Title: Dreaming Guitarist
I entered a music studio then moved myself to the room where my teacher was playing his guitar. In the far right corner of his room, a lot of expensive professional guitars were placed on a stand. And the opposite side of the stand was big Marshall guitar amp with small guitar effectors. On his desk was a big monitor screen with a bunch of music graph going up and down along the teachers' strum. "Yo! teacher, I'm here!" I shouted to him, because he barely hears anything when he plays a guitar. "Oh, ya already here my boy? Ok let's start today's lesson real quick. What we gonna learn today is phrygian mode with a combination of diatonic 5th scale…" I interrupted his line "hold up man, before that can we do some lil' pep talk with you today?" He replied "Ha ha. Ya already sick of learning harmony theory my boy? Fine, we need some refreshment sometimes. Ain't you play some time, than ya'll be dumbass. ha!"
I asked him "you know, what made you to take this job? I mean, when did you thought you should be guitarist and why?" He made some wrinkle in his forehead and knitted his brows for a moment as if trying to gaze his past day. "Hmm… I just liked rock music when I was a school boy like middle or high something and imagined myself being a star like Guns&Roses, Metallica or Red Hot Chili Peppers. And why especially guitar? C'mon, you come here every week to learn guitar, and still ask something like that? A band can't exist with some sick guitar solo and riff, and that's damn true! Guitar is everything." Yup, he thinks the center of a band is guitar and loves the instrument so much. That'll hold true forever for him. And I think that love and pride is the reason he is so skilled and perfectionist about his instrument.
I asked another question "then wasn't it hard to become like this, professional guitarist?" He lifted edge of his mouth and made a little smile and said "Oh, I bet ya couldn't even imagine how hard it was to achieve all those skills, money, or else. When I first started my guitar, there was no lesson or teacher at all. Everything I could do was listening to music just over and over till I can play the note with my guitar. When I tried to copy Beetles' Let it be, it took me like forever. But as the number of the song I copied gone up, I became bit better and better. But I felt that wasn't enough for me to become guitar hero." I asked him again "then what else did you do?" he restarted his story "well, when I graduated my high school, I gave up going to college and moved to Seoul from my hometown. Ya know the cliché used a lot in movies, like some enthusiastic guy filled with his dream going to big city with just a little bit of coin, right? Well I was that case. I came to Seoul to find a teacher who can teach me and band that I could practice together with some people." I was surprised. I've known him for 1year and noticed that he is reckless and very adventurous. But never thought he could have moved to Seoul alone with nothing but a guitar and little sum of money.
I asked "Then did you do well after that?" He burst into laugh and said "Ya joking right? How the hell could that gone well. Imagine a boy with no money with some poor guitar skill. As I low on skill, ain't no band wanted me. As low on money, gotta do a part time job almost every day, without rest, to pay a rent and lesson fee. It was like living in a hell. Every day I suffered from my back pain because of construction site job." What he said after that was worse. He ate only instant ramen and Kimchi, because he had no money to afford some fine food. He couldn't even turn on a heater or air conditioner because he had to save utility fee. And he once even went to a loan shark to get money for some gears.
I said with frowned face "Oh my god if I were you I would have just gave up and went down to my hometown already." My teacher replied "Well I also thought like that sometimes, but whenever I thought like that, some image came into my mind too. It was image that I myself doing a gig in front of millions of crowds and rocking all the night. That image was just so vivid and clear because I wanted to be like that so much. That image just kicked some ass to thoughts like 'I wanna give up, I ain't gonna make it'. So, I endured and practiced my guitar all day, drawing in my mind that me play like a pro. And after about ten years of all those hard work, I finally became what I want. Now I do a concert at gig site, guitar lesson and release album like a pro. I achieved my dream as a result!
When we ended our "pep talk" my lesson time was already over and another student was waiting in front of the room. I said bye to teacher and leaved the room. Even though I didn't learn anything about scale or chord that day, but I think that talk did worth it for me as a guitarist wannabe. I shall not stop dreaming about my goal.
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