between myself and the guitar, the instrument that had been my vehicle for self-discovery and elixir against social isolation. Once a playground, the practice room had become a drab cubicle complete with self-imposed bureaucratic rules, smarmy brand expectations, and hollow rote. I stopped performing jazz in 2018; in 2020 stopped performing regularly, and in 2022 stopped playing altogether.

The sessions that would become ‘said wounds’ began after a lengthy hiatus. I tentatively approached the guitar intending to reconstruct my relationship with it from scratch. Needless to say, I had grown quite rusty; my hands felt confused, sluggish, and standoffish. I found that if I responded to this loss of previously enjoyed skill with a beginner’s mind, as opposed to frustration, I could create freely. Although it was tempting, my goal was not to reclaim the skills I once had. I needed to embrace this moment of instability. I curiously fumbled about in trial and error, seeking a new, healthier relationship with the guitar. Overtime, my curiosity coalesced around a set of creative inquiries:

How can I use controlled feedback and pick-up interference to perform without physically touching the guitar? (‘volt snuffer’)

Could I incorporate the voice in my improvisations by using toy megaphones and modified tape players? (‘sister sassafras’)

What textures could I synthesize using complex, noisy effects pedals, not generally associated with the guitar? (‘signal’s end’)

What kind of phrases can I create by rapidly juxtaposing effects and micro-sampling? (‘zoseph’)

If, when investigating these questions, I stumbled upon material causing me to lose track of time or to experience the engulfing curiosity I felt when first picking up the guitar, that is the material I would develop. That is the material that became ‘said wounds.’

A parting quote from a postcard given to me many years ago (author unknown):

“Promise me you will not spend so much time treading water and trying to keep your head above the waves that you forget, truly forget, how much you have always loved to swim.”