Man, trying to learn Joe Pass’s way of playing “Autumn Leaves”? Sounded scary at first, like some impossible wizard thing. Saw that “5 Simple Steps” title and honestly laughed. Simple? Huh. But hey, gave it a shot anyway. Here’s exactly what happened when I dragged my old guitar out this afternoon.
The Absolute Terror of Opening the Song
First step always feels like the hardest: just getting started. Picked up my trusty old archtop, still smells faintly of the last dusty gig. Took the pick – gotta use a pick, Joe Pass style is all about that attack, no soft fingertips for this. No kidding, my hand felt like concrete. Fingers forgot where to even go! Fumbled around for like 10 minutes just trying to remember the basic melody line. Yeah, simple step one my foot. Took way too long just to play a single, shaky phrase without muting every other string.
The Chord Shape Circus Act
Step two promised these “jazzy chords”. Simple? Ha! Joe uses these weird hand shapes that feel like you’re trying to crack walnuts on the fretboard. Found diagrams online, tried to copy them. My pinky kept slipping off, mute city again. Seriously thought about just playing cowboy chords instead! Spent ages just pressing down hard, feeling the burn in my fingertips, trying to make them sound clean, one finger at a time. Slowly glued those chords together into the sequence for the first few bars. Painful progress.
Rhythm? What Rhythm?
Got a few chords sorta sounding okay? Good luck making ’em swing. Step three said “feel the groove”. Groove my elbow. My sense of timing felt broken. Listen to Joe Pass play it? Smooth like butter. Me? Clunky, disjointed, robot playing in mud. Drove me bonkers. Stared at the metronome app like it was a personal enemy. Click click CLICK. Still rushed the chord changes, stumbled over simple syncopation. Played those first few bars on repeat for what felt like HOURS, trying to relax my hands just a little, trying to find any hint of that natural push-pull Joe gets. Barely scraped by.
Putting Broken Pieces Together
Step four was the big one: combining the first few notes of the melody with those stupid chords I’d wrestled with. Simple? NOT AT ALL. My brain completely froze. Melody hand wanted to go fast, chord hand moved like a snail dazed. Coordinating that felt like patting your head and rubbing your tummy while walking backwards. Constant trainwrecks. Played just ONE measure, melody plus chord, again and again. Failed. Tried again. Muted strings. Bad note. Again. Slowly, like painfully slow, strung together the first couple of measures. Still sounded like Frankenstein’s monster trying to make music.
The Moment It Almost Happened
Step five promised I’d be playing it. Hah. After the pain of step four, this was just about repeating the small broken pieces I did have. Played those first two combined bars maybe… 50 times? More? Stopped caring about perfection. Just got into the repetition. And suddenly, after all that frustration and clock-watching… it kinda clicked. Not perfect, not beautiful, but the notes were there, the chords filled the space, and the rhythm? Well, it wasn’t actively awful anymore. Played that small section a dozen more times, getting slightly smoother each time. Finished exhausted, buzzing fingers, one tiny fragment of Joe Pass’s genius feeling vaguely alive under my hands. Simple? No way. Possible today? Yeah, barely.
Truth time: This 5-step thing makes it sound linear. It wasn’t. It was messy, frustrating, full of backward steps and wanting to throw the guitar out the window. Actually PLAYING like Joe Pass? That’s gonna take way more than an afternoon. But today? I finally made that song START sound halfway decent. And yeah, that actually felt pretty dang good. Call me shocked.