Essay #1

Andrew Johnson
Mrs. Aiken
English 1101
Jan 28, 2010
The Low End a.k.a Coral Blue
His jet black cowboy hat made his aged hair appear to be thinned white waves flowing from under the wide brim of his hat to his hunched shoulders. He waved us in with a calm smile, hiding the rest of his face behind a pair of seventies style aviator sunglasses and a short, but thick beard as snowy white as his mane of hair. He clenched the purpose of our visit, and a later fascination of my life, in his long, spidery hands. It was a vintage five- string electric bass guitar that looked as old as the owner, sporting dents, dulled chrome plates, and a wooden body that must been carved decades ago. A faded coral blue paint covered chunks of the wood and cracked over the neck of the guitar. It was at least four and a half feet from one end to the other and was carved in the classic shape that any musician would recognize as a Fender. “Let’s get started” he chuckled, turning on a nearby amp and cranking the volume up to 11.
With the rise of a new music program that would teach anyone an instrument for free being started at my church, I decided why the hell not. Teens around the neighborhood drove up the first day in their near-broken first cars that exhaled thick fogs of smoke and squealed deafening scrapings of worn brakes. Some brought their own beat-up pawn shop guitars and drums, but most, including me, were looking forward to trying out the brand new church bought instruments up for grabs. We hoarded down the winding, carpeted stairs and shuffled into different rooms each bigger than the last, housing walls of acoustic guitars and shelves littered with drum parts and golden symbols. Naturally, the electric guitar, vocals, and drums drew in the crowds that looked on as the adults wailed and pounded on their road worn instruments with the spirit of an eighties hair metal band. With so many choices I wandered the rooms tossing ideas around in my head of which one to choose, when I saw that one of the teachers only had one student.
Having no idea what a bass guitar was, I assumed he had just another electric guitar in his long fingers. After a brief moment of studying each other, he waved me in and pointed to the empty folding chair next to a kid that was the very definition of a redneck. He had on a wrinkled NASCAR shirt, a mesh trucker’s cap, which he removed to reveal a very closely shaven head that looked of homemade quality, and black boots caked in red clay.
After spinning the knobs all the way up and slamming on the ultra bass button, the old man slapped the strings with the hardened flesh of his thumb and popped them with his index finger, flooding the room in a deep, yet refined ocean of sound when he slapped, and splitting that ocean with an earsplitting pop when he plucked them with his index finger. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and it was then I knew I had been drawn into the right room.
Of course the bass guitar I was given to practice with was nowhere near the prestige of my teachers axe, but I was too excited to care. It was heavier than a standard guitar and much bigger, bearing thicker and more painful metal strings that rip and tear the flesh off of unsuspecting beginners’ finger tips. I would spend hours sealed away in my room, under a fluorescent glow, sloppily repeating lines, and rush to church on weekends to try and impress them with muddy and struggled songs that would slow to almost a halt when I had to reach into the deepest parts of my mind to remember how a certain melody would go.
Nevertheless I have spent the last two years heading deeper and deeper into the music, letting my mind swim in the ocean of sound, pleasing my ears with the mellow thumps of the speakers and giving myself the freedom of flowing with the beat.