“The Best Guitar Lesson Ever” - by Mark Lynch

            I believe that the small acts of kindness we sometimes get the chance to perform can have far-reaching consequences. More so than we ever imagine. In some cases, such as my experience, these good deeds might even be life-changing. My life was transformed in a single afternoon by a stranger, over 40 years ago. Someone whose name I don't even remember. But in less than an hour, he started me on the path to becoming a musician, and it's a journey I've continued ever since.

            It was the summer of 1973, and I was a 12 ½ year-old boy sitting on my parents' front porch in western NC. I had an electric guitar in my lap, plugged into a small amplifier, and both of these had been presents from the past Christmas. I still didn't have a clue how to play, and would just sit and strum the open strings. Which got old pretty quickly. That could easily have been all I ever amounted to on guitar. I had never put very much effort into learning it, and it might have ended up in a closet very soon. Just a few more minutes of this strumming and I would have moved on to something else that day. But enter the stranger, in the shape of an older teenage boy.

            He must have seen or heard me from across the street, and I first saw him as he walked into our yard. He was smiling and seemed very friendly, and after he introduced himself it became apparent that my guitar was what had brought him over. Now this was a long time ago, and as I've said- I don't remember his name. So for the sake of the story, I'll just call him “my teacher”.

            After asking to see my guitar, and getting it in better tune for me, my teacher had determined that I didn't know how to play anything. He therefore took it upon himself to try and remedy that situation. The first thing he showed me is now a classic beginner's song... “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple. And amazingly, after a few tries, I was playing something I'd been hearing on the radio. To a 12 year-old kid, this was huge. My teacher must have been encouraged, so he tried another riff out on me- “Jumping Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones. I got this one right away as well. So far so good. I was already hooked, and what I'd learned was more than I would have dreamed of just minutes before. But it was the next half hour that changed everything for me, and it's his act of kindness that I still remember vividly after all this time.

            My teacher was vacationing with his family at our neighbors across the street, and had his guitar with him. So he excused himself a few minutes and came back with it. He asked me if I'd like to learn a song with him, and then perform it for all his family. Of course I said yes, even though I wasn't sure how it would be possible. But he had all that figured out. By tuning my guitar a certain way, he made it easy for me to play the rhythm guitar pattern of  “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry. We ran through it a few times, with him singing and playing the leads. It was almost unbelievable to me, and I remember he was very happy with my part. And so, about ten minutes later, we were set up in my neighbor's living room. A half hour earlier I hadn't known anything about guitar, and here I was giving my first recital. I heard the very first applause in my life, for something I had done, and it was a great feeling.

            My teacher knew what he was doing, of course. He had found a young kid needing his help, and once he realized I was a quick study, he made the most of it. What impresses me a lot is that he was really just a few years older. He knew that he had done something special, but what he didn't, and really couldn't have foreseen, was how big an impact he had made. I've never stopped playing guitar since. It's been a very large part of my life now for forty years. I've taught guitar too, and had some influence- but never like that. It was “The Best Guitar Lesson Ever”. My name is Mark Lynch, and I believe in the kindness of strangers.