A few months ago, moved by the common sentiments of the season, I publicly vowed to get into decent shape, learn to play my pedal steel, and get a career, all before the end of 2007. How am I doing?
The get-into-shape part is actually, surprising, going fairly well. I joined a gym a month and a half ago and have been going three days a week for an hour to an hour and a half. I do my cardio (that’s what they call it when you have a hard time breathing because you’re moving so fast) while watching MTV or The Simpsons on a personal TV and trying not to pay attention to Wolf Blitzer declaiming from the bank of monitors above the windows. The so-called elliptical machines are pretty good for this, while the stationary bikes are hard on my ass. I don’t do treadmills — if I could jog without hurting my knees, I’d do it on the sidewalks of Park Slope as God intended. After my heart has enjoyed its 30-minute stress period, I go downstairs to the weight area and spend a while pulling and pushing on bars and handles.
This exercise has actually done some good even in the short time I’ve been doing it, I’m happy to report. I feel healthier and more vigorous, my pants fit better, and I think I’m getting slightly more muscular. And even if the changes I see in my body are actually all just in my imagination, going to the gym is helping clear up my ongoing body dysmorphia, which is reason enough to keep it up.
I’m actually pretty surprised that I’ve done as well as I have with the gym, especially that I’ve been able to establish a very regular schedule and stick to it. I’m generally very bad at establishing good (as opposed to bad) habits, as is demonstrated by my failure so far to do much about the pedal steel.
The genesis of the ongoing pedal-steel fiasco is an old finger injury that flared up a few years ago and made it impossible to play the regular guitar, something I loved doing from time to time. I’d learned in college, back when I had endless free time. And really, learning to play the guitar to my basic level of ability is quite easy.
When I realized that I’d have to give up the guitar, I decided I wanted some other kind of music making in my life. I love the sound of the pedal steel and started thinking about it. At first I was going to get a lap steel (a much simpler, cheaper instrument — basically an electric guitar that you play face-up on your lap using a steel bar instead of fretting chords, but without the pedals and levers of a pedal steel). But that wasn’t the instrument I wanted to play — lap steels aren’t able to make the recognizable swoop from a IV chord to a I chord that you get when you release the A and B pedals on a pedal steel, and that swoop is the most key, heartbreaking thing about the instrument.
So last year I had a bit of spare money saved up and, with the help of a great teacher here in Brooklyn, found a used pedal steel out in California and started to learn to play. I had some lessons and was learning the basics — scales and chords and how to play along with the Byrds — and I was practicing almost every day. My teacher was very specific: you need an hour a day, preferably in two separate sessions, to get any good. And It’s better if you spend even more time: think through chord changes while you’re on the subway, practice your right-hand technique while you watch TV. (That line is not meant to be taken out of context.) The pedal steel is a beast of an instrument, incredibly complicated, and it takes quite a bit of work before you can play it in public.
I never quite established a routine, though. And it’s hard. I’m not a morning person, and I almost never get up in time to have breakfast, let alone play scales. And when I get home from work, I either have a Great Whatsit post to fret about or other things to do or I’m simply too wiped out to do anything but watch PBS or, even more horribly, Boston Legal. So I took a hiatus from my pedal-steel lessons that turned into a sabbatical and then a full stop. And since then, especially since that brash New Year’s resolution, I’ve taken up the steel and fingerpicks a few times, even doing a bit of uninformed free improv on the instrument (which turns out to be really fun). But I’m definitely worse now than I was eight months ago.
Clearly what is needed is a new start, a general amnesty from good intentions gone bad and a fresh resolve to start another good habit. Tomorrow morning — nay, let us say every morning this week — I’ll spend at least 15 minutes doing exercises on the pedal steel, and every evening another 15. The commentariat is my witness.
As for the “get a career” thing, I actually don’t want to get into that, as it will devolve into whining and self-pity. And it doesn’t involve the establishment of good habits [What about the habit of a positive mental attitude? — Ed.], so it’s not the same kind of problem. And it’s only April, so cut me some slack.
How are your self-improvement plans coming? Is this whole enterprise futile? A crock?
Senor Barber,
In no time they’ll be writing (pedal steel) songs about you (and if “they” don’t, “we” will). I actually have no idea what a pedal steel guitar is. Is it the type that country music uses? Tell us more. Prochaska and Diclemente wrote an intriguing book called The Cycle of Change. It’s about the process of how to change something. They researched the common factors in people who had successfully changed, and has some innovative ideas. Anyway, congrats on two out of three.
I grew up in a religious culture that set a premium on identifying and achieving goals. As adolescents, we spent part of Sunday School listing our goals and noting our progress toward them, always with the close supervision of the teacher. The reward at the end of the year was a cheesy pendant. (I tended to cheat by naming things I had already accomplished.)
Like journal-keeping and general preparedness, goal-setting is an admirable personal habit that I rebelled against when I rejected my religious upbringing. Oh, what a happy decade my 20s was, unencumbered by self-organization or viable plans! Now I am wandering around in my mid-30s, trying to figure out how to enjoy those good habits without imaging the unwanted approving gaze of my Sunday School teacher hovering over my shoulder.
Change (good or bad) is constant. How do other GWers take charge of that change and live with maddeningly slow incremental progress without getting discouraged? Dave, I am impressed with your resolution to practice your pedal steel. As your deveoping muscles prove, everything really does add up. But then you have to maintain that level of proficiency. (I have a friend who’s a professional musician in an orchestra, and she still practices scales 2-3 hours a day.)
P.S. My latest resolution: to do a better job of proofreading before clicking “Add my comment.”
Marleyfan — Here’s Wikipedia on the pedal steel. They’re those things where the guy is sitting down and making a high, whiney sound. I tried to find a picture of mine online but couldn’t — its a BMI (yes, Parrish, that actually stands for Beck Musical Instruments) S10, meaning it has a single fretboard with 10 strings.
And so far I’m just one for three on the resolutions. But that’s better than most years.
So what are some common factors among people who have changed, since I’m too lazy to read that book?
Dave,
You are doing better than me on resolution keeping. My goals were to 1) buy a house by April, 2) move my business from my bedroom into an office somewhere, 3) buy a scooter, 4) drop 20 pounds. I’m 0-4, although it’s not for lack of trying, which I guess is the main thing - try to improve oneself. I’m doing quite well there if I do say so myself. But I could use a house and a scooter.
When you get your pedal chops up, maybe I’ll have my string bass chops together and we can do a little duet to horrify our friends and embarrass ourselves (I suppose we’d need to meet first.)
Well, I went to the optometrist and got new glasses, so that’s one down, but I have yet to get a check-up or go to the dentist. I’m probably exercising a little bit more, riding my bike as I do to my day jobs, but it’s not really due to my resolve.
As for spending less time checking for new comments on TGW and less time in front of the computer, well, that’s not really happening. Also, I have yet to amass vast amounts of capital (hence the day jobs). Soon I may consider just what kind of price to put on that soul of mine.
Daveyfan,
Ok, 1/3 ain’t so bad, certainly better than Brooke. I was reading this at 6:15 W.C. time, and with the eye boogers (you know there is a name for those in Spanish) I missed the part about slacking on the pedal steel…
Does it count if you change, but then change back? Last year I went to the gym every other day, religiously. Damn I looked good. But work took over (it did! I used to go to the gym at lunch - since September I’ve been eating lunch at my desk due to a huge workload). I guess in the south they call that “backsliding”.
What do they call it in the Southland?
Nobody except for the newscasters call it “The Southland”.
That’s no excuse.
Okay, TGW, this has gone too far. For the past thirteen days I have been sans laptop, which means sans internet connection, sans access to some very important documents, and sans just about everything else that matters. (I know, I’m pathetically attached to the thing.) (btw, sans is a great word.) I have a ton of research to catch up on, not to mention a bizillion assignments due in the next three weeks, and what’s the first thing I do now that I have my precious life support back in my arms? Check in on you. Shame on you for being so freaking addictive.
So, Dave, I’ve been meaning to procrastinate less, but that hasn’t been going so well.
Dave, you’ll notice I said “South” not “Southland”. And I was referring to the Southern United States - you know, bible belt. If I were referring to Southern California, I would have probably just said L.A. ;)
On January 2nd I committed a ludicrous list of aspirations to TGW. But I can say I have read more poetry. I’ve been reading Keats…Ode to a Nightingale and Ode to a Greek Urn stand out. I love that the second one sounds like a joke. And I heard a recording of someone reading Nightingale recently…someone who died…not Kurt Vonnegut, I think but some dark 20th century voice…did anyone hear it on NPR? Or was it a BBC Radio 4 thing? No memory now. Anyway, I find the Romantics a challenge because I can’t imagine being one, but I’m glad to have gotten acquainted with Mr. TB victim.
I think I also said no more drinking.