Page 14 of Behind the Lights

“Okay guys, the first couple of lessons are going to be boring to you. I know you want to get up and start diving into your favorite songs, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Your fingers are going to be sore until calluses form, but if you’re serious about playing you need to push through the pain.”

We nodded.

He continued, “These are six-string acoustic guitars meaning they don’t need to be hooked up to an amplifier to be heard when you play them. I see by the way you set them on your lap, that you’re both right handed which is a good thing, since these are both right handed guitars. I forgot to ask ahead of time which hand you were.”

He pointed out the components of the guitar to us one by one: body, bridge, neck, tuners, head, fretboards, fret dots and what the job of each piece was.

“Now, take your pick and follow along the strings with me from top to bottom. E, A, D, G, B, and E. Take the pick and lay it on the lower E string and press it down until it gives.” We did as he told us, then grinned at each other having just strummed our first chord. “Good. Next, take the fingers of your left hand and curve them like so,” he showed us how to place our fingers on the neck, “and place them directly behind the fret you’re playing.”

“Alright, now let’s pick each string in conjunction with the fret above just to get a feel for using both hands at the same time.”

It sounded horrible, but he had us repeat it multiple times.

“Trust me, no one sounds like Jimi Hendrix their first time around. Hell, not even on their hundredth time. I brought some videos for you guys to watch and learn from when I’m not here to work with you.”

“Boys, dinner’s ready,” Mary called from the kitchen.

“Same time next week work for you guys?” Brett asked while packing up his gear.

“Um, how are we going to pay you for these lessons?” I asked, “Also, we don’t have our own guitars to practice on until then.”

“Don’t worry about that, you can use these until you get your own. And you’re Mary’s kids, so I won’t be charging you. Plus, she feeds me while I’m here.” He grinned.

Mary’s kids…Technically I wasn’t, but it was nice to hear just the same.

We thanked him while carefully placing our guitars back in the cases and followed him to the kitchen.

“How’d the lessons go, boys?” Mary asked, passing around the basket of garlic bread.

“Pretty good,” Ricky answered reaching for the salad.

I bent my head in agreement, having already filled my mouth full of spaghetti.

“Brett gave us videos to watch and said we can use his guitars to practice on until we can get our own.” The animated way Ricky said that was too funny.

Brett smiled like a proud dad, but Mary seemed nervous.

“Are you sure about that, Brett? What if something happens to them?” she asked, clearly concerned about two thirteen year old boys being left with someone else’s stuff.

He took her hand in his. “It’s okay. I trust them and to be quite honest, those are both old. I haven’t used them in years.”

She nodded and smiled back.

Over the next couple of weeks, we practiced incessantly, memorizing the videos while Brett taught us how to properly tune and care for the guitars. We’d both started mowing lawns and doing yard work for some of the neighbors to save for our own. But by the end of our third week of lessons, Ricky was done with what he was calling “guitar chopsticks,” and was ready to learn a real song. Me, I was too busy bitching about my fingers hurting to care one way or the other. I mean, it was cool and all, but I was having more fun singing along with the radio while he played.

“Dude, can we please learn a song?” Ricky begged Brett.

“The fundamentals are important, or I wouldn’t be wasting my time teaching them to you. But you guys have done everything I’ve asked and you Ricky, can recite the damn videos word for word,” he teased.

“This is something I really want to do,” he told Brett. “For a living that is. Joey and I have been talking about starting a band.” Ricky looked over at me.

I shrugged in my normal Joey answering way and continued screwing around with the guitar string between my fingers.

“Okay. I give. We’ll start with some Deep Purple. The song is calledSmoke on the Water. You guys familiar with it?” Brett asked, strumming a few random notes on his guitar.

“Yeah, we know it. Isn’t that the song everyone learns to play first?” I asked.

“Everyone I know did,” he stated, “It’s easy and it’s the same four chords. You good with that?” His question was directed at Ricky.

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