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Nearly fifty years into his career, legendary singer-songwriter Elvis Costello is still hard at work. Last week, Costello released his latest album Spanish Model, a re-recorded, Spanish-language version of his classic 1978 album This Year’s Model. The album was accompanied by an ongoing video series documenting its creation. Now, Costello is back with another project, How to Play the Guitar and Y, a new Audible Original releasing today (September 16th).
How to Play the Guitar and Y is the latest installment in Audible’s ever-expanding Words + Music series. Whereas most artists have used their Words + Music entries to explore their musical inspirations and share stories from their lives, Costello saw the opportunity as a unique chance to teach and directly change his audience’s lives.
The resulting work is a wildly entertaining blend of creative short stories, wonky music lessons, and short musical interludes that show off Costello’s wit and sagacity.
To get a better idea of the creative process behind How to Play the Guitar and Y, Consequence spoke with Costello by email to talk about his vision for the project. You can grab the Audible Original here, and check out the Q&A below.
By now, a lot of artists have worked with Audible for their own Words + Music entries. Most have used the opportunity to perform some kind of autobiographical work, i.e. telling stories from their lives and/or reflecting on old recordings. What made you decide to take a more creative and pedagogical route?
A few years ago, I wrote a more than six hundred page book called Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, a kind of memoir, although not a chronological reference book. It was also published in an audiobook and e-book edition, so in writing How To Play The Guitar and Y for Audible, I look only to the past to offer people something that might change their future.
Failing this, they could have fun failing. Which is pretty much how I’ve approached my life’s work. My grandfather used to say, “You can’t fall, there’s nothing to stop you.” No, I don’t know what it means either, but while you are thinking about it, you’ll probably forget your fear of tumbling.
You really take full advantage of the audio format, throwing in sound effects — some musical, some less so — and panning your voice left and right to add “dramatic effect.” Everything sort of melds together into one cohesive sound object; it almost reminds me of a radio play. Did you have any inspirations for this approach? Did you come in with particular ideas for how you wanted the finished product to sound?
I don’t know whether radio comedy carried on as long [in the US] as it did in England, but I grew up in time of BBC shows like Round The Horne, which happened to refer to the host’s name but which provided cover for all sorts of absurdity and double, if not single, entendre humor. Sound effects play a very big part in radio comedy. I always fancied doing that job, and now I have. There were also some humorous books that I read as a lad that reminded me that a ridiculous and sometimes invented telling of, say, history could make you curious to find out what really happened.
About a third of the way into How to Play the Guitar and Y, you declare it a work of “comedic philosophy.” Obviously, the work is quite funny, and in it you present a specific philosophy of music, or at least a philosophy of music pedagogy. Can you break down what “comedic philosophy” means?
I wouldn’t take that claim of this being “comic philosophy” too seriously. I thought it looked more intriguing than saying this was a “daft ramble.” Anyone who has ever heard me play the guitar must know that I am unqualified to teach formal musical instruction. My “philosophy” is to use both the comic and the heartfelt to remove the fear of failure. The mechanics of playing the guitar used to be welded to the study of musical notation, bringing you swiftly into conflict with chords that intimidate the novice.
If you simply desire to accompany yourself singing a song or two, there are easier and numerous ways to get there. This is just my suggestion. Your curiosity will tell you how far you want to travel, and let’s have fun doing it and remember to play, as you did as a child.
Interspersed throughout the commentary and sound effects are these short musical pieces. I remember being caught off guard when that rather beautiful guitar piece started playing during the hilarious Papal Bull episode. How did you go about writing music for the work? What relationship did you envision the music having to the words?
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the musical interludes. I wanted to score this piece throughout, whether with actual musical illustrations, a few snatches of song, impersonations, character voices and sound effects. Sometimes these passages you mention allude to a musical idiom without directly quoting a song, other times they are new themes of my own invention.
I put myself in the mind of talking to a curious friend — each listener likely does so alone. I was in a cupboard below the stairs, in the basement of our house that functioned as my recording booth. I had a microphone, a couple of guitars and some other instruments. I only ventured out of that location to do whatever it is that I do to the piano. I would call it “playing.” Others might disagree.
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