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So my grammar school alumni Facebook group posted the following question: “What did you want to be when you were at school and what are you now?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. I wanted to be a musician. Specifically a guitar player. I don’t know what it was, but I was drawn to the guitar as soon as I can remember. My mom tells me that when I was very little, I would pick up any object that vaguely resembled a guitar (broom, snow shovel), and pretend to play it.

I have a picture of myself as a very young kid, maybe four, holding a plastic toy guitar and wearing one of my mom’s wigs. I have no memory of this, but here it is in full faded color. It’s hard to argue with that kind of evidence.

I didn’t get my first guitar until I was in seventh grade. My oldest sister had been playing for years, and I was insanely jealous. I used to sneak into her room, when she wasn’t home, to noodle around on it. I didn’t know what I was doing, but just holding it was magical.

I was a terrible student and was constantly failing most of my subjects. My parents wanted me to focus on schoolwork and not be distracted by things like guitars, so they wouldn’t get me one.

But that turned out to be a blessing. That’s where drive comes in. If you have a passion for something, you find a way. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, that way just presents itself out of nowhere.

One day, I was walking with my buddy Steve, when we passed by a church rummage sale. There, on one of the tables, was a guitar. It was dusty and missing strings, but I didn’t care. To me, it was a glorious thing.

“How much for the guitar?” I tried to act casual.

“Five dollars”, the lady replied.

I guess my face must have fallen. I didn’t have anywhere near five dollars. She smiled at me and kind of looked around conspiratorially. “Come back after 3:00”, she told me.

At 3:05 I showed up. The guitar was gone.

I couldn’t believe it.

“Ah, you’re back!” the lady said. She reached under the table and pulled out the guitar. Apparently she’d hidden it after I left. “It’s yours, use it in good health.”

Back home, I looked over the guitar more closely. Not only was it missing strings, it was missing three of the six tuners. It had a big crack running down the side. It was made of plywood. Other than that, it was fantastic! And, best of all, it was MINE!

About a mile from home was a music store. It was a mom and pop operation that sold used instruments. I used to go there just to drool over the guitars. Now I had one of my own. I carried it up to the store and showed it to the owner to see if he had the parts I needed. He did! I bought three old tuners and he gave me used strings. I was in business.

That afternoon, I installed the tuners and put on the strings. I put duct tape over the crack on the side. Now all I had to do was figure out how to play it.

I’m lucky. Music comes very easily to me. My sisters all got piano lessons. After they’d practice, I’d come downstairs and figure out what they were playing. I couldn’t read music and I didn’t get lessons. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do, like being double-jointed.

I sat at the piano with my guitar and kind of figured out where the notes were and how to play some chords. I still remember the first song I taught myself; “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”.

I played that guitar nonstop. I didn’t even have picks. I used the caps of Bic pens, until my dad noticed. He came home the next day with a handful of pics he’d bought at a music store in the city. That meant a lot.

So that’s the story of my first guitar. I’ve since had, and continue to have, many others, but, of course, that old beat up guitar still stands out in my memory.

It was a simple enough request at first; write some music to be used as an intro to a client’s YouTube videos.

First things first. Like any commissioned work, it’s important to understand what the client wants. Typically, most clients don’t know what they want, and that’s OK. It’s my job as composer to extrapolate what they want from the vague descriptions they give me. In this case, the client was an organizing company with a high-end clientele. That was all I had to go on. A quick visit to their website gave me some idea of what their image was.

I began thinking in abstract terms, not musical ones. The words that came to mind were, “neat”, “tidy” and (obviously) “organized”. With that, I started to think about instrumentation that might communicate those concepts; glockenspiel, vibraphone, castanets and acoustic upright bass. Easy enough, right?

Here’s where things got funny. In any given piece of music, there’s an intro, that kind of sets the tone for the piece, a middle, which is the main melody and an “outro” (ending) which generally sums up the whole thing. Sometimes there’s a “bridge” which is a part towards the middle with that usually has an entirely different melody. Then there’s the arrangement, how the instruments fit together and where they come in. Often the intro is one or two instruments and then more are added, until they all come together at some point in the work. That’s all fine and dandy for a piece that’s a few minutes long.

This client needed six seconds.

Once I sat down at the keyboard to write, it became abundantly clear that this would be no mean feat. I mean, the melody was simple enough- just a perky little phrase. But how do you build your instrumentation? How do you convey your client’s concepts in such a short amount of time?

Eight notes, that’s how. The first four notes were just short single notes on the glockenspiel (accentuated by the castanets), followed by three longer notes with the rest of the instruments. The final statement was one high note on the vibraphone. Here’s what it sounded like.

The next day I got an email from the client: “That sounded great! It is a bit mellow, and jazzy but I liked the notes!”

Well, that’s encouraging, and helpful. Now I had an idea of what the client didn’t want; something mellow and jazzy. This gave me the opportunity to ask, “Does that mean that you’re looking for something more aggressive, upbeat? Rock, orchestral?”

The client replied, “Yes, perhaps a bit more upbeat and can I hear it as rock and orchestral and perhaps as just acoustical guitar?”

Rock and orchestral. In six seconds. Something told me it was time to try another route:

“Let’s try a different approach to narrowing down your idea. When I put together the piece I sent you, I wasn’t thinking melody or instrumentation so much as I was thinking “neat” and “tidy”, “organized”. Do you have any other keywords that have nothing to do with music?”

The client replied with a list:
clean
un-fussy
sophisticated
rich
creative
energetic (but not “perky'”)

“Not Perky”, was my second clue regarding what the client didn’t like about the first piece; the melody was too cutesy. “Energetic”, coupled with the earlier comment about wanting something “Rock”, told me that there needed to be drums, not just light percussion. “Clean” told me that this should comprise acoustic instruments, as electric ones can often be thought of as less pure, somehow. “Un-fussy” meant that there should only be simple chords in the piece, not the Major 7th I’d resolved to in the first one. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with “Rich” and “Creative”, but they did give me a vague idea about texture.

Back at the keyboard, I worked up another short melody that was a little less, in the clients words, “perky”. The intro is piano and bass, followed by drums, acoustic guitar chords and Hammond organ. Here’s what I came up with.

The next day, I got this email from the client: “I like it! I think we have a winner.”

Well alright, that was pretty simple. I was feeling pleased with myself. Until I got another email from the client:

“Okay, everyone likes the first one you did better! It is “cleaner” and simpler and that is what appealed to them. More of a signature tune that you can recognize. Someone did say it was a bit slow. Is the second one a bit faster? I personally like that the second one is more of a guitar sound and less like a bell. Can you do number 2 with a pure guitar or piano sound but with no drums in the background?”

Back to the keyboard. At least this time I didn’t have to come up with a melody, just a new arrangement. Fortunately, I had been working entirely in samples (sounds stored in the computer, that can be played on a keyboard, as opposed to recording the actual instruments). That afforded me the ability to simply plug in new instruments in place of what was already there. I could mute the drums, bass and organ and have an acoustic guitar play the melody line. Same with the piano. I gave the client two more versions of each piece, along with this note:

“I’ve attached a few versions of each piece. There really isn’t much of a difference in tempo between the two pieces, but in the second one the drums give it a little more energy. The first one “ritards” at the end, meaning it slows down for effect. Remember that any tempo changes will effect the length of the music and we’re looking at 6 seconds here.

A couple of days later, I heard from the client:

“And we have a clear winner! Solo A #1 with the clean piano is everyone’s favorite!”

So what’s the point behind this story? Simply this. Yes, it is a mere six seconds of music, but it took 18 emails over the course of 13 days and 6 versions to come up with a final product that the client was happy with. When I’m contacted to compose, and I give the client a quote, they often will say something like, “But it’s only a minute long…”.

It’s never just a minute long.

By the way, what was the final piece? It was this…

My First Guitar

Six Seconds