Guitars and werewolves

When I was 15 I traveled cross country for a guitar festival in MO.

This event was super exclusive.

It was at this beautiful winery in the hills, lasting 3-4 days, with the best acoustic guitar players in the world giving workshops and concerts.

I was there helping my friend sell his handmade guitars.

It was a super cool experience as a teenager. And as a huge guitar nerd that spent every waking hour playing and practicing, I was in heaven.

I got to meet and jam with a lot of my heroes. 

But the moment that stands out in my memory today was the David Grier workshop.

This guy is this world-class guitarist with a TON of awards, and one of my guitar heroes from day 1.

David was teaching a room of mostly 60+ year old millionaire guitar-hobbyists who had just got started with guitar after retirement. Not great pickers, honestly. But they were doing something they loved.

They could afford the $20,000 guitars and a retreat like this. So, naturally a lot of their questions were product related.

Here are some of the questions David was fielding from these guys:

• “What kind of strings do you use?”

• “What is your favorite pick?”

• “Is your guitar string spacing custom?”

With each question I could see him get more and more frustrated.

Finally, he’d had enough.

“Listen guys, you are never going to be as good as I am! I’ve been playing for 12 hours a day since I was 7. If you aren’t going to put in that kind of time, it won’t matter which strings you use.”

Now, David didn’t make any friends that day. In fact, some guys got up and left.

But I loved it.

Because he was absolutely right.

There are no silver bullets.

Just like there are no magical projectiles of a specific metallurgy to kill werewolves, there are no easy solutions or one magical element that will solve all of your problems.

The path to your goal is through nothing but hard work. 

Plain and simple.

It takes hours of blood, sweat, and tears to see the results. 

Now, as a teenager, I was so obsessed with guitar that this seemed easy. 

Looking back, I now know it wasn’t. 

I was playing 10-12 hours a day and loving every minute. But it was still work.

And every time I am starting a new endeavor or have some new thing I’m trying to master, I think of that workshop. 

There is no easy way to mastery or success. 

You have to put in the sweat equity.

Can’t go around it, you have to go through it.

Get some,

Swanagan “no silver bullets” Ray

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