Hey You, You’re Finally Awake

you see, the guitar is considered one of the easiest instruments to learn of all time and while not being musically inclined can make it harder, what is REALLY preventing Dee from playing the guitar is himself.

The amount of pressure necessary to produce a note on the guitar is only enough that the string touches the fret board and the fret following the finger position. What Dee heard (according to his own dialogue) is you have to press "extreemly hard" which is not factually correct but that was the information he found and he took that shit literally. So thats already making his experience with the guitar more difficult because he is pressing WAY harder than he needs to and devoting a great deal of his focus on that.

LIKEWISE, we see him jump straight from "I got a message from a girl asking if i can play guitar" to attempting to play songs. Yes he looked at the anatomy of the guitar but do you wanna know what you DONT see on this diagram of a guitar?

The notes that the strings are tuned to. This is because there are many different tune line ups that a guitar can have. The STANDARD is EADGBE but that information isnt in most diagrams and we saw that he was NOT following Absolute Beginner Tutorials which walk you through the anatomy and strings as we saw his useage on the comuter.

and the thing is im sure he tried ONE of those videos and got frustrated because it was "too easy". But then he jumps from Lesson zero to Lesson four basically in guitar and hes STILL frustrated because he doesnt have the foundation.

So he asks his father, a music teacher by profession (and as WE know, a former glam metal artist) for help.

Note: glam is definitely also austistic too and it plays a roll in how he approaches Dee because autism impacts how we do everything.

Glam starts their lesson with 1. a preconcieved idea that Dee is incapable of developing musical skills simply because he is not predisposed too picking it up quicly (tallent) 2. previous knowledge of how Dee approaches new things and 3. impatience. however he DOES give Dee an opportunity to genuinely learn.

Dee is approoaching the lesson 1. already frustrated due to continued failure and by this point being shown up by his sibling who he has otherwise surpassed in most everything 2. having something to prove because his dad has rigid thinking and that dee has no tallent for music and that means he wont be able to play well 3.Genuinely with the wrong intentions (he IS doing it for a girl and NOT because he wants to feel more connected with the music. desireing to feel more connected with the music aka for the love of music contributes to each bit of new information further instilling an appreciation for it, furthing the drive to learn. Without this new few of passion, the supply of drive is depleated). Dee's Interest is already considerly lower than necessary for this task.

Glam Starts talking about the theory of guitar and Dee cuts him off in a manner that indicated he has done his research. If Dee is struggling with guitar enough to ask for help which is a more rare course of action for gifted types and he has indicated he understands the basics and wishes to skip it, that means he is struggling with the actual practice of playing So Glam follows his lead. If Dee claims he knows the theory, that means he knows the basic notes and how to play them.

Then glam reitterates that Dee sucks and that is not okay (rip but this is something i intend to address in some of my fics cause bro thats not cool) but now Dee is holding a VERY expensive and intimidating instrument beause its his Dad's and as he says "you dont let us even LOOK at them". So now the poor fella is even more uncomfortable and nervous. Hes facing failure, the disappointement of his father, the pressure of proving his father correct, and having to grapple with what had been a universal truth to him up until now (hes better than heavy at anything of the mind and he can do everything easily ) being proven decidedely false. thats a lot to have on your shoulders.

(i do think glams "sit straight" bit may have been an awkward attempt to reduce some of the stress he could see in his kid but this isnt a glam analysis)

Now he asks Dee to play E. Again, Glam includes this as part of "theory" (because understanding the basics of what notes are and aproximately how to play them on the target instrument IS part of the theory) but Dee missed that part in his self lessons because he likely didnt see the value in it. Dee, already frustrated, when faced with an immediate failure, grows overwhelmed. He asks a question and gets an answer he finds unhelpful so he rephrases his question and is met with light mockery.

Music is basically its own language and while its not impossible for anyone to learn it, it can be difficult. Associating letters with specific frequencies is a skill that takes a great deal of prpactice and based on the lighting in the episode, we can conclude that all of this happpens over maybe two days and that is not enough time to learn music when he has spent all day focusing on the song part.

Glam plays a note( on the FUCKING piano) and expects Dee to be able to match it. heres the thing, Glam is giving Dee an ACTUAL lesson. I have been learning guitar and the information he is providing IS basic first lesson stuff BUT he is failing as a teacher due to Expecting Dee to just KNOW what he means in part because "If i know it, surely other do" and because of what Dee had said.

Dee Plucks out an F (1st string, 1st fret) but he catches an adjacet string (A) and while yes "you are catching the adjacent string" does communicate the problem, Dee's frustration is matching his frustration tollerance at this point. What he NEEDS in that moment is external explanation of how to remedy this (make your strum movement smaller/ get a pick/ watch your strumming hand as you make this movement). and while Dee keeps trying because he wants to succeed SO BAD because of everything riding on this mentioned previously, his father is lacking patience with him and grows more frustrated himself because he doesnt get why dee doesnt get it. And then we see some of Glam's trauma come out. Trauma that Dee doesn't have an understanding of because as we now from the q&a video, glam hasnt shared any of it (boy that is not how you cultivate healthy relationships but whatever, russian culture i guess). SO his dad is suddenly yelling at him, encraoching on his space. shits scary!

Glam breezes past this and jumps to the next exercise but Dee is still freaked out so he cant follow and the rest of the lesson devolves as Dee (and glam to a lesser extent) both have their own melt downs. Dee's frustration has now exceeded his tollerance and facing the failure, dee gives up.

Dee tells his father he isnt angry with HIM because as far as Dee can see, the issue is himself. Hes not tallented enough. his brother made it look easy and he has never had to struggle with something that Heavy didnt (beyond physical capabilities which he understands he doesnt have much controll over). And then he hears heavy talking him up and how if heavy can do it, OF COURSE Dee is gonna be pro in no time and thats not only further pressure but its salt in the wound because heavy is wrong when usually hed be right.

Thats his first real failure of the sort and as any gifted kid knows, we dont learn to handle that. Hes taking this hurt with him. especially because he likely DOES know the guitar is the easiest instrument. "its the easiest" translates to "it doesnt require much effort" and the boy knows latin. he fell victim to the autism literal trap.

ALL of this is stress that Dee did not account for before he started his guitar journey (and there is no expecation for him to be that self aware yet. hes only 16) is a HUGE road block he is not equipt to deal with.

CONVERSELY! the violin is considered to be one of the HARDEST instruments to play. the violin doesnt have frets the way a guitar does and learning where to place one's fingers on the neck in order to produce a clean note is a major part of the challenge. With guitar, the theory isnt as integrated into how to opperate the instrument as it is with violin in my personal experience and so Dee (and me before this last year(I have been playing guitar off and on for over a decade and have only just now allowoed myself to go at a baby pace)) felt it could be thrown away. With it being so integrated into the learning process for violin however, it forces the student to slow down and not skip over the basics.

Like how dee likely heard "guitar is the easiest instrument" and through pattern relations decided he should be able to pick it up easily, he would also hear "Violin is the hardest instrument" and be better prepared for the challenge. it would raise his frustration tollerance because he knows its supposed to be hard and frustrating and would therefore move the point at which he would consider his attempts a failure.

I think he would be more successful at learning the violin because its so hard that he would be better prepared for the frustration and the time necessary to get good. Likewise, there is significantly more evidence of people being able to just Pick up a guitar where there isnt that with violin and so Dee would likely have less expectation of himself to be immediately skilled.

also the violin isnt currently tied to a girl the way the guitar is so if dee were to be pursuing it, the reason would likly be one that falls under "for the love of music" which actually reduces the build up of frustration because there is the return of dopamine at the small successes.

now there is potentially some "My dad is really good at music and i have proven to be just like him in many ways so surely i can learn" going on in Dee's head and that i think would hinder his ability no matter the instrument he choses.

thank you for coming to my ted talk! <33