PRESENCE - Volume 62
Inspiration For Guitarists
I told you last week about the incredible music I saw. What I didn't mention was who I saw it with.
His name is Kevin. We've been friends since high school — which at this point is a long time ago. We played in bands together as teenagers, went to the same college for music, and after graduation moved into a cheap apartment in a pretty sketchy part of town while we figured out how to make a living as musicians. We taught at the same studio, wrote songs together, and spent several years driving around the country in a van that had no business making it as far as it did. I've seen more live music with Kev than with anyone else in my life, and it's not even close.
Last week we were sitting outside after a late show, doing what we've done after probably a hundred shows over the years — just talking about what we heard. What landed, what didn't, what surprised us, what we were still thinking about. A guitar player had done something neither of us could quite figure out. Kev had a theory. I had a different one. We went back and forth for a while.
I drove home still thinking about it.
That's happened more times than I can count. And somewhere along the way I realized that those conversations have taught me as much about music as almost anything else I've ever done. Not lessons. Not practice. Just two people who care deeply about the same thing, talking about it.
Playing and writing music with Kev leveled me up in ways I couldn't have managed alone. But even the conversations did. Explaining what landed for me when it didn't land for him. Hearing him articulate something I'd felt but never put into words.
You can't get that from a YouTube video. You can't get it from practicing alone in your bedroom, no matter how many hours you put in.
Most of the people I hear from are practicing alone. And I get it — it's just how life works for a lot of us. But I think a lot of players are missing something they don't even know they're missing. Not another lesson, not another scale to learn — just someone to be in the conversation with. Someone who's wrestling with the same instrument, asking questions you hadn't thought to ask, getting excited about things that remind you why you picked the guitar up in the first place.
That's worth sitting with for a minute.
Go see some live local music — even a bar band on a Tuesday night. Find someone to jam with; there are more people out there looking for exactly that than you'd think. Dig into an online forum or community where people are talking about the instrument seriously. The conversation can start anywhere. That's exactly what I'm trying to build with Office Hours — my group coaching membership inside the Essential Skills Studio community.
Either way, find your Kev if you can. It's worth it.
— Dustin
P.S. Office Hours is open now at the $47 founding rate — that goes away Friday.