We walk into a retail establishment, especially one as potentially uncomfortable as a GC, with our minds in full analytical mode, using our later-evolved frontal cortex, which is as it should be. We're parking a car, we're bantering, we're scoping it out, we're adding up pennies in our heads. We are pattern-recognizing and filtering.
Too bad the part that know how to play bass isn't in the cortex, but in the cerebellum, that lower, reptilian brain that houses our "muscle memory", songs, techniques, all the things you can normally do "without thinking about it".
It's hard to play bass while you are "thinking". And it is hard to get into the zone in a GC and let your hands do their thing. With a smaller "mom-and-pop" type music store, you often develop more of a relationship with the staff and the location, and can usually "relax" a bit more in a "familiar" environment. With a GC, there's always new staff, new stock, new noise.
Too bad the part that know how to play bass isn't in the cortex, but in the cerebellum, that lower, reptilian brain that houses our "muscle memory", songs, techniques, all the things you can normally do "without thinking about it".
It's hard to play bass while you are "thinking". And it is hard to get into the zone in a GC and let your hands do their thing. With a smaller "mom-and-pop" type music store, you often develop more of a relationship with the staff and the location, and can usually "relax" a bit more in a "familiar" environment. With a GC, there's always new staff, new stock, new noise.
Another one! Guitar Center is retail store, not a showcase for every wankin' teenager who thinks the world ought to hear his virtuosity. Take your show to an open mic night, a bar, the local cafe ... but fer cryin' out loud, NOT to Guitar Center.
