Talent?

Growing up, I didn’t shine at my school with my great inborn talent. Nor did my teachers look in awe at me as though I were a vessel of potential greatness. In fact, the opinion was that the area in which I was likely to excel was being a ne’er-do-well. Through about age thirteen, I did nothing to dissuade anyone from that impression.

A Seed

Then, almost by accident, my father planted a seed. He was the superintendent of the building in which we lived. We had the basement apartment near the storage areas, the huge boilers for heating the building, and his shop.

Our well-to-do residents left behind tons of things when they moved. This abandonment of goods was common, and, being that the people who lived upstairs were fairly affluent, some of the junk was pretty good stuff. My father had ways of monetizing these goods. It was presorted into categories: sellable scrap metal, items that could be sold to collectors or peddlers, used clothes, and then trash.

It was out of the junk pile one day that my father plucked a battered Stella guitar. That evening, he handed it to me and reminded me that my grandfather had played Spanish guitar, and maybe I could do something with it.

That guitar was the seed. Over the following weeks, I tormented the building with random, non-musical screeches, hums, plinks, and wails. Someone eventually suggested that I go to a music store and get a book on playing the guitar. Taking some money I had earned from sweeping around the building, I went downtown and sought advice on a book to teach me fundamentals. The clerk suggested The Folksingers Guitar Guide, by Jerry Silverman.

Onward

Over the next few months, the random noises turned into melodies, and I even began writing and performing scurrilous songs about my teachers. I eventually moved on to performing these on stage at school programs. Teachers who’d accused me of being without talent were forced to acknowledge that I had a small amout of musical ability. But they quickly qualified their positive statement to include the fact that I was still a ne’er-do-well.

I eventually went on to perform in Greenshich Village, and at various coffeehouses and other sorts of venues wherever my Pius Itinerancy took me.

No. I never made a big killing out of performance, and I never became a great guitarist. But that first, very awful guitar, taught me a basic lesson; You can teach yourself almost anything with application, practice, books, and the occasional lessons from other people who will abet your interest and dedication.

You can, and indeed must, make something of yourself.