Prior to 2017ish I was a professional musician. As an aside and keeping it 100 that also means I was a server/bartender/food runner/barista, librarian, landscaper, Sunglass Hut employee. Only consistent profession was nerd and cat lady. It took a decade to find my place in the world and now I love what I do despite how challenging it can be.
One of my two guitar teachers in undergrad was named Joan Griffith (photo is at the bottom, grey hair). We were not close, nor did I study with her directly, but what made Joan special to me was that she showed me what was possible. She played Brazilian music on a nylon string guitar (photo of my custom-built guitar included at the bottom). She played many styles of music and was not virtuosic but always in good taste. Joan’s album Sambanova is worth your consideration regardless of your musical taste. Joan also played upright bass. I loved all these things I just listed and may very well have done all of them without her but I know she showed me what was possible. I was often told by others I could only do one instrument/one style.
During my undergrad I studied music and economics. I joke that I studied music for the money and economics as a passion; the part about economics being a passion is at least true and is probably some of the roots that lead me to being a data analyst at an insurance company. I chose where to study classical guitar for my master's degree based on cost and ended up getting mine mostly for free (some debt for the odd expenses) through a graduate assistant/teaching assistant position (GA/TA) at Illinois State University in Bloomington Normal Illinois. I wanted to have all my debt for undergrad and all my debt for my master’s degree paid within a year of graduating. I beat the camel and the rich man and passed through the eye of the needle twice.
I have found over the years that this way of thinking/prioritizing this process (GA/TA = free master’s degree = little/no debt = sane life after) is consistently surprising to professional musicians; perhaps musicians are often social climbers by nature and looking for brand name schools. Given my generation's experience with student debt this reaction is perhaps both surprising and unsurprising; I am 34 with no debt and when I told that to a telemarketer once trying to push college debt restructuring he thought I was lying. I had neither the talent nor the money to do anything else and I knew my place in the world. I also knew what I lacked socially; I would have been crushed in LA or New York.
As a TA in grad school I taught guitar to a class of music therapists, a couple of music majors, and a couple students just looking for two credits. One of my assignments for the class was I assigned each person in the class a women guitarist to listen to. I must have picked guitarists from a dozen styles of music; a reflection of my broad taste and an effort to connect with as wide an audience as possible. I found the jazz and classical list and included a photo below. I went back over 200 years to guitarists like Emelia Giuliani; if you like Snapple facts you can do a quick Wikipedia skim of her father Mauro Giuliani as he is the only Wikipedia page you will find to give you any context as to how she fits.
Also check out Ida Presti. One of the sources in my bibliography is Alice Artz; another great classical guitar player. Her videos on Ida’s right hand technique where influential on my book.
I also just love looking at photos of Ida and watching videos. I love history. Old watches. Old guitars. Audio books. Photos of my grandmother at her funeral last December. There is a lot of guitar history and beauty in the way her hands move for someone like me who knows what to look for (my book I am trying to write, described succinctly, is using understandable and accessible anatomy and physiology to explain how to move to play more effectively). For an introvert history has been a way to connect with humanity in a way I can’t always do easily in the daily life. There is graffiti on the Hagia Sophia from a Scandinavian traveler that basically says “NAME was here” or something to that effect (learned this in an art class in undergrad). I find the timelessness of human nature that graffiti captures to be touching.
My speech when I assigned this list of women guitarists was "this is not a meaningful part of your grade. I cannot make you do this. I also do not know what it will take to move the world forward to make it a better place or if this assignment will have an impact to that end. But this is a small thing I can do." I am either on the spectrum or at least have overlapping personality traits so reading other’s body language and social cues is very difficult. I do not know what impact that assignment had but my class was predominantly women and if there was value in showing them what was possible as Joan did for me I wanted to do that. I do remember most students did the assignment.
This part does not fit neatly into this story, but I remember one of my student’s mother died of cancer and her guitar broke in the same week. I gave her one of mine while her guitar was in the shop. I had to bike with one hand on the bike and the other holding the guitar in a heavy case for a long way from my apartment to campus because I couldn’t afford a car and didn’t know anybody to ask for a ride yet as this was my first semester. Cancer will come back in this story.
I loved teaching.
One of the guitarists on the list was Lily Afshar. She was the first women classical guitarist to ever get a doctorate in classical guitar and taught at the main public university in Memphis (The University of Memphis). I had to dig to find her program. I had a long conversation over the phone with her about her program when I was looking at master's degrees and it was not a good fit for me but it was a fun conversation. She was Iranian and was learning to play the blues and I play blues amongst other styles. We talked about how hard that is for someone like Lily who did not grow up with the blues as part of her culture. I loved that her albums where Iranian music (lovely stuff); I have many interests and am very much “oh hey squirrel.”
My current teacher at UWM (Rene Izquierdo) is a big name in classical guitar. He booked Lily Afshar winter 2022 - 2023 for a concert at UWM for his students to watch two weeks before she died of cancer to give her one last show. I am a geek. I have a spreadsheet full of classical guitarists that I go through and listen to while I work (that’s just one table, there are multiple worksheets/styles of music). I like meeting them. I like learning about them. I got to meet her through my teacher. I got to tell her about the class, about the list of women guitarists, and while I didn't say "goodbye" or anything directly addressing the cancer I got to see her last show.
I had a gig the night of Lily's concert; I asked the band leader if I could show up late to see Lily’s concert and told him why (cancer, short version of this story, etc.). This request on my part is NOT a small ask or a small thing to grant in professional music. I was also the bassist that night which is the foundation of most bands/styles of music.
Before I left the concert for my gig I turned to Rene and I said "your students complain a lot about the work and all the things they need to show up to because they are young and young people don't always appreciate things as they should (I certainly didn't when I was young). But what you give us means a lot to me. I do this on my evenings in between all the normal adult stuff and I love it." To give you some context there are nights where I practice for 4 hours, one string and finger at a time, two measure exercises. I am writing a book that I do not know will work out, it is a solitary process, and the only way to get it done is to grind; to give a part of yourself you can’t have back.
When I found one of the lists of guitarists for my grad school class which I included below I saw my UWM teacher Rene’s wife Elina Chekan was on there. About two years ago Rene told me that I should study with her because she can give me what I need better than he can. He also said “everyone thinks of Elina as Rene’s wife but she deserves more than that.” So I went and studied with Elina. Last fall right before I was going to quit this book project, 5 seconds to go, 10 yards from the goal line, Elina and I had a lesson and it all clicked. It was that scene in the matrix when Neo realizes he can get back up and stop the bullets. I do not know how far this book idea will go but it is plausible because of her. And even if no one ever knows what I did, if nothing ever comes of this book, my life will never be the same. I will never see myself or the world the same. This took ten years but I did it. I am still processing this.
Rene is the brand and it is true that he has a little extra virtuosity that most people, including perhaps his wife, will never experience. Elina only needs to be herself, as do most people. Her name is before Rene’s in my bio. When people asked me who I am studying with I say Elina Chekan. I don’t need the brand name grad school or the brand name teacher. Off brand Cinnamon Toast Flakes from the bottom shelf please and thank you.
I moved to Milwaukee 5 years ago to write a book on guitar, grow as a person (basically be more socially competent and less socially anxious by living in a city with no connections), and to have an adventure. All those things have or are happening. One part of that story was being the only white person in an all black private club here in Milwaukee. Regularly we stood up, raised our glasses, and did a toast with these words and I will end my story with them (I am not a poet and could not think of a good word to replace "Black" so I went with women):
Women Power, Women Excellence, Women Success.
One time.
