Summer 1999

One Note Among Many
By Alan Davies

Every year in London there is a guitar convention where guitarists from all over the world meet to talk, exchange ideas and so forth. However, as you can imagine there are a lot of egos present, and a lot of "competition." There is one charming little anecdote I heard about from one of these conventions, which I'm sure you'll find interesting:

Apparently, there were a lot of guitarists present on this one particular day, and of course, the "competition" was pretty hot. Fingers were running up and down the fingerboards like crazy, almost as if performing gymnastics instead of really "playing."

However, sitting in a corner on his own was a Turkish guy with a bouzouki on his lap, and for an hour or more he just seemed to be striking a single note. Finally, some whiz-kid guitar player approached him and asked, "What's with you? You've been sitting there all this time an' just playing that one note. Don't you ever play anything else?"

The Turkish guy looked up and said, "I've found my note. You're still looking for yours."

That story hit me like a flash of satori. I just laughed and laughed.

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Alan Davies of South Wales has played guitar for 37 years and studied zen, karate, and kendo. Write to him at DaviesA9@cardiff.ac.uk

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