Last weekend, I drove out to Western Massachusetts for some leaf peeping (AMAZING!) and exploring in the towns of South Hadley, Northampton, and Amherst. On Saturday morning, while enjoying the sun as I strolled the main streets in Northampton center, I passed a guitar store.
“Leaves can wait,” I thought. I’m always game to browse a guitar store!
I stepped in, connected with the two burly guys behind the desk, and started to explore. I’m VERY partial to Martin guitars. I found a 60-year-old Martin on the wall and sat down to play for a bit. What a treat!
I came up through the folk – bluegrass – early country music branch of guitar work, largely to accompany vocals. I was fiddling with an early Leo Kottke tune when….…this 12-year-old (I’m guessing) sat down across the store from me with an electric guitar and just lit the place up with heavy-metal-ish riffs. Everyone in the store stopped to listen.
Me, too. While the riffs weren’t terribly loud, I couldn’t hear myself play at that point. My first thought was, “WOW!” followed by “You’ve got nothing to compete with that… ain’t nobody in this store going to stop what they’re doing to listen to you.”
Yeah, I went very dark for a few seconds – a suffocating mix of envy, jealousy, and depression…and then I got hold of myself.
The fact is: Since I was inspired to pick up my first guitar, the music that called to me…the music that I learned and loved to perform… was American folk music with some early Country music and folk-rock music thrown in. Doc Watson and Leo Kottke were two of my heroes. While I appreciated the skills of then-popular players like Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhodes, I never felt the heat to learn their techniques… techniques that this 12-year-old was skillfully demonstrating.
So, as the kid continued to play, I thought: “Are you serious? (1) This isn’t a competition. (2) You don’t even like that music. (3) You didn’t come here to attract a crowd. (4), If you had, you’d have attracted the crowd that likes your music. (5) Give the kid a break. She’s great!
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.
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