Mick Goodrick and the Advancing Guitarist

When I was young person growing up in coastal Maine, I studied electric guitar with local blues rock legend Pat Ginnaty. A beautiful human on whom I’ll need to write more someday, Pat opened SO many paths of sonic possibilities, and turned me on to many different ways of sculpting sounds with a chunk of wood and wire. The brain? A wonderful thing, but not the only thing. The heart? A much more wonderful thing.

Playing with feel? Well, if you’re not going to play every single note with feeling every single time, please — for the sake of all that’s good — just don’t bother.

In addition to the many artists and albums he turned me on to, he directed me towards numerous books on the art of music-making. Some of these were a bit dense for someone as young as I (an antsy/angst-y teenager), but of all the tomes he lent out to me, Mick Goodrick’s The Advancing Guitarist stood head and shoulders above all others. While other texts-about-music could get wrapped up in esoteric elements of music theory (a nerdy topic I’d fall in love with years later), TAG possessed an amazing balance of head AND heart.

To the goal of breaking out of predictable patterns, Goodrick prescribed playing up and down the neck on one string only (“ice skating”, as he phrased it). To break out of same-old-same-old harmonies, he introduced me to modal chord patterns and inversions that I’m still trying to use fluidly today. Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the section towards the end, in which he stepped away from “how to play the guitar”-isms and got down into the art of living life. Get your heart broken, don’t play guitar for a week just to see how your heart misses it, cry, and just be a real, fragile human being, dammit (something we artists too often forget in our eternal and possessive search for excellence).

Mick was a regular on the Boston small-but-high-grade jazz scene, and a monster guitarist. When playing and studying music around the Boston area in my early 20’s, teachers and peers would bring his name up as someone I should seek out for lessons. I was on the verge working up the nerve to ring him up when I got sidelined by an acute case of tendonitis. When I finally recovered, I’d moved on both from the area as well as from jazz guitar playing. Which is to say, I never made the call.

While cleaning my studio a couple months ago, I stumbled upon my worn copy of TAG, and I made a mental note to ring him up for a long overdue lesson when in Boston on my next family visit. Better late than ever, et al. Upon awaking this morning to the sad news that Mr. Goodrick had left this earthly plane, I realized I missed my chance to learn from him firsthand. A good life lesson to move more quickly on one’s goals, I suppose. I’ll always have The Advancing Guitarist, though, and for this I’ll remain eternally thankful.

Seriously, though… if you’re a guitarist and you’ve not yet read this book, correct that blatant error as soon as possible.

RIP dear Mick. Thank you for the music.