A boy and his guitar.

I found the guitar at the age of 12 after having been fired by my piano teacher years earlier. 

I had a thing against sitting still for long periods of time.

The doctors called it ADD and prescribed me meds that ended up in the same napkin as my broccoli. 

But as I simultaneously entered puberty and watched my parent's marriage dissolve I returned to a simpler music form - trading 88 keys for 6 strings.

I still wasn't much good at sitting still or painfully feeling my way across the fretboard, but I was good at making my own chords up. 

I must have played more chords no one has ever heard of in those early years than Django Reinhardt. 

I played them not out of some musical gene inside me, but as a desperate boy looking for anything to express himself. 

I started with one finger chords, wrote whole songs with that one finger. 

Next I graduated to two finger chords, then three, four and even some where I wrapped my thumb around the bass string to get 5 finger chords on the fretboard.

It didn't matter that no one had heard of the chords, because they were communicating something deep inside. 

I think about that boy and his guitar when I'm teaching new students. 

I want my students to feel the joy of the instrument for as long as they can stand it. 

I want them to make whatever sounds they can to start because even in the simplest of sounds there lies incredible untouched emotions. 

What sounds are you making? 

Jam soon,

JB

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