Overdrafted

I’m going to start this column with a confession.

Lately, I’ve been outright ignoring my best friend of 40 years. She’s sat with me and listened to every complaint, every heartbreak, every celebration for four decades. So it’s weird. When you grow up with someone or something you see every day of your life, it’s easy to take it for granted. Who do you go to when you need to mourn or celebrate? I have no idea, because my best friend of nearly half a century has been my guitar. And I find myself picking her up less and less these days.

I’m a music teacher and producer, so it’s not like I can step away from my instruments entirely. But I can kind of ignore them. Just use them for work. I can fail to push myself to try new things and coast on roughly 14,000 days of experience.

Wow.

When I put it that way, some other things become clear. I started playing guitar at four, and now I’m 44, so the math is pretty easy. No wonder I don’t HAVE to practice, you should be thinking. Even if I only touched my guitar for 20 minutes a day (aka “loserland.” I spent five hours a day playing for much of my school life), that’s nearly 4,900 hours. More than 200 full 24-hour days. Wild, because in real life I’ve done soooo much more than that. So maybe she can afford to go a bit ignored. It’s like “practicing” English at this point. It lives in my pores.

Except I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t remember the last time I picked up my guitar just to explore sounds. Not to work. Just to play. Maybe a year?

A few months ago, I was asked to play at an event, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I felt unprepared. I actually had to go practice before the gig. And when I did, I kind of psyched myself out. I was overthinking. I never think about playing guitar. I think it, and it happens. I was learning to form sentences on that thing at the same time I was learning to form them with my mouth. Feeling tongue-tied was a first for me.

Things I told my hands to do, they fumbled. Strings buzzed. My left hand was hammering down a hair late sometimes. It was clunky. I felt like one of those dudes in his 50s with a hard, round belly who KNOWS there’s muscle under there but looks like a cartoon teddy bear with a thick beard, beer belly, and a hint of “I used to be a Marine.” I had the same unexplainable self-confidence as those former Marines, too. I knew I could still muscle through everything I needed to. I wasn’t frightened. But it did piss me off. And now that I’m saying it out loud, it embarrasses me. But that’s why I’m saying it out loud. Embarrassment is my kryptonite, and I will not let myself continue to be embarrassed.

I hate reading what I’ve just written.

It reminds me of a time I put two of my longtime hired guitar players in a room and listened to them discuss guitar playing. Skippy, my collaborator since I was 20, walked up to Mike to offer some playing tips and tricks for string squeals and various techniques he’d incorporated into our recordings. After a little while, I heard Mike say, “I’m about as good of a guitar player as I want to be.” I remember it taking my breath away. I really had to sit with that because, at the time, I could not relate. Just like how, for a couple of decades, I haven’t understood how my human bestie toured as a brass player on massive tours but doesn’t even own a horn anymore. Or how my ex went to Berklee, got a degree as a bass player, and didn’t play every day, or even most days, when she was in her 40s and we were dating. WTF? And now look at me.
I can’t even believe I’m writing this, documenting what I’ve always viewed as a shortcoming. Sooooo, how does this happen? Well, maybe it’s how people let their marriages die. You understand that person or thing so well that you stop investing and only make withdrawals. Ew. That’s so grossly accurate it makes me queasy. I’m just making withdrawals now. This. Is. NOT. Okay. But it is timely. November is gratitude month, and it sounds like I’m lacking gratitude for the thing that’s been the catalyst for nearly everything I have and much of who I am.

So this confession is also going to serve as some accountability. Like couples counseling. If it were couples counseling and you asked me how it happened, I’d probably say routine got us here. There’s very little romance in routine. And one must romance their muse, if you didn’t already know. She has to feel special to come out and do her thing. Is it possible that she’s left the room and I was so ingrained in routine that I didn’t even notice? Trash husband that I am.

The thing is, like a marriage in free fall, it’s not like you can just roll over in bed, touch your wife, and think it’s an instant reset. Not in my experience. You have to fall back in love with life and the people and things you cherish in it over and over again. And that is a practice in itself.

I’m known for publicly writing my “grats” on social media when I’m angry, tired, or frustrated. And more organically, when I’m truly grateful and inspired. Dare I say contentedness. I happen to know for a fact that this works. Gratitude changes our experiences. It doesn’t just change how we remember them afterward. And like practicing an instrument, knowing how to do it doesn’t mean we’re actually doing it.
So I’m going to model the behavior and list my top three gratitudes for my guitar.

I’m 1000% sure I wouldn’t be as smart as I am if it weren’t for growing up bilingual in English and music.
I wasn’t great at making friends my own age as a child, so guitar really has been my bestie. She listens hard before talking.

I’m also certain that my ability to build something out of nothing with my hands comes from using them as a musician.

That’s a start. And something else happened when I picked up my guitar to prepare for that gig. I began noticing all the Frannie clichés in my playing. Certain chord voicings. Harmonic patterns. Things my brain and hands will always do well. I have a musical vocabulary I return to almost without thinking. At my core, there’s Shawn Colvin, Charo, and the Indigo Girls. Forty years of influences and habits that have become part of my musical identity. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, there’s something reassuring about discovering what has stuck on such a fundamental level. I can hear the foundations of my own style. But I can also hear what hasn’t stuck. And what I haven’t bothered to learn.

My mother says only boring people get bored. I love that because I think it’s true. If you remain curious, it’s difficult to become bored. But it’s not difficult to reach a point where you feel like you already know a lot and stop being quite so curious. Perhaps that’s natural. Maybe that’s where Mike was coming from all those years ago. Curiosity is rarely a choice for me. It’s more like a default setting. So it’s strange to find myself in a position where I have to deliberately foster it. And that’s particularly ironic because sparking curiosity is what I’m always trying to do with my students. Fortunately, I know how to do it. I can almost always find an example of something unfamiliar that makes me want to investigate.

So… what’s next?

Inspiration. I’m going to choose three songs I’ve always loved, or three players whose work intrigues me, and assign myself some homework. Not more of the same. I’m going to deliberately explore styles that don’t come naturally to me. St. Vincent. H.E.R. Maybe some Kaki King. People whose approaches to the guitar are vastly different from mine. People who might make me ask new questions of an old friend.
And because I’m nice, I’ll walk you through my process. I listen first. Tune up the guitar and just play. I don’t want to look at a chart right away. Frankly, it feels like reading a Match.com profile before meeting your date. I prefer things to feel more organic. I just let her talk. It’s weird. The notes sort of fall out of my fingertips as I think. It’s difficult to explain. I try not to insert ego or too many ideas. I just chill and become sort of a vessel for sounds to escape from. After a few listens, I’ll pull up a chord chart to help keep my brain on track. Lyrics are the last thing I ever work on. So you’ll hear me grunting and playing as I’m learning new things. Sometimes I meow like a cat to the melody.

That’s enough trade secrets. In fact, that’s enough writing for today. I need to go practice!
See how it is? You can know the things, but unless you do the things, life is boring.

Homework. Check these ladies out with me. I can’t give you tons of prep. I need to go learn it myself. Here’s what I know. St. Vincent is fucking brilliant. I am in loooooove with her SNL performances. And her “hits” all have clear genius in them. H.E.R. If I’m being honest, I really only know that I should know more. Kaki King. There was a minute I was getting into her stuff, but it takes a lot of work to keep those nails up. That said, committing to acrylics will make me practice more.

Francesca Valle is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, producer, and entrepreneur. Originally from Los Angeles, she spent 12 years in San Diego and still stays closely connected to its arts community. She’s the founder of BugByte Studios and WiseJack Marketing, now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Costa Rica, with creative roots planted in the people and stories that have shaped her.