Just a Tune-Up: Beginning a Craft

Thinking about the ways in which Aristotle describes shame and shamelessness allows me to understand why I’ve been avoiding playing the bass guitar whenever my roommate is home. He explains that we only feel shame when the person that we are dealing with is someone that we care about, or respect, fearing that she could potentially provide a critique. In this instance, I respect my roommate as she is my colleague, and I value her opinion. Even if she is not an expert in music, she can still discern when I am not playing a note right—whether it is because the placement of my left finger is not placing enough pressure to produce the correct sound when I strike the string with my right hand, or simply because I play a progression of notes that don’t make sense, or don’t produce a melody at all. While she understands that I am just starting to play this instrument, I still feel ashamed about demonstrating this sort of inexperienced performance. Therefore, I have decided to wait for the moment when she is not home, those moments when I’m home, alone.

Sennett describes how the Renaissance ideal of originality was a “trait of single, lone individuals,” although he is talking about the goldsmiths and the relationships between master, journeyman and apprentice. Art is later referred to as an individual pursuit, such as the work of Cellini. I do not mean to indicate how I will be coming up with an original work of art, a genius musical piece. I am no virtuoso like Mozart, or at least I wasn’t practicing since I was a young child, like him. On the contrary, I need some guidance. As I started looking at the book that I was given, one that would teach me to play, I didn’t know how to start, or where to start. So I just started striking the first string and the second one, and I noticed that it was out of tune. Although I have some tacit knowledge of how to tune the guitar using the fifth fret of the first string to produce the sound of the open string that follows, I couldn’t remember what the first string sounds like, or how it’s supposed to sound, so I went online.

There is definitely a reliance on machines, a concept that Sennett explores in his book. He explores the evaluation that several figures from different historical periods have had in terms of how machines will replace or efface humans. While I first tried to download an app that imitated a tuner, it wasn’t giving me correct signals, and I felt like it was a waste of time. Going to youtube.com to search for videos on how to tune my bass guitar opened up the possibilities for me to learn my craft in a more guided procedure. The machine that I’m using, new media, is not simply supplanting the physical presence of a teacher, because there was a person who recorded, edited, and uploaded the video that I was then using to tune my bass guitar. As soon as I had the first note, though, I was able to tune the rest all by myself! But not really.