Resonance

On August 30, while much of New Orleans was underwater, George W. Bush was photographed playing a guitar given to him by country singer Mark Wills. Numerous pundits with a firm grasp of the obvious, seized upon this to draw comparisons with the Emperor Nero, who allegedly played fiddle while Rome burned. (Never mind that fiddles didn’t actually exist back then; “fiddled” sounds better than “played the lyre.”)

What bugs me about the photo, however, is that it gets described as showing the president “playing guitar,” when at best he’s only posing, trying to look like he’s a-pickin’. How do I know? Just look at his left hand. Like many a duff guitarist, he’s formed the hand shape for an open-G chord — except that instead of having his fingers in place to play G (third fret on the lower E string) and B (second fret on the A string), he’s a fret off, at G-sharp and C. His little finger may be adding an A (fifth fret on the upper E string), but it’s hard to be certain. In any case, were he actually to strum that guitar, the result would be utter dischord, revealing him as someone who doesn’t know diddley about guitar. Instead, he poses quietly, and only instrument geeks like me notice.

I don’t mean to single out the president on this, because instrumental fakery is disturbingly widespread. One of my favorite moments in Oliver Stone’s The Doors is a rehearsal session in which the band is ostensibly learning “Light My Fire.” One of the band calls out the changes, and as he does we watch John Densmore (Kevin Dillon) fingering the chords on guitar. And getting most of them wrong.

Even when the actors know what they’re doing, mistakes can happen. Taylor Hackford was justifiably proud of the fact that Jamie Foxx, who plays Ray Charles in the bioflick Ray, is a trained pianist who didn’t have to fake the keyboard parts. Indeed, the credits feature an overhead shot of Foxx’s hands accurately miming to the classic recording of “What’d I Say” on a Fender Rhodes. But as all vintage keyboard buffs know, “What’d I Say” doesn’t use a Rhodes — it’s a Wurlitzer electric on the track.

I know, I know — this is precisely the sort nerdery that gets lampooned in The Rock Snob’s Dictionary (although why actually knowing something about the craft of music-making counts as snobbery is itself rant material). But every time I see a model mishandle a prop trombone, or watch an actor flailing his or her fingers ineffectually along a saxophone, I’m reminded of how distanced the average person is from the art of music. It’s depressing to think that for many educated people, being able to play an instrument is as much a lost craft as spinning wool or carpentry.

In that sense, having Dubya pose as a guitarist is just one more example of how people get the government they deserve. As if another such example were needed.