I had a dream last night that I was at some kind of bar and music joint, with two stories. I walked up the crowded stairs to the second level, with the hard wood bar fully stocked, got myself a drink, then looked down on the full stairwell and decided "fuck it, and jumped, grabbing onto the railing at one point to slow my fall, then rebounding and hitting the floor. Then I walked off.
Near the door some guy was playing with a toy gun that happened to have a loud alarm and little plastic pellets. With the sounding of the loud alarm, everyone jumped with a start. Me and another guy ended up taking it away from him. I don't remember the excuse exactly. He had some kind of story about him liberating it from some kid or something. It was all sort of odd. But I was holding it when a swat team came up with their assault rifles.
"Whoa! It's plastic!" I said as I sort of dropped it into my arms and tried to put my hands up without dropping the toy gun and breaking it.
Thankfully I didn't get shot. They repeated to each other that it was plastic and moved on. I guess that someone had called them when they were startled by the toy gun before.
The arrival of SWAT sort of broke up the party though. Everyone started coming out of the place and going towards their vehicles in the long line down the street.
I ended up giving the toy gun to the other guy, as I was considerably turned off from playing with it due to SWAT arriving. After he had already walked away I realized I still had some pellets in my pocket. I tried to get his attention, but he was already walking up these stairs around back. I ended up giving them to this girl that was going up the stairs as well, and said she would get them to him.
Then I started walking down the street, along all these trucks filled with musical instruments and such, looking for whatever it was that I drove to get here. I kinda half remember driving a van or something. If I wasn't dreaming, I woulda sworn I was drunk.
Then next thing I knew, I was handed this strange musical instrument that was described to be as a "historically jewish guitar". Um...okay. It was pretty damn cool, that's all I know. It had quite a few strings, and multiple bends to the neck. Every bend had a nut to hold the strings, causing it to act like it had just a fuckton of strings. Every bend turned the strings into a different octave section. So you ended up playing every section like it's own miniature guitar.
The next thing I knew, I was just wailing on this thing. I didn't really know how to play it...but that ain't gonna stop me from finding the scales and playin some lead!
Woman Playing a Lute (between 1628 and 1629) by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–) (source)
photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art
The only problem was that one of the strings was broken. Well, it was hanging loose. It was still there, but somehow was like not fully attached. That was an adventure! It had these weird strings that I guess were made of gut. And on the ends they were just knotted. I had to figure out how to string it, which was an adventure all it's own.
Additionally it had these strands of leather hanging off the top...and it had a body almost like a gourde, like a sitar almost. It was weird. But damned if it wasn't cool!
I don't know if it would even be possible to make an instrument like this is real life...or if it maybe really was an instrument in the past that my brain picked up on...but I kinda fucking want one!
After a long few minutes figuring out how to get the string back on, then tuning it, someone told me to give it a go, and another person I know in real life said "He doesn't know how to play it." and I promptly shut him up wailing out some lead.
Every instrument, other than a sitar, uses the same scales, same mathematical principals. You can either move slow and fuck shit up while you figure it out, or you can move fast and wail while you fuck shit up and learn all the faster. I can tell you which way is more fun. I can also tell you that you aren't going to instantly know how to play anything without making mistakes. So just make the mistakes, and realize that those people bitching are just bitching because of their own neuroses.