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Painting the Garage, and What it Taught Me About Playing the Banjo

I recently spent a week of vacation painting the garage. I had planned to spend a few days, maybe three, and then the rest of the time I was going to work on my clawhammer stroke, watch some instructional banjo DVDs, and practice, practice, practice. Unfortunately, like all home improvement projects, painting the garage took approximately twice as long as planned, and the weather, bees and my own clumsiness all conspired to add hours of delight and muscle soreness to the process.

Nevertheless, despite, or perhaps, BECAUSE of the heat, I found myself on the bum-ditty edge of delusion, comparing the stroke, stroke and cuss—the rhythm of painting—to the rhythm of practicing and playing the banjo. And while in this state of semi-overheated hallucination, a few other hard lessons, lessons that I should probably have learned already, revealed themselves to be true about both the garage-painting project and my banjo-learning project. Here are the top five lessons, presented to the garage-painting, banjo-learning millions, in the approximate order in which they manifested themselves to my addled imagination.

Lesson One: There are no shortcuts. (Bile dem cabbage...)

I originally expected to spend a day prepping and a day or two painting. But once I got into the project, I discovered soffit boards that needed to be re-nailed; splintered or rotted fascia boards that needed repairing; plants I wouldn't be allowed to trample. I had to make provisions for things I hadn't counted on, and I needed to care about the details to make sure that the final result would meet my expectations. The preparation ended up taking me twice as long as I had expected, including a few trips to the hardware store. I also needed help, which is one of the hardest things to admit.

Similarly, it always takes me much longer to learn a new song than I expect. I look at the tab, I practice a few of the harder sections, and they always... always... end up being harder than I first thought they would be. After a month of daily practice, I realize that it will probably take me 3 months longer to play to my satisfaction. I also realize that I can't shortcut the process; that my fingers won't just automatically find the chords, and that, although I've been at it for more years now than I should probably admit, there really is no way around practicing. (Maybe that's why I'm still in the beginner book.) After a trip to banjo camp, I realized that expert help can make a big difference in the banjo result, too. I don't know why it's so hard to ask for help. But people who make their livings playing, teaching and writing about the banjo really do know what they're talking about.

Lesson Two: Each person sets his or her own expectations. (down, boys...)

I learned this while teaching English as a Second Language, when some of my students would strive for perfection, while others would be satisfied (and stop bothering to learn) as soon as they could communicate a few basic things. My expectation for my garage was not that it would be perfect, but rather, that it would look substantially nicer than it had. My wife had expectations, too, by the way. Namely: 1) That I would look for, find and use paint with low or zero VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)--successfully achieved, by the way; 2) that I would not trample all over, flatten, paint or otherwise make unrecognizable growing things planted near the garage—not quite as successfully achieved; and 3) that the garage would look better than it had. (Before and after pictures verify that this is so.)

So it is with banjo, too. My expectations are not that I will jump up on stage someday soon and entertain people as a banjo artist. Instead, I expect that with steady practice and the right help, I will learn a nice batch of songs and have a solid hobby as I progress through life, while continuing to earn a paycheck working for The Man. If I get good enough that I finally arrive on stage somewhere, I'll probably be so nervous that I won't be able to play a lick anyway. I learned this at banjo camp in the slow jam. The teacher asked what we wanted to play, so I suggested “Cumberland Gap”, a song I've played hundreds of times. Of course, when he asked me to lead it off, a giant white flash of light erased all memory of the song from my brain. With a little prompting, I was able to get it back, but I don't see myself on stage anytime soon.

The most important thing about expectations is this: your expectations must match your own effort. If you have high expectations, you have to be willing to put in the work to achieve them, and you may have to make a tough sacrifice or two (or many) to get to the goal. (Can't watch the ballgame tonight—have to practice!) We all know people who think that the world will grant them every wish. Because of the mismatch between expectation and effort, those people are generally disappointed, and indeed, may even feel as if they've gotten a bum rap. But have they really? The direct relationship between expectations, effort and reward is true for just about everything: your hobbies, your career, your personal relationships, your garage.

Lesson Three: Details make a difference (bake dat ho'cake...)

Every detail is a small decision waiting to be made. Do I really need to scrape everything I need to paint? Does it really matter if I don't paint carefully in the cracks? Do I need to sand that? Can't I just use the brush I've got in my hand to get into that tight space? (Glop!)

Take the easy way out at your peril. There are thousands of these choices when you're playing the banjo, too, and the choices you make, the details you choose to ignore, will make a difference in the quality of your playing. Do I really need to tune so carefully? So what if I'm not holding the chord just right? Does it really matter whether I'm keeping proper time if I'm close enough? Isn't speed more important than precision with banjo? Sure, some of this seems a little tedious when you're first starting out, but attention to detail now will make for crisper, more predictable and more confident playing later. I know guys starting out who can play individual songs very fast, but can't scale the speed back if they need to. It's a sure sign that someone's been taking shortcuts, trying to learn the song and not the instrument.

Lesson Four: It's really easy to want to move on before you've completely finished (brown, boys...)

Once I had 90% of the garage painted and mostly only the concealed spots left (behind plants, around the back, under some of the awnings), it was highly tempting to call it quits and move on to the next project. This is a problem with many home repairs: You get to the 90% stage and your motivation gets sapped because it's taken way longer than you expected it to and you're almost done anyway.

Learning banjo songs is very much the same for me. I get so I can play it 90% right, then I start wanting to move on, to something new and better. In many families, toothpaste tubes are this way: You've gotten most of it out, you're into the rolling and squeezing phase, and then you walk into the bathroom one morning and there's a brand new tube sitting there next to the old one. Who's going to use up the old one? You know there's an expectation that someone will, and since you're not the one who started the new tube, you figure that the family consensus is that you will be that person. You want so badly to join the rest of the family in the bright world of new and better toothpaste that it almost hurts. But you know that you can't, or perfectly usable toothpaste will be wasted. Only strength of character and your sense of righteous purpose will carry you through.

So it is when you've gotten to the point that you can almost play a song reliably. You want badly to move on, to start learning the new and improved, to step boldly into the pure snow of the new song. I'll permit this. But only if you start each lesson playing the old song first and working out the rough spots. This is how I stay motivated, but continue to learn new stuff. And, believe it or not, sometimes working on a new song gives you skills that make it easier to play the songs that came before. Let's call it the “Two steps forward, one step back” method. After all, playing the banjo is not like toothpaste. (Although you could probably satisfy the toothpaste obligation in this same manner... I sometimes do sneak a little from the new tube.)

Lesson Five: You will not shake a song that gets into your head (The only song that I can sing...)

Woe unto him who listens to popular radio or watches Gilligan's Island reruns during breakfast on a day that you will be painting. You will not shake this song, I promise you. Don't even think about The Hustle, Shake your Booty, The Barney Song, or anything else you don't want to live with for 6 - 8 hours. (Or more: Just because you've stopped painting doesn't mean that the song will go away.) I once heard an interview on the radio with a man who had tested himself by swimming from Florida to Cuba. He completed the swim, but said that the Gilligan theme had popped into his head just after starting out, and as a result, he couldn't even enjoy it. It ruined the whole experience for him. (Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip...) So don't tempt fate.

Better to listen to a banjo song you'd like to learn, the same one each night, so it's fresh in your memory. That way, you'll be working out how you might play it if your ever get done with this x$#@ paint job. If it haunts you, you can go inside and practice a little. Even if you don't know how to play it, if it's something you like, you won't mind it so much.

So there you have it: The five banjo precepts that occurred to me as I was painting the garage. And now that the garage is 95% finished (still need to replace the motion-sensitive light on the front; paint and tools are still not fully put away), I have more time to work on applying these epiphanies to my own banjo practices. Once I called it quits on the garage, I picked up my banjo and started working on the right-hand technique I'd been trying to get to all week. I found myself wanting to be good at it right away. And I started repeating to myself one of the things that kept me going on the garage all week: There are no shortcuts, there are no shortcuts ...