About 25 years ago, I wanted to quit.
You see, I was aware that I was a pretty bad guitar player. Or maybe not bad, but I could feel all my limitations. I also knew that my singing voice sounded weird to me. So every time I would get on stage, I would finish the set frustrated.
So I wanted to quit.
I was telling this to my friend Richard one day, and he gave me a gift that I will never forget.
He asked me what I wanted. What did I want, when I got on stage?
And we talked about it.
Because the voices in my head, they were telling me that I needed to be the best guitarist, and I wasn’t the best guitarist. The voices were telling me I needed to be a better singer. So every time I got on stage, all I saw was my failure.
It was killing my joy.
But Richard brought me back to the question. Those were the voices, telling me what I thought I needed. But what did I want?
So I thought about it.
I realized that what I liked about playing really had nothing to do with how well I played. What I liked were those moments when I felt the pulse of the audience - when they laughed, or when things got kinda pleasantly weird, or when they shed a tear.
What I liked was when we connected.
In the wake of that conversation, things got better. I wasn’t so concerned when I missed a note, or sang off key. I still wanted to do well, but “doing well” had a different definition now.
My goal was that, no matter what went right or went wrong, I would find a way to connect with the audience. I told myself that if I broke a string, or if the damn guitar broke in half, I would find a way to make a connection.
The audience would get a good show, even if that meant that, in a given moment, I put the spotlight on my weakness instead of my strengths.
The shows became fun again. For them and for me.
Playing became something worth doing, even if I did it badly.
I’ve been thinking about that conversation with Richard a lot over the past two months.
Sixty-one days ago, as I write this, I started playing music again. I had taken some time off - well, a lot of time off. I went and got a doctorate, and got married, and we had some kids. I got busy, and the guitar stayed in the closet.
And then the pandemic happened.
It scared me, and it still scares me, I’ll be honest. All of a sudden, for my family and me, our world got very small.
So sixty-one days ago, I pulled the guitar out of the closet. I switched on the camera on my laptop, went out on facebook live, and started playing shows each day around 2pm for whoever wanted to watch.
And I suuuuuuuuuuuuucked.
My fingers were weak. I could barely remember the chords. My voice was… well, my voice was never good. I sang off key. I forgot the words to all the songs, even the ones I wrote.
But that’s the beauty of it. It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter because I knew why I was there: It was something worth doing.
It’s not about being the best guitarist. I won’t be that. It’s not about being the best singer. I will never be that. It’s not about having the best sound or the best production values. I will never afford that.
It’s about connecting with people.
And - from the very first day I turned on that camera, sixty-one days ago - that’s what I’ve had.
I’m pretty sure everybody knows I’m really not very good at this. But they also know that when I play, they might laugh, or things might get pleasantly weird, and occasionally they might shed a tear.
They feel that connection, and not just to me, but to each other.
I’m pretty sure that’s why they keep showing up.
And I know that’s why I do.
Thank you always for listening.