The rhythm is not going to get me. Nay, I shall get it.

After work I went to Guitar Center in search of a parlor guitar ( a topic for another day).

Have you ever been to a Guitar Center? It’s pure magic. In one corner you’ll find a 60-year-old guy jamming on an electric guitar. In another you’ll find a college student playing jazz piano. Walk through the double doors and to the very back, and you’ll find dozens of ultra-expensive instruments enshrined in their own room (I’ve never seen a human being in this room). In the distance, you’ll hear someone practicing drums.

The people who work at Guitar Center are what make it so special for me. Without fail, I’ve found them to have energy, enthusiasm and a genuine love for artistic sound and the instruments that facilitate it. They remind me of what made me fall in love with music in the first place.

I didn’t buy a guitar tonight. Instead, I bought this on impulse:

Those of you who know me are aware that I was pretty good at piano back in the day. I played all growing up, it was my college major for a spell, and it remains a huge part of my identity. But what few people know is that I am shockingly uncomfortable playing modern music. Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin (especially Scriabin) — absolutely in my wheelhouse. Billy Joel or Billie Eilish? Absolutely not so much. The looseness with the tempos that stretches my definition of rubato doesn’t come naturally to me. I can hear it and feel it. If I’m dancing, I can move to it. But when I sit down to play, there’s a disconnect between my brain and my hands that I can’t explain. And so when I play modern music, to me it tends to sound like the Culps.

Anyway, this talent gap has always bothered me, and now I’m determined to fix it. So I bought the “easy music” version of this volume of bar songs, figuring it will enable me to focus more on vibes than technical perfection, which I suspect may be the root cause of my problem.

I vowed that the Year of More would contain more music, and this seems like an awesome place to start.