7 Days of Satriani: Speaking Without Words
10:57:45 PM… one hour and three minutes to finish today’s 7 Days of Satriani entry and I don’t have the first clue what I want to say. Smaller mouths and lesser minds might find this an insurmountable challenge. For a Fanboy, it’s nothing – nothing, I say!
In college, I learned that 93% of meaning is translated through nonverbal means. That’s the fancy way of saying, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” It’s also the evidence I needed in my younger days to explain how I could get so much out of listening to Joe Satriani’s music despite not being able to play a lick of guitar myself.
There was this popular putdown that the only people who listened to Satriani’s music were the legions of wannabes who pretended they could play any of his songs. I didn’t fit into that category. I tried to explain that the music was more than a series of guitar licks, that it did more than just sound cool. I don’t know what a “Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing Is,” but it says something to me. OK, that might be a bad example. Take “Always With Me, Always With You” instead.
“Always With Me” is more than just notes on the page. It’s more than an Ibanez with a lot of vibrato. Joe is playing a feeling, an emotion, a moment. I don’t have to know what inspired him when he wrote it. I don’t need words, I have meaning. St. Francis of Assisi famously said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” Even though I’m a communication goob and a writer, I’ve understand words are just one of the tools we use to translate meaning.
Some of the best scenes in movies are wordless, relying instead on facial expressions, scenery, and instrumental music. The mind is powerful. It can translate, decode, and fit the pieces of a puzzle together. Listen to “The Forgotten, Part II” from Flying in a Blue Dream. Keep listening until you hear what what he’s saying without saying a word.
11:10:58 PM… 49 minutes to spare. Am I good or what?
Filed under: Joe Satriani, Seven Days of Satriani
