I count among the benefits of listening to other people’s music a broadening of understanding and the encountering of new musical vocabularies that can be absorbed and used in new ways to enrich your own creativity. It’s also refreshing and can reinvigorate your own muse. In fact, for my part, it would be nice if I could put down my guitar for a few weeks and go off and explore music and guitar styles that are unfamiliar to me and might represent new challenges, but unfortunately my “chops” are such that I’ve just got to keep practicing lest whatever technique I’ve fought so hard for atrophies and withers irretrievably. (More on this another time.)

On the other hand, if you are not careful, the uncritical absorption of the music of others can cause your own voice can to become submerged and indistinct and take on an accent that conceals your own idiomatic means of expression. In fact, I suspect that I have unwittingly ingested and regurgitated actual phrases and harmonic twists - possibly note for note - of some pieces that I have listened to repeatedly. That’s not to say that I am particularly disapproving of such obvious display of influence but it does leave you open to the charge of lack of originality and even plagiarism! (More on this too at another time.) It has been suggested that my style would benefit from any influence that John Cage’s 4′33″ might bring to bear. Thanks for that.

There is also the risk that a style can become so deeply embedded into your own playing - even subconsciously - that it becomes a hallmark of your own style. This may be fine if you truly add something fresh and new and thereby extend the style, but the danger of becoming “typecast” will be there unless guarded against.

But to return to the benefits: it can come as sense of profound relief to escape from the subterranean tunnels of your own style and sink back in a comfortable chair and encounter new signposts and avenues in a familiar symphony. Or better: get up of your ass and sneak into a local folk club and be reminded that your own songs are really not so bad. Or browse the burlesques of the guitar acrobats on YouTube wondering if you’ll ever encounter some music. Or flick your way past the jaw-dropping banality from the multiplicity of music stations on satellite TV. Or measure your personal endurance time of the fingernail-on-blackboard local commercial radio station.

Yes, I mean it! The joys of the music-of-others are clearly manifold. And its proponents are legion. There is just no excuse any more to remaining so self-referential and closed to the myriad influences available at the flick of a switch or through the door of any local pub. Even if only to return to your room and (to misquote Paul Simon) thank your lucky stars for your fingers.

        

Certain events stick in the mind. Who knows whether they were indeed as pivotal as they appear to be in retrospect; nevetheless, they carry certain charisma in the memory that can seduce you into thinking that, yes, this was a moment when the world changed.

I have one such memory of a night, spent with my partner, in the back of a Ford Escort van which we had parked at a resting place by an Autobahn in southern Germany. We were travelling from one town to another with the sole purpose of approaching any small venue that did live music to obtain some bookings. I had with me a portfolio of reviews in the form of newpaper cuttings and a copy of my first LP with which to impress bar owners and other “impressarios” . And since I didn’t have an agent in Germany, this was what I had to do - and in principle I was enthusiastic about the work.

A 1970’s Ford Escort van is a small vehicle. As we lay in the back in sleeping bags, the roof of the fan was about twelve inches from our heads. We were just able to stretch out fully, so sleep was viable. On this particular evening the rain started to fall heavily and fell like snare drum hits on the roof of the van. The sound was amplified as it bounced from the roof around the walls of our enclosure. It was a minor inconvenience; a little humourous and even romantic if viewed in the right way.

It’s extraordinary how the sub-conscious can work: some trigger stirs a dull, secret, and half-formed anxiety which has been waiting for the moment to make its debut in the world and fully articulate itself. Like some showman it waits for just the right moment to make the deepest impression and presents itself in the form of a delightful and fully-engaging panic attack. The only thing missing is a round of applause. “Gosh, I never would have expected that!”, it’s audience might say, eyes wide and mouths agape. Except that this is no variety show or parlour trick. This is for real, baby, and comes from the core of your being. What is it? What’s going on? Wherefrom this new feeling of impending doom? Why the sudden impulse to take flight? Why do I feel so vulnerable and insecure in this van by this Autobahn at this time? Then the showman - with a flick of the wrist - makes what was blindingly obvious, all strarkly and unavoidably clear. (Another “ooh!” and “aah!” and round of applause, please!) A crazy carousel of certainties swim before you, casting all other possibilities and hopes and dreams aside.

In the morning I knew I wasn’t going to make it as a singer-songwriter. To be sure, the morning had chased away the fear and I was able to resume the seeking and performing of gigs in the same way as before. But a part of me knew that I had turned some corner. I still played the role, but I had been upstaged by a better performer.

When we returned to England I still had plans and agreements in place to return to Germany (and Belgium) to play, but some part of my heart was no longer in it. I was no longer convinced. I recognised that this wasn’t sustainable in the long term if I had hopes of (for example) providing for a family. I began to question the validity of what I was doing “for a living”. This wasn’t a conundrum that I quickly solved. But I was ready to “lose my bottle”.

If I hadn’t been any good, I would have easily, in time, slowly and quietly realigned my prospects and turned my hand to another occupation and adjusted my self-image to suit. But I was good. And playing and writing was just so deeply ingrained. My self-identity I had grown and nurtured over the years could not so easily be taken apart and reassembled.

So I stumbled on with decreasing conviction and clarity about what my aims were and how to achieve them. I began to have anxiety attacks and sleepness nights. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. It was beginning to lose authenticity - almost as if I was continuing out of sheer obstinacy or through a lack of courage to accept defeat. A crisis was looming.

And it came out of the blue. I remember only vaguely the circumstances but I do recall that one day, shortly after my son was born, I felt particularly hopeless and depressed and decided on the spot to put my guitar in its case - and lock the case. It was a deliberate act of “retirement” and I think I shed a tear, or two. It was over. With the pressure off I would get a real job and settle down.

I wrote my agent in Belgium of my decision. He didn’t take it well and I lost his friendship.

It was round about this time I started drinking heavily…

        

Because it forces you, albeit eventually, to break out and seek new ground. Perhaps tedium is the mother of invention.

Oh, the unbridled joy of altered chords. A prising open of hidden doors. Enabling the smash and grab of fresh sounds. A suprise for the ears around every corner. A break from the humdrum of an all too familiar palette of tones.

So there you are. I can while away a happy couple of hours seeing where major chords - suitably adorned with a suspended ninth, or flat-five, or suspended fourth, or major seventh - will take me. Slip-sliding from one key to another. Maybe, scattering a few diminished chords about in a carefree fashion. Then sneakily import some minor chords with the same adornments. Occasional major seventh chord with suspensions and / or flat-fives on top. Get drunk on the rich and heady brew. Stumble about the bright streets and dark alleys trying to maintain a balance and sense of orientation. Trying to remember at least where you came from while not too concerned, for the time being, where you are headed. Try to find some unexplored corner. Settle and rest. In a stranger tonality.

Boredom is banished. The featureless landscape of unremitting diatonic chords is broken the jagged peaks and yawning chasms of a teetering tonality. Fasten your sealtbelt and hold on tight!