My dad was a musician, and my mom was a writer. For my entire life, there's been this tug of war between the two of them, like two halves of the brain. There's the writing half, and I guess the writing half has really kind of gotten the better of me because it's my day job, my busman's holiday, but the music thing is still pretty strong. They're two sides of a coin. Writing is only things that you can put into words. Music, especially instrumental music, has an ineffable quality to it. It can make you feel a way that you can't put into words. That's why it exists. 

My dad was a composer and was the conductor of the symphony in the Rio Grande Valley, so music was just around all the time. My parents both felt strongly that we should all take piano, so my first instrument was the piano. I only took it for one year in first grade, and then I didn't wanna do that anymore. Then, in third grade, I expressed an interest in the violin. My parents were really excited that I expressed interest in an orchestral instrument. I played [violin] from third grade all the way through high school. I played in the symphony that my dad conducted and in the high school orchestra for my senior year. Then, I just lost interest in it. 

I started playing guitar in about ninth grade. During this time, I sang in choirs too. I was double dipping orchestra and choir and then doing guitar on my own time at night and on weekends. 

But then I became completely obsessed with the guitar, and I started a band. When I was playing in college and postcollege, we billed ourselves as a classic rock and blues band, and that was the crowd that we played to—everybody from retirees in the valley to bikers to guys like us that liked guitar-based rock. 

I worked on solo acts on guitar, and then there was a duo act that I worked on in the last five years before my stroke; myself on the guitar, and then my long-time friend David, who played bass with me all the way from ninth grade on. 

I had a stroke about five years ago. If you go on YouTube and search Moondog Cast Iron Shore, that's my [extended play record]. Charlie Magnone, Parker McCollum’s musical director, is the one playing keyboards on all those songs, and then Kirk Sonnenberg is on drums. We recorded that in less than six months, two months before my stroke. That's where I was musically at the moment before my stroke.

Music was on my mind pretty early on in recovery. I asked my wife to bring my acoustic guitar to the hospital, but after trying it a couple of times, I was very discouraged, and it basically just leaned in the corner for the rest of my stay. There are no words that can capture how sad I was when I realized months later that my right hand was simply never coming back. Once I crossed that bridge emotionally, I began to concentrate on building a one-handed technique. I never considered not playing at all.

Hammering on and pulling off are standard techniques to sort of get extra notes out of the guitar strings that are not being plucked, but I took those two techniques and I turned that into a “full-time job.”

Hammering on is hitting a string at a specific fret with enough force that that note sounds. Playing this way effectively turns the guitar into a percussion instrument. Pulling off is removing a finger from the string in such a way that you're basically plucking the string with your left hand. You can pull off to pluck an open string or pull off to pluck a string that's being held at a certain fret by a lower finger. 

My stroke has forced me to relearn songs that I used to play and love to play. How can I play those now? How can I get those critical notes? I may not be able to play every note, but how can I fake my way through it? 

It’s still there, that desire to play.

Eventually, I'll get back to the kind of playing I used to do. In the back of my mind, I've got a setlist of songs that I could perform that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to play at a coffee shop or something. I've got probably a set, maybe two sets now, that I could do, but it's very different. 

It's like there's a huge filter on it now of, “What could I pull off that actually sounds good?” Where people would not clap for me out of pity, like “pretty good for a guy with one hand,” but that would actually sound good. That’s a big filter that was not there before, but in a way, that’s an interesting intellectual challenge. Sit on your right hand, pick up the guitar, and come up with 45 minutes worth of music that people would come to see.  

It's not a challenge that I was looking for or that I wanted, but I can't do anything about it. I could pout. I could get depressed and try to drink my blues away, that I can't play in the same way that I used to play, or I could just accept it as a challenge.

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About Avrel Seale

Avrel Seale has served as the editor of the UT Alumni magazine The Acalade since 1992.  From 2011 to 2015, he served as the speechwriter for the president of The University of Texas. Since 2015, he has been a writer and editor in the university’s news, marketing, and development offices. In addition to his work at UT, Seale has written ten books ranging in topics from the mystery of the Sasquatch to theology.  In 2018, at age 50, Seale had a major hemorrhagic stroke that left him partially disabled. He documented his experience with his stroke and recovery in his book With One Hand Tied Behind My Brain.