Every other Friday night, I get together with a few neighborhood singers and guitar players to try new songs and play familiar songs.

I am primarily an acoustic rhythm guitar player. I grew up playing traditional American folk and Country music with a healthy dose of folk-rock. I play primarily to accompany vocals, my own and other peoples’. I either know or can get through the first verse and chorus of dozens of songs in the folk, folk rock, Country, and (to a lesser extent) pop music genres. But, put me in a group that’s playing harder genres of rock or ask me to play a lead riff, I’m lost.

One of other guitar players, the guy who usually plays the lead, has a similar challenge. While he plays lead guitar and sings in two rock-oriented dance music “wedding bands” and leads a jazz trio – guitar, keyboard, and vocal, he’s lost when it comes to “oldies”, Bluegrass, folk, or folk-rock music because he didn’t study those or play those, growing up.

So, it takes some time to find songs that we both know and play – “Hey, do you know this one? Do you like that one? How about this one…?” and to teach each other what we’re good at.  All good and it slows things down a bit.

If I could now, from my current position, speak to “early Nick”, I would advise him to, yes, pursue his passion for traditional American music AND to get out more – play with more people in different settings, becoming at least modestly competent in other modes while developing expertise in his specialty. It turns out that there are substantially  more opportunities for engagement if we’re able to play in many styles and ensembles instead of playing in only one or a few.

Nick Miller is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. He assists banks and credit unions to generate more and more profitable relationships, faster, with business clients, their owners, and their employees through better sales strategies and execution. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.