Insufficiently Limp-Wristed.

I play the guitar as many of my readers will know. I'm not a great player but I muddle along in an average kind of way. I have managed to get the hang of most of the techniques required over the years but there is one thing I still can't seem to be able to do effectively; fast strumming. Pete Townshend from the Who was one of my early influences and I tried for years to play Pinball Wizard which involves, for those of my non-musical friends, a very fast strumming pattern. I start off okay but after a bar or so my wrist refuses to co-operate. Despite years of practice I can't seem to get my wrist to move with the same fluidity as Townshend or the masters of funk such as Nile Rogers. I'm currently working on Hendrix's version of 'All Along the Watchtower' and he uses the same effortless strum. It's a breeze if you can do it, it's murder if you can't. The fact that I am rubbish at strumming and have fingers like sausages lead me to believe that I am not a natural guitarist.

If you Google my name, the first few pages of hits are related to a world famous virtuoso of that great rock and roll instrument, the euphonium. My namesake was born a year after me in Bournemouth and has achieved fame and fortune by sticking with the unsexy euphonium while I have achieved sore fingers, frustration, great times and good friends in total obscurity. Perhaps it would have been different had I chosen the xylophone. I can't help feeling it must have been tough for him during the punk years though trying to get into a band as a euphonium player.

What if Mo Farah had taken up discus instead of running because he fancied a girl on the field team? We may never have heard of him. If Bradley Wiggins had taken up boxing instead of cycling he would be just another 'shmo' with dodgy sideburns. The world is brimming with people who have undiscovered talents and talented people who haven't been discovered; that's not to say I am one of them though.

I have just finished a book by Stephen King called ' On Writing' which is a short autobiography followed by a brief synopsis of his approach to writing. In it he discusses having a true passion for your art whatever it may be and I believe I fall short of having the all-consuming desire necessary to be better than average on the guitar. Never mind, I'll keep plugging away as I still enjoy it. My friend and bandmate Rod will be pleased; there's not much room for a xylophone player in a Bob Dylan Tribute duo.