MGL Takes a Guitar Lesson

I sit in a bright, sterile common room, a waiting area in an old house that has been converted to a music school, home to carpeted and acoustically padded rooms in every nook. A girl who can’t be more than 10 sits across from me, her legs swinging as she fumbles with the black instrument case in her hands. A flute, I assume, or maybe a clarinet. She glances as me with suspicion, as if she’s wondering if I’m lost. I avert my gaze to my soft shelled guitar case and fiddle with the zipper. A boy of about 14 sits a few chairs down from me, his face obscured by a hoodie emblazoned with the logo for some band I have never heard of, clearly not part of the regular rotation on public talk radio. Through a nearby frosted glass door I can see the outline of a young boy in a blue t-shirt practicing his drum rolls, the encouragement and guidance of his instructor barely audible above the rat-a-tat of the snare. It reminds me of a military parade, or that claymation version of The Little Drummer Boy. My heart is racing. A scruffy haired guy, barely 20, pokes his head down the stairs and looks at me. “Are you Chris?” he asks hesitantly, eying me with the same suspicion as little Miss Clarinet. I nod sheepishly, grab my guitar and follow him up the stairs. I feel silly and out of place, like a balding, middle aged man in the ball room at McDonalds, or an off-duty narc at a bohemian coffee shop that reeks of pot. I don’t belong, yet I feel an excitement and passion I haven’t felt in years. This is my first guitar lesson.

I first picked up a guitar when I was about 13, a hand-me-down classical guitar from my aunt, complete with nylon strings and a compendium of old folk tunes. I hacked away at that guitar for quite some time but without ever resorting to formal lessons, teaching myself the basic chord formations and managing to master a pretty rough version of American Pie. I spent countless hours pouring over the impossible tab charts in every edition of Guitar Player magazine and gradually picking up a few more basic skills, coupled with bad technique and poor rhythm. I played my standard repertoire of three-chord classics at campfires and in my basement, and I was even briefly the red-headed stepchild of a loosely assembled band, clearly out of my league but surrounded by guys who were gracious enough to let me strum along. Then, at some point I can’t really recall, I stopped playing. It wasn’t out of frustration and it wasn’t a conscious decision, but I stopped picking up my guitar and started doing other things- school, work, the general business of life.

The world may have been spared from my feeble attempts at playing “Graceland” or “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” had it not been for a gift from my wife last Christmas. At first I was excited at such a thoughtful gift, but my excitement was quickly overtaken by fear. I was afraid of looking ridiculous, afraid of being the butt of some hippy guitar instructor’s jokes, afraid that I would be quietly mocked. I was afraid that my guitar wasn’t good enough, I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough. I’m a fairly introverted person, and the very gift made me question a little bit just how well my wife actually knew me- surely, she must have known how reluctant I would be. In retrospect, it just proved to me that she knows me all too well. She knew that this is something that I would need to be pushed into, something that would put me outside my comfort zone, and yet something that I would find enjoyable once someone twisted my arm into giving it a chance. And she was right.

When I was a teenager riddled with middle class angst, my guitar was an escape and a passion. My goal was never to “make it big”; I played because I loved playing, because it was fun, because it was challenging, and because it might even impress some girls. MoneyGrubbingLawyer is ultimately about viewing money as a means to an end, not as a goal in itself, a tool that must be used wisely but that’s only value is in it’s ability to offer something in return. It’s a collection of my ramblings on moving away from money obsession and billable hours and towards enjoying all that life has to offer, the simple (and sometimes not so simple) things that bring me joy. For me, rediscovering my love of guitar is just one piece in this big puzzle, one step towards being a little less money grubbing and a little more human.

Now, who wants to hear me play “Blowin’ in the Wind”?

Photo by aefitzhugh.

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