Fail Better

While we were writing this month’s cover story on Jimi Hendrix and a golden year in British music, one thing stood out from the many conversations with guitarists that we had about Jimi. lots of them commented how Jimi could be sublime and how he could be terrible if it wasn’t his night. He let music flow from his imagination to his fingers fearlessly and that meant that he often flew higher than more studied guitarists – but that he also made mistakes, too. one could say the same of Jimmy Page: so instinctive and gutsy, but, yes, scrappy at times.

look today at comments left on Youtube channels about performances in which a guitarist makes a fumble or two, though, and you’ll see that at least some guitarists like (metaphorically) to stand there with their arms crossed waiting for someone to screw up on camera, so they can sagely point out all the ways in which it should have been played better. Makes you wonder if the wild spirit of music, mistakes and all, that Jimi channelled is not valued properly any more. if so, that’s a shame – who wants guitar to become golf, in which the least number of mistakes or musical ‘dropped shots’ wins the match? Yes, it’s right and proper to aspire and train to be a more accurate, articulate player. But i hope we also, as a community of musicians, never forget what reaching for something that is almost beyond our grasp can achieve sometimes: those spontaneous moments of wild genius that only come from taking a risk. if you’re lucky enough to experience one of those moments in a performance, you’ll know it’s both humbling and elevating to channel something bigger than yourself for a moment. i hope we never throw that particular baby out with the bath water. Enjoy the issue and see you next month.

Jamie Dickson Editor