Sometimes, I actually listened

[I set up two blogs so as to keep at least two of the parts of my life in some kind of order. THen somebody pointed out that a number of posts in http://sowhyisit.blogspot.com/ work just as well here. OK, so here is the first, and the rest will follow. I'll just have to find the time to edit the others down a tad. This one is just a straight "cut, paste, and try to justify" exercise.]

It's 1966, I'm in the tunnels under the Greek Theater, UC Berkeley, trying to get the strings on my 6-string banjo into some semblance of tune (I was going to be backing up Shlomo Carlebach, and I was more than a little nervous). The echoes down there are really something (or were at the time), and I try out one of my more "impressive" licks. I look up, and there's this old guy (hey, I was 19. EVERYBODY over 30 was old) listening to me. He smiles, taps his foot, and asks if I sing the words. Showing off, I sing a verse with an even more ornate accompaniment. He listens politely, then suggests I might like to do less on the banjo so that the words can take the lead.

This one one of the few times in those days I showed common sense. I listened, tried the next verse with a basic sort of accompaniment, and was rewarded with another smile. As I was making my way to the backstage area, one of the group I was with came up and demanded to know "What did he say? Did he like the song? Did he have any suggestions?" It took me a moment to realize that the old guy who looked kind of like Pete Seeger really WAS Pete Seeger, and that I'd just gotten some advice to which I had better listen.

I doubt he'd even remember the exchange, but for me, it was a major big deal thing. For the entire time I was performing, I kept the idea in the back of my head: let the words take the lead. It applies across the board. Decide why you're doing something, and focus on that.