Bob Dylan on his work

I had another guitar lesson last night. We’re being pushed on to new heights, trying the lead guitar in Van Morrison’s Brown-eyed Girl, then 16-note strumming in Wonderwall by Oasis and so on. I feel like it’s getting serious! And I’m getting together an interesting “guitar lesson” playlist on my iPod, of songs I wouldn’t normally listen to (eg Wonderwall and Good Riddance).

I’ve discovered that trying to learn an instrument as an adult is a whole other story to when you were a kid and could have some kind of after-school practice/homework routine. If I have things on in the evening, days can go past before I have it out of the case, then it’s Monday* again, and that’s as someone who is really enjoying it. My Mum took a video of me when she was down, in my tracksuit, trying to be Dido, which I thought about posting for a whole half a second.

But anyway, since it’s his 70th birthday, and he’s on my guitar lesson playlist, here is a quote from Bob Dylan. More could be said about his “work ethic” (refer to this talk here, for a discussion on this):

“I take [my work] less seriously than anybody. I know that it’s not going to help me into heaven one little bit, man. It’s not going to get me out of the fiery furnace. It’s certainly not going to extend my life any and it’s not going to make me happy.”

- Bob Dylan in a 1966 interview (H/T Austin Kleon)

(This course also switched to a Monday night, in a less convenient location, and that has turned out to be quite a nuisance clashing with things, and I had to reschedule reading the bible with someone to before church Sunday, which I thought would work well, but isn’t really ...)