Student for life

by Steve Garry
(UK)

I was a child of the 60s and my older teenager brother was, like every kid his age, in a rock and roll band. So there were always guitars around, all electric of course, but I had chance to have a go.

One day at college I met a guy who was carrying a small nylon strung guitar. I asked him to play and expected this little thing to sound like a banjo but he played finger style a simple chord progression C Am Dm G7 and it sounded wonderful.

That was it! I needed to learn to do this and show my older brother who was the musician in the house. As luck had it I found a guitar school and went for lessons.

Well, as I had played a bit I asked for intermediate lessons. I went along and the first thing my teacher said was "where is your music?"
"Music?" I want guitar lessons not piano lessons
So I came clean and said I think I should have enrolled for the beginners course .. "That's ok" he said "Where is your music?"

Within a month I had learned to read music with the aid of "Alfred's Guitar Method" and then good old Fredrick Noad.

It has been a slow process but I can play and will never stop learning. I like the story of when Andres Segovia went on tour in the USA when he was 80 and when asked to fill in the immigration form he put...

Andres Segovia ....Guitar student

And by the way my brother gave up guitar before he was 20, I still play every day.