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#1
08-09-2018, 09:29 PM
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An act of generousity
In 1982 when I first started playing, while on my lunch hour I sat at a picnic table in a park near where I worked and played the 4 songs I had learned at that point, Where Have all the Flowers Gone, Yellow Submarine, Michael Row your Boat Ashore and Both Sides Now. A guy with a guitar appeared from nowhere and asked me if I'd like to learn a song. I wasn't sure I could, I was using tabbed sheet music as it was. He taught me Dust in the Wind. I never saw him again but that single act of his bolstered my confidence and moved me along in a way I've never since experienced. I encourage all I can. I haven't played it in years but I think Americas' Horse with No Name has only two simple chords. I used to use it as a song to teach those who had never played. To see the look on their faces when they found they could play guitar was golden.
Gibson Dove 67 Fender Coronado mod 
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#2
08-10-2018, 05:07 PM
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Love that story! I don't have one to match, but then I have taught guitar, often to rank beginners, in a youth music camp each summer for over 40 years. I know of a good number of these former students who are now using guitar to earn a living, and others who play in churches, schools, etc. Encouragement is a beautiful thing!
cotten
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#3
08-10-2018, 05:22 PM
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Starting with pulling on my guitar strings to make noise when he was about three to now, my grandson and I have shared over a dozen years of playing and learning. It's been the coolest gift I could ever give him...and me!
__________________
Nothing bothers me unless I let it. Martin D18 Gibson J45 Gibson J15 Fender Copperburst Telecaster Squier CV 50 Stratocaster Squier CV 50 Telecaster
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#4
08-15-2018, 01:41 PM
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Great story, Brad!
Coincidentally, I was taking lessons from a guy back in the late 70's early 80's and he was teaching me how to travis pick Dust In The Wind. It opened up a whole new world for me, and I now use that song to teach others how to travis pick.
__________________
Enjoy the journey
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#5
08-15-2018, 04:43 PM
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Quote:
Keep paying it forward, Brad - there's a whole new generation out there that needs role models like you... 
__________________
"Mistaking silence for weakness and contempt for fear is the final, fatal error of a fool" - Sicilian proverb (paraphrased)
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#7
08-15-2018, 05:56 PM
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Thanks for the kind words. I wasn't fishing. This reminiscence was brought about when I found a box of songbooks in my basement loaned to me way back in my first days of learning to play. The guy that loaned them to me basically got me laid off in the days of the recession (1982), he was just a few years older and wiser than I, an innocent. Back then, when I discovered that I hadn't returned his books, I thought, well... 36 years later of course time has healed me and all is behind. He still works there and I am going to return him his books, have a laugh and maybe even rekindle a fractured relationship, I did like him as he did me, but back then I guess it was every man for himself and I held the short end of the stick then, being younger and naive. They were great books though, Songs of Peace and Love, Greatest Hits of the Sixties, Complete Traffic, all sorts, they helped me just as Mel Bay and his book of 1000 chords did. We'll see how things go, even if nothing happens at all, it's all forgiven and forgotten, plus, it will give him a trip down memory lane just as it did me. Be well, peace.
Last edited by Kerbie; 08-15-2018 at 05:59 PM. Reason: Removed profanities
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#8
08-15-2018, 06:27 PM
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It's great that you remember that moment. I had a similar moment when a classmate taught me how to play 2 Minutes to Midnight (Iron Maiden) back in the late '80s. We were on lunch break, didn't have any guitars, but he wrote the tab for me in the classroom.
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