Guitar Noise

LL: When you’re a kid, it’s such a great time to learn guitar, as it is to learn everything else.

Kelly: It is, and you need that structure of once a week or you wander.

LL: It sounds like you have both adult and child students.

Kelly: I have one 10 year old that just started this week.

LL: Aww. Id’ love you to teach my daughter but it’s a bit of a schlep from me to you!

Kelly: It’s really important to find a teacher that you like. Just because I teach guitar doesn’t mean that I’m the right teacher for everyone. I have one kid now who’s great. I’m going to teach him everything I can, then I’m going to find a teacher that can teach him what I don’t know.

LL: Great!

Kelly: Everybody has their own style. This kid is young enough where he’s playing just great and he should take lessons from as many people as he can. I’ll cram everything down his throat that I can, and work with him until I think it’s time to let go of him. Sometimes teachers look at guitar lessons as more of a business than an art and it really needs to be both. If you do it right, you’ll make enough money and it will all work out. If you do it wrong; you’ll constantly be struggling.

LL: You really need the teacher and the student groove together.

Kelly: Yes.

LL: I didn’t play for five years because the first teacher I had was so impressed with himself.

Kelly: I perform so much that I have no desire to show off. It’s not that I think I’m so good; I have that constant struggle to reach my own goals. In that respect, I’m right there with my students. I’ve just been doing it longer.

LL: With all that you do, how do you find enough time to practice?

Kelly: I don’t practice consistently. I practice in spurts. Sometimes the best way to practice is to be quiet and to get away from music for a while so that I’m fresh when I get to the gigs. I don’t even listen to music, because I’m so inundated with it.

LL: With all the years you put in to learn the guitar, is it now an instrument that you’re very comfortable on?

Kelly: There is definitely a learning curve and there is a window of opportunity. For instance, I don’t play slide well, and I don’t have the patience to learn to play it well. And that may be a personality trait more than anything else. I’ve found that once you’ve kind of hit your groove…

LL: You’ve found it.

Kelly: Yeah.

LL: But then you’re molded.

Kelly: Right. When I first started playing, I was hell with the glider. I could really play slide. But I didn’t know what blues was. I had just heard of Foghat, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I thought “I’m a girl, I’m not going to keep, I’m really going to play”. I could kill myself. Oh my God, I had a knack for it. I didn’t realize that there was this whole genre of music, slide guitar. I had no idea. And I’ve always been sorry for that. But I don’t have the patience to kind of start from scratch.

LL: To put it back together?

Kelly: Call it lazy, but I don’t think I’m lazy.

LL: I think there’s a learning curve, and once you hit a point, you’ve set your style .

Kelly: Once you do it for so many years, then you have your sound. And if you push something then you get burned out. There’s only so much you’re going to get out of yourself. It has to be fun. It’s like, once you’ve kind of framed up the house, you can decorate it anyway you want to.

LL: But the framing’s done.

Kelly: The framing is done.

LL: That’s an excellent analogy.

Kelly: You can add some things on, but your property is only so big. You just have to be realistic as to your goals. Do you want to be really great at one thing, or do you want to be mediocre at a lot of things. Some people are great at a lot of things; look at Prince.

LL: And some people can actually say, fine, I’m going to knock down the whole house and reframe something completely different.

Kelly: Some people do that.

LL: But that’s exhausting.

Kelly: Yes. But I, I don’t know. (Chuckle)

LL: Do you have a preference between your Strat and your Taylor, the acoustic?

Kelly: I LOVE my Strat.

LL: I love the way you say that.

Kelly: I do, it’s my first love.

LL: It’s your baby.

Kelly: Yeah.

LL: Is that the first nice guitar you bought yourself?

Kelly: I had an Aria Tele copy that got me through my first two or three years, which was a nice guitar to play. But my Strat was my first real guitar.

LL: It’s kind of like your first car, or something. There’s nothing quite like it.

Kelly: It’s a part of me.

LL: It is a part of you. It’s an extension of yourself. I know. I feel the same way about my first guitar. I see that you’re gracious enough to provide a gear list on your website; very cool. You own a Fender Strat and a Taylor Acoustic. Do you feel you get a different sound from the Strat that you can’t get from the acoustic? Or vice versa? Or do pretty much feel that you pull from both?

Kelly: I pull from both. They both have their own voice. It’s just a matter of getting it out of them.

LL: Where do get ideas for all that stuff? Where do you get your inspiration for your songs? Where do you get your inspiration for what you decide to play?

Kelly: Music is the only thing that does not argue with me. It is. It’s just constant. It’s never saying you’re not any good. It’s never saying you’re great. It is.

LL: It just exists.

Kelly: It exists. And I can come to it, and it’s an endless well.

LL: That’s wonderful.

Kelly: Maybe I’ve swum 10 miles into the ocean and I can’t see land behind me. I say “Wow, I’ve really accomplished something”. Well, with just a little bit of a let up, I’d realize quickly that I will no more get across this body of water, than I’ll get another 10 or 20 miles. We have to be real. Music’s is the one thing that’s like a true reflection. You know, I’m only going to get out of it what I put into it. You really can’t say that about many things in life. We as people, we let each other down. And music, whatever I put into each night, I am guaranteed to get exactly that out of it.

LL: That’s wonderful.

Kelly: That’s the coolest thing.

LL: It really is.

Kelly: It’s one of those constants.