When limitation isn't a crutch

Wintersongs & Traditionals; Billy McLaughlin, guitarist

I wish I knew more about art. About paintings. About painters. About aesthetics. About the elements that make an artistic piece beautiful, interesting and powerful. I spend so much time with music that the rest of the art world gets shoved out of the way instead of smack dab in the middle of my focus where it belongs. I turn beet red when I consider the pitifully meager amount of time I have spent in museums. And, yet, when I go, I have a glorious and memorable time.

One such time occurred on a beautiful fall day with my cousin W. on a spontaneous outing to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. I have to tell you that I don’t remember a thing of what I saw. I did, however, manage to wake up a lonely corner of my soul, one that sees the light of day too infrequently. And, on this day, my spirit danced for joy at the notion of delving into the tangible artistic expression of one who converses in a different medium than I do. I profited more from how I felt than what I saw.

On the way out of the museum, I heard Christmas music; very good Christmas music. Museum gift shops often feature and hawk the recordings of a local performing artist. On this glorious autumn day, months away from Christmas, guitar player extraordinaire Billy McLaughlin from the Twin Cities had a new winter album and he wanted me to buy it. Having no Christmas guitar music, I complied and was treated to a work of clarity and wonder. I marvel at the capacity of such a talented musician to bring the whole package, a melody or improvisation, harmony and a bass line, to the vanguard of musical maxim using only six strings and five fingers. Most of the selections on this album would resonate with his hearers as standard winter or Christmas fare. The rest escaped from his compositional pen.

Only recently did I discover that Mr. McLaughlin suffers from focal dystonia. Like Parkinson’s Disease, the body no longer can relax naturally when it should. Practiced movements become unpredictable and, as you can imagine, frustrating. Unlike Parkinson’s Disease, the focal dystonia isolates itself to one area of the body – in Mr. McLaughlin’s case, the left forearm, hand and fingers. This spells almost imminent death for a trained guitarist.

One of my favorite Lisa Simpson quotes comes from an early episode of “The Simpsons” where she quotes her mentor and hero Mr. Bleeding Gums Murphy. He says that, “music is a fire in your belly that comes out of your mouth, so you better stick an instrument in front of it.” When the music flows, you have to find a way to state your business. Meaning, if you have focal dystonia and you can’t play the guitar in the way that you were trained, you have to find another way to play the guitar. Mr. McLaughlin, for the time being, plays the guitar standing up with the guitar standing upright on the floor in front of him, tapping the strings with the fingers of both hands. I found a video of him playing in this way on his website and it utterly astounds me what he accomplishes.

He reminds me of Sammy Davis, Jr. I understand that Mr. Davis would refuse to leave the stage until he had won every ounce of respect that he could get from you. Mr. McLaughlin has that same “never say die” spirit.

Credits: To Billy McLaughlin and other musicians and artists, who accept physical limitations or disabilities, but deny the impact that these limitations or disabilities have on their art. Thank you.