Sit down for a second and listen to how many minutes and hours it takes to be great, I am locked in a bedroom, my wrist is in spasm, my tendons are stiff and beginning to ache. The steel on the wood is a terrible feeling, I’m peeling the skin off the pad of my thumb, While red drops are hitting the wood on the carpet, my father is screaming the household is numb! He is pounding the panel and shouting in anger: "You need to play something else down in the hallway!" He heard that same eight-bar loop ninety times in a row while I drove 'em insane in the all-day. I plucked till the flesh was ripped off to the bone, I was grinding alone in the dark of the shadow, You never will know what it costs if you never have built up your pads to prepare for the battle. You're sitting outside running mouth with a talk to be tried, but you're blind to the grit on the side, At first I was awkward as hell, with my finger joints stiff while the frets would just buzz and collide. Every chord was just dead down below while mechanical friction was heavy inside of the joint, Till the muscle memory took over the wheel at the moment my brain stalled and missed on the point, And my fingers are moving much faster than mind can process, turning repetition into a habit! Then you hit a weird wall where the habit's making it feel way too simple, Fingers are gliding on auto-pilot, challenge is starting to dwindle. That is the dangerous stretch where comfort turns straight into stagnation, If you do not force past the easy phase, you poison the foundation. So you break the pattern down, change the tempo, force the wrist to twist, To learn mechanical angles that your memory had missed. You say, "I get what you mean," but you need to stop capping, it isn't identical in the least, You read a quick article online and swore that you mastered the beast! Human language has limits when trying to speak on the pain, The exact physical weight of the strain that is built in the hand and the brain. My hand feels the cold counter, bitter doubt folds, while the quiet count tolls, and I watch as the outer edge molds! Comparing ten thousand hours of labor to taking a walk at a pace Will fall flat on its face 'cause you're missing the quiet stress in the space. I spent three hundred nights fixing one minor error that lived in my thumb, Staring blank at a wall till my forearm was going completely numb! Now the repetition is accelerating, mapping out a physical drive, I am pushing every single little movement just to keep all of my fingers alive! I am sitting up inside of a dark room, locking my wrist in a hard groove, Keeping my fist on a part moved, executing an endless and sharp move! I was sliding across on a floorboard, keeping a grip on a cold wire, Dropping a drip on an oak board, 'cause I was sick of the old fire! I'm a-picking-at-a-steel-string, bleeding-in-a-dark-night, pad-raw, joint-stiff, wrist-sore, quick-shift! I'm a-sticking-to-the-real-thing, sleeping-in-a-dark-night, bad-law, point-missed, grip-tore, split-rift! Slipping right through the steel mesh while I am breathing right through the strain, start new, pass through! Ripping right through the raw flesh while I am reaching right through the pain, hard view, fast move! I remain focused, persistent, pushing the distance, living in shift with a silent resistance, And I am never stopping until muscle memory makes a transition! Running the movement, making improvement, leaving no room for the slackness, Gonna be grinding until every joint in my finger collapses! Now I shift the rhythm off-beat, landing right where the pulse gets strange and uneven, Forcing both of my hands to adapt to every single angle change they're receiving. Listen to the wood grain while I kick through the cold rain, sticking to the old game, living in the slow pain. Clean line, stiff joint, hard point, deep cut, raw skin, cold room, dark space, shut up! Kick it with a quick clip over top a thick brick, doing up a sick trick, holding with a hard grip, Landing with a sharp hit, down inside a dark pit, ready gotta start it! Systemic acceleration, articulation, elevation through relentless repetition! Cutting it clean on a mean screen, right along a tight seam, making up a dream team. I am transforming my dedication into a daily mechanical reposition, Rebuilding my muscle memory through a constant execution. When muscle memory makes the riff feel simple on the pad, Stagnation takes a hold of you if you settle for the skill you had. You get comfortable, focus drops, and your drive begins to stall, So you tear the motion down and rebuild it all against the wall! Metaphors fall completely short when you try to describe the time. No shortcuts to take, no skipping steps, no easy pass, You either bleed on the fretboard or you stay behind the glass. Ten thousand hours down, and the work is still far from done.
