Golf Clubs & Guitars (Part II)

The following is the second installment of a multi-part, true story from my "formative" years about two things I love but never mastered: golf and guitar. Enjoy.

If you didn’t read Part I, check it out here. Or feel free to read the recap below and dive right into Part II.

Part I Recap:

As I look back on my life, and specifically, my hobbies, there is something I should have done and didn’t do (take golf lessons), and something I probably shouldn’t have done but did (take guitar lessons).

Part I concluded with me leaving a local music store having just signed up for guitar lessons with a guy named Dave, someone I hadn’t met and knew nothing about. Upon leaving the store and paying for the first few lessons in advance, I had immediate (and as it turns out, justifiable) buyer’s remorse. Here’s Part II.

*****

I walked up the dark, narrow stairway to the second floor of the music store. Halfway up, I knew I was in the right place (relatively speaking) from the strong smell of cigarettes and valve oil. “Apparently, they teach more than just guitar up here,” I thought, though I didn’t hear anyone playing the trumpet or trombone at the time.

What I did hear were muted strains of bluesy guitar coming out of the half-open door at the top of the stairs. I have to admit I was nervous. I was relatively outgoing by this time of my life; personable, talkative and curious (at least in my mind, others probably had different and less-kind words to describe me), and always willing to dive into something new.

But this was different. While I’d always wanted to play the guitar (and had dabbled with a few chords here and there), it was a complicated instrument (much more complicated than the trombone I’d been playing since 5th grade), and my skills were primitive at best. (Hence the lessons.)

And while I knew that Dave knew that I was a beginner (the week before I had divulged this information to the drummer dude behind the counter who signed me up for lessons so I’m sure the word got back to Dave), I still wish I hadn’t been so raw. And nerves aside, I was also excited because I thought this could really be something big for me.

In my mind, the first lesson would go something like this:

After introducing himself, Dave (who he’d immediately clarify by saying, “I prefer to be called David if you don’t mind”) would immediately teach me some basic scales and guitar theory; nothing heavy, but a proper primer to get me motivated in learning this beautiful instrument the “right way.”

What would follow in the coming days and weeks would be the execution of a vast, detailed syllabus of repetition and drilling that must occur for one to be accomplished at anything. My hands would cramp from the work, and my fingers would bleed and eventually callous. And yet, I’d press on under his expert tutelage, learning every inch of the neck and mastering the strumming and picking patterns of all the greats.

Here's how it went down in reality:

When I got to the top of the stairs, I lightly wrapped on the half-open door. No answer, just strumming and picking, accompanied by some residual cigarette smoke wafting in the hallway. I poked my head in, and there he was, my mentor, wearing a torn Black Sabbath t-shirt with a Marlboro Red hanging from his lips. Not judging, but he struck me as someone who didn’t like to spend much time outdoors or participating in “non-sitting” activities.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. He kept playing, not willing to acknowledge me  even one note before the end of the lick he was playing. A few seconds later, he looked up but never stop noodling on the acoustic six-string on his lap. He simply threw his head back in that way that guys do to say, “Hey, c’mon in.”

I learned, over the next few weeks, that Dave did a lot of talking without using words. I also learned that when he did use words, they were usually spoken with a cigarette dangling from his lips. (He was rock ‘n roll through and through, at least in his mind.)

I made my way across the room, which was occupied by two chairs (his and mine, at least for the next 30 minutes), a small desk piled high with a diverse array of items (some questionable), a half pack of cigarettes, a lighter, an ashtray that housed at least another pack of butts, and four other guitars leaning against the wall. This was Dave’s space, “and possibly, where he lives,” I thought.

He again “nodded” for me to sit down on the chair next to him, and I did, setting down my case on the floor next to me. He stopped playing, and without introducing himself, his first words to me were, “Ya’ like Zeppelin?”

I nodded. “Sure,” I said, trying to sound confident, though it’s hard when your voice is still changing at 16. It wasn’t lost on him, as he grunted a laugh.

I opened up my case and pulled out my low-end Fender acoustic six-string, but before I had a chance to rest it on my lap, he grabbed it and started tuning it. (I had tuned it before I arrived, but I guess that didn’t matter to him. It was definitely a power play; he was the Alpha dog.) He then started to play the opening to Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven on my guitar, as though doing so would magically and instantly give me the ability to play it as well. After a few passes (he was good; I have to say, and he played with his eyes closed which made him seem cooler for some reason), he handed it back to me and took another drag on his Red.

I noticed immediately he was one of those smokers who liked to close his mouth after inhaling and then exhale the smoke out his nose. (That fact has no bearing on this story.)

Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks. After three half-hour lessons with Black Sabbath Dave and countless practice sessions on my own at home, I had learned the opening bars of Stairway to Heaven … and that was all I had learned. Which really means I had learned almost nothing about playing the guitar. I had simply learned a lick from some dude that I only knew as Dave. By this point, I wasn’t even sure he was qualified to teach music lessons.

There was no music theory. No scales. No chord progressions. Just the opening to Stairway to Heaven. Oh, and most of our lessons were filled with him showing off his guitar skills, which were vast but really not valuable as a teaching tool, as I sat quietly, holding my idle Fender on my lap.

And I was paying him to do this.

Now, while the picture I’ve painted doesn’t sound like some beautiful story that would land me playing in front of audiences around the world, as a 16-year-old kid, I think I was OK with it all. I mean, come on, I could play Stairway to Heaven, or at least the part up until Robert Plant starts singing. And that was worth a few bucks, right? I was sure Dave was just warming me up for some intense work in the coming weeks.

And for 30 minutes each week, I got a front-row seat to listen to a pretty good guitar player do his thing for an audience of one. (Not sure it was worth the money--or the minutes of life I sacrificed inhaling all that secondhand smoke--but whatever.)

Eventually, Dave did get around to teaching me a few scales, as well as the opening licks of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama. (This after he inquired, “Ya’ like Skynyrd?”)

But his greatest, and final, lesson for me was yet to come just a couple weeks later. That’s for next time.

© 2025 David R. Haznaw