The Name of this Blog

All Six or None is a nod to one of my favorite musicians--and humans--of all time, Joe Strummer. He's probably most famous for fronting The Clash, but he also played with the 101ers, The Mescaleros, had a terrific solo career, and wrote some movie scores that I adore. Poet, philosopher, down-to-earth punk rock statesman, and personal inspiration. He died way too young, of an undetected congenital heart defect, in 2002. The universe has just seemed imbalanced without him ever since. Watch the embedded clip to see him perform one of my favorite Mescaleros tunes live on Letterman a few months before he died.



Anyway, the story goes that he got his nickname "Strummer" from being a rhythm guitarist who could only bang out full strums because he was left-handed and had been taught how to play guitar the right-handed way. I read an interview with him once where he said something like, "I can only play all six strings at once or none at all. I never learned to do the fiddly bits."

I love that quote because I too struggle with the fiddly bits! Coming from a piano background, the neck of the guitar confounds me because I can't help but see six mini-keyboards all in a row--which is too much for my tiny brain to process. Even though I've been playing for a long time, I still have to just take my hand off the fret board sometimes and say, "Ok, wait. If this is a G, then that's a G#, and that's an A, and..." making my way up the neck one note at a time to get my bearings (and usually by the time I figure out what note I want, the song's over!)

I may never be the kind of guitar player who takes searing solos and does the meedly-meedly-noodly-noodlys all up high on the neck. That's ok! I'll keep working at it, but simply strumming the chords was good enough for Joe and it's good enough for me. Actually it's better than good--there are SO many things you can do with strummed chords. I love adding just the right layer of texture to whatever my lead guitar player is doing. I can enhance and augment and flesh out--dot the t's and cross the i's (wait...what?), and add color and flavor simply by strumming! I'm like the secret seasoning mix in the bbq sauce that makes the ribs taste soooo good.

So if you're just starting out, and all you can play is a couple of open chords--congratulations! You have the keys to musical greatness already in your hands. You're in the company of great guitarists who know when to play and when NOT to play like Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Steve Cropper, The Edge, Chrissie Hynde, Tony Iommi, Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Marr, Pete Townsend...
Just keep on strummin'.