For those of you that don’t know me, I used to play bass guitar in a metal band. However, at the time I joined, I had never picked up a stringed instrument, even though my dad used to play Amazin’ Rhythm Aces covers all the time when I was little.
Before I played bass, I played drums in a decidedly nü-metal band called Atomic Shadow Effect. Our vocalist was a lanky man named Tyon. We played a few shows that went alright as far as crowdless small town shows go. One feeling that was ever-present however, was that our fledgling technical abilities were keeping us back. We underwent a rotating cast of bassists and guitarists, and myself, I learned to play the drums just a few months prior by sitting behind a friend’s $300 pawn shop kit and imitating the drum loop AC Slater plays in the Miss Bayside episode of “Saved by the Bell.” That's a true story.
When we all decided that we’d had enough of that, we went our separate ways, but I remained close friends with Tyon for some time. As expected, time eventually passed and Tyon and I steadily grew apart.
Eventually, Tyon called me unexpectedly and wanted me to hear the new project he’d been working on with a couple other guys. I agreed, and we drove out to the woods to hear them practice.
They played one song, and it chilled me to the bone, because Tyon had lucked into a musical prospect that sounded like everything I had heard in my head when I practiced with Atomic Shadow Effect, the sound that had been begging to be let out; the sound that our combined abilities couldn’t quite reach. I was chilled because in front of me lay what may have been the only four musicians left in my town that had their shit together, and I was on the sidelines. The sound that escaped from this quartet swelled my heart but drove a spike into it just the same. As they played on, I slunk out the back door to go kick rocks in the driveway.
Two practices later, the spike so effortlessly planted in me was just as effortlessly plucked out. Tyon had been talking to the rest of the guys, and they had decided to kick their bass player out and invite me into the fold. I must have been 20 then, and I can’t think of a single thing I wanted more in the whole world. Nothing I’d seen on TV, in movies, in anything, no woman I had ever encountered, no dream I had dreamt was more desirable than this.
Unfortunately, I had never plucked a bass before in my whole life. The guys assured me it was easy, and devised a foolproof method for teaching me: they would write the tabs out (Tabs? What were they? Who knew? I sure didn’t) and provide me with a static-laden recording from practice. Their makeshift tablature consisted of numbers and lines. Eventually I got it, but there was one problem. This was metal we were talking about, and my fingers and reflexes weren’t quite up to snuff. I tried for a week to match the speed of the recordings to no avail. Dismayed, I looked around my room for something to help me.
I saw my Nintendo. I also remembered I had a copy of Ninja Gaiden II, the second in a series of games that was widely regarded as the hardest ever made. Since time was the only thing I had to lose, I decided to play it. Then I played it again. And again.
After playing Ninja Gaiden II for a week, I began to beat it pretty regularly. I eventually decided to beat it 10 times a day. Soon, that turned to 15. After a couple months I was beating the game 15 times a day in about 20 minutes each time. To date, I can complete it in a time that’s second in the entire world.
It was then that I decided to return to the bass. After a couple runs through the song I had initially heard out in the woods, I was playing it with shocking ease. Thank you, Ninja Gaiden II, for helping me accomplish something that I never thought possible, for giving me the first drop of water and keeping me interested in musicianship to this day.
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