Austin Kleon is very clear that we should seek to embrace the influences on our work. It makes no sense to try to make something out of nothing, he says, since we are all mashups of what we choose to let into our lives. So I will be talking about my musical influences for a while here, I think.
Here’s a story I haven’t told very often because it’s not pleasant, but it’s important to consider as we think about the kinds of teachers we let into our lives and give power over our work. My first guitar teacher was named Bob S., and he came highly recommended. My father asked around, and Bob was the best guitarist and teacher around, hands down.
He was also just cool as hell: he played this beautiful, old, tobacco sunburst Gibson Byrdland; he smoked brown, oval, filterless, hand-rolled Nat Sherman cigarettes; he had a 4-track TEAC reel-to-reel tape recorder built into the wall of his studio; he drove a red Coupe DeVille convertible and kept a Fender Telecaster in the trunk as his “knocking around” guitar. He was my entré into playing jazz guitar, and I was a smitten kitten.
At first, things went really, really well. He taught me using a series of books from the Berklee School of Music, and I progressed very quickly. As a result, my mechanics and technique were strong from the get-go, I was learning how to play the kind of chord-and-melody arrangements that solo jazz guitarists are known for, and I was taking my first tentative steps into soloing. I was happy and proud to be his student, to be associated with him.
But while I was making great strides, there was a dark side to Bob’s teaching. It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I really couldn’t please him. There was a constant stream of negative comments from him such as, “Are you not serious about this?” and “Did you not practice this week?” These comments were a powerful motivator, at least at the beginning. I devoted myself more and more to the work at hand, practicing with an ever greater focus and commitment.
But then it stopped working. My lessons were at 8:00 pm on Tuesday evenings, and eventually I found myself waking up on Tuesday mornings with a knot in my stomach. I suffered all day long in school knowing that no matter how hard I tried that night, it would not be enough for him. Walking into his studio was like walking into my weekly execution.
So after about a year and a half, I called it off. I realized that no matter how well I was improving, it wasn’t worth it anymore. I had definitely come to hate him, and I was coming to hate playing the guitar, too. He drove me away from playing jazz, and he soured me on taking lessons as well. It’s 45 years later and it still stings to think about it.