Black Yankee walks into a music store.
Two middle aged white Southerners mill about, one by the register, one fingering a fine Gibson.
“Can I help ya?”
“Yes, I’ve never noticed this store before, and just popped in to see what you had.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of guitars, how long ya been playing?”
The Yankee pauses. He found a crusty guitar in his grandmother’s storage closet around 17 years ago. If he says 17 years, and has to demonstrate his technique, the two suspected rednecks will conclude that the Yankee is either an outright fabricator (and a poor one to boot), or one of the sorriest musicians on the planet. Yankee knows that years have passed between strummings, and like New Year’s Resolutions, the desire to get serious about the instrument starts out strong and fizzles rapidly, then returns months later with renewed vigor. Yankee calculates amount of time actually spent in fellowship with the guitar, not just time of possession.
“About two years, maybe three.”
“That’s not bad. So what are you interested in?”
“I’m looking for a left handed guitar; do you have any?”
Both Southerners respond instantly and in unison.
“NO!”
“It figures.”
“We might get a few in for Christmas, but they will cost you about double. They’re just not profitable.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been playing a righty upside down and I think I’m reaching the limits of what my hand can do, chordwise.”
Southerners give withering stares.
“You’d have the same problem even if you had started and stayed on a lefty, young feller.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Dick Dale plays lefty upside down, and plays and hard and fast as he wants.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Hendrix was the same way.”
Yankee is slightly offended that they dare preach Hendrix to him, as if he were an unschooled dilettante. Yankee KNOWS Jimi was a lefty!
“Yeah, but some of the chords are so hard to reach upside down.”
Southern gents regard the Yankee with a curious mixture of pity and sympathy. Southerner by the register decides that the cold truth is more suited that false consolation.
“You just need to practice more. You play those chords 2,000 or 2,500 times, and you’ll be just fine.”
“I’ve
been practicing.”
The Yankee wanted to hear that a change in paintbrushes will make a better artist. Yankee needs to go to a lefty guitar to make life easier on himself. Jumping from a simple C to D is painstaking and cumbersome.
“Two or three thousand times, that is what it’s gon’ take. You already got a guitar, what kind is it?”
“I have an electric Fender and a 12 string acoustic by Madeira, I think.”
“You want to buy a guitar that will make you throw out everything you’ve learned on the ones you’ve got. That would make us a little money, but it’s not a good move for you.”
The Southerners cut no slack, give no sympathy. But they are right, and remarkably forthright. I need to keep on fingering and chording. Dick Dale, Jimi, Paul McCartney, Albert King, Bobby Womack, Tommy Iommi, Kurt Cobain… dude? What man has done, man can do. Do the thing, and don’t look for the easy way out. You buy a lefty guitar and you’ll run into a wall there too, sooner or later. Guitar is not an easy instrument. It’s not supposed to be. You should’ve stuck to the piano and the trumpet. But no, you want to play everything. I bet that if you had the money, you’d buy a tuba.
Hmmm… maybe not a tuba, but a French horn would be nice.
“2000 times, eh?”
“That’s all it takes. You switch and you can bump it up to 4,000.”
“Okay, thanks for the advice. I’ll see you guys around.”
“Thanks for stopping by.”
