Tribute to My Guitar Teacher

February 5th, 2021

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My and my brother’s guitar teacher comes once every two weeks. He brings a reasonably – sized Peavy amp, a glossy Mason guitar, and a former Altoid container made to hold picks. He always knocks once, and when I open the door, I’m greeted by an almost – blinding pair of Pit Vipers that lend a cartoonish, vehement quality to the man.

In the beginning, I had a miniature Ibanez and fingers too short to form even a power chord towards the end of the neck. I did not want to learn guitar, nor practice, nor study music theory and its confusing, man – made rules (including scales and modes and endless harmonies).

I was incredibly resistant, but it was my guitar teacher’s openness to learning music by ear and teaching to his students that sparked my curiosity. I showed him deep cuts from obscure indie bands – less than ten thousand listeners a month on streaming services – and rock riffs from 2000’s content.

Bands like ‘the pillows’ made music that spoke to me in a theatrical sense, in a larger – than – life context making any chord progression instantly catchy.

My teacher invited me openly to play these songs on his amp, through a worn AUX cord, and furiously scribbled every last note that two, three, four guitarists were playing at once. There were days I would take my amp to my room and practice, practice, practice, until I felt comfortable enough to open up Audacity and try my hand at a new session.

He said that, after working at KFC for an entire summer (he was 14, but the manager swept it under the rug and hired him anyway), he was able to afford his first Stratocaster. At high school, he idolized the kids who could flick their wrists unbelievably quick and replicated songs like Eruption within a few days.

His teacher never invited him to share the songs that he wanted to play, and so he showed up to every lesson with a bland music theory book in hand. ‘Crossroads’ in his mind and nursery rhymes in his hands was the image I got from glimpses, bits gathered from his many stories.

Recently, after my brother finished his lesson, I sat down and he started speaking fondly – as he often does – on the novelty of my brother’s talent; after all, he’s only 12 and can play Roundabout seamlessly. Verbally loping, his face lit up and I sensed a quip coming.

“You two are my success stories”, he said.

In an instant, every event placed itself on this mental timeline that I had of my journey playing guitar and learning from him. All the pieces fit together and created a 360° panorama. I could pick out each phase of my musical taste in every piece of guitar tablature painstakingly created by my teacher.

In my mind, he is the best guitar player to ever pick up the instrument. It’s humor and tragedy woven throughout his stories, and jokes, and frequent dad puns, but he always manages to bring the lesson’s focus back to the classics, the pieces of music that made him the guitarist he is today.

Thanks, Mike.

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