When my brother Brad and myself were growing up, we took up instruments. My Dad and Mom uncle and cousin all played something so this was no big deal. Until, we wanted to really get good.
Well taking lessons, which we both did is one thing but what we wanted to learn was not theory or rudiments but Eddie and Alex Van Halen licks!! This was waaay before YouTube so we didn’t have these video lessons nor when growing up in rural Nebraska did we have those sort of teachers, we had great teachers, just no that kind of teachers.
Well as we all know Eddie plays fast. To slow it down to try to learn these songs we use to stack nickels on the head of the tone arm of the turntable. It took just the right amount of coins to get it down an octave, Any more or less and it was too fast or too slow. I didn’t have the patience to to tune my guitar every time I wanted to learn a lick. Now there’s 8 year olds learning all this stuff in their bedroom…..Ahhhhhh, good times