Peter Frampton has turned to what he learned at Alcoholics Anonymous to help him play guitar while struggling with a muscular disease — Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM).
While in Anaheim, California last week for the annual National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention, he said, “It’s getting more difficult, I have to admit. The worst thing about playing for me is when I’m soloing, I have to actually think about what I’m playing. I don’t want to think — I want it just to be coming from my heart. That’s how I always played.
“And now I do have to think a little bit, because I’ll be in the middle of the passage and I’ll say, ‘That finger is not going to get there in time!’ So I do a regroup and I use one finger for many notes that I used to use three fingers for…
“It sounds weird; you’re losing the power to play… but I’m working out — and enjoying working out — a different way of playing.
“People say, ‘Aren’t you depressed?’ You know, you have to accept the things you cannot change. I learned that in AA, and in many other places.… What I have is not life-threatening, thank God, but it’s life-changing, and I’m going with the flow.”
Frampton starts his Let’s Do it Again tour on March 30th at Mohegan Sun
REUTERS PHOTO
