The guitar is an extension of me.
I've told this story so many times in my life.
When I was a kid, the only people I knew who played any musical instruments were my old man and the three other guys in his band. There was, of course, Mrs. Myers who played the organ in church, but that was about it. None of my friends played any instruments. The world of music to me, was what I heard on the radio and when we watched American Bandstand and Soul Train on TV every Saturday afternoon.
Sometimes, my old man took my brother and I to the local music stores so we could look at the drum kits. He was usually there to buy new sticks or something else for his drums. When we moved to the north side of town in the early 1970's, we immediately discovered that there was a music store only three blocks to the south of our house. "Pulice Music" was the name. My old man knew the owner, Joe Pulice. Joe was a well-known drummer in the southeast Wisconsin musicians circuit. Joe's wife and son helped run the store. Instead of having to drive across town for drums stuff, we walked to the music store. It was pretty cool to have a music store right down the street.
Prior to all of this, I never once thought about playing any instrument. I'm sure I thought that maybe I might try the drums, just because that was what my old man played. Sure I plunked on Aunt Marge's piano when she babysat us as kids, but actually learning how to play an instrument was something that just never came up in conversation. I had absolutely no idea that deep down inside me, lurked the makings of a guitar player.
I've told this story so many times in my life. One afternoon, I was over at my friend Andy's house, playing basketball with him in his driveway. This would have been sometime around the end of the school year 1976. I think I had just turned thirteen years old. Andy's mom pulled up in the driveway in the family station wagon. Andy's younger brother, Mark, got out of the passenger's side door and went to the back door. He opened the door and pulled out a case. I immediately asked, "What's that?" Mark answered, "It's my guitar. I'm taking lessons from the nuns at our church." I tossed the basketball to Andy and followed Mark inside his house.
Mark and Andy shared a small bedroom. We sat down on the floor as Mark opened the mysterious case, revealing an acoustic guitar. I remember my mouth dropping and my eyes opening wide at this magical instrument. Mark proceeded to play a couple of chords he had learned from his first lesson that day. Mark asked me, "Here, you wanna try it?" I immediately took that guitar and sat it in my lap. I ran my right hand fingers over the strings. Mark then showed me how to play one of the chords he learned. I had never imagined something so amazing in my young life. Something clicked inside me. I couldn't possibly let Mark be the only one who was going to learn how to play the guitar. If he can do it, so can I. I just knew that I could play the guitar. Now, I have to convince my parents to get a guitar for me.
I sprinted home and ran in the back door into the kitchen and said, "Mom! Mark is taking guitar lessons. I wanna take guitar too!" I don't remember exactly how long it took after that announcement for her to find a used guitar that she borrowed from her friend, Barb. If I remember correctly, I think Barb drove over to our house and surprised me with it. It was an old "Kay" acoustic guitar. It was worn and the neck was warped. The strings were high up off of the fretboard which made it almost impossible to play anything higher than the third fret. I didn't know any of this at the time. All I knew was that I had a guitar and I was going to take lessons at the music store down the street.
Next thing I know, I'm sitting in the small lobby of the music store with my guitar. I was waiting to meet my new guitar teacher, Tony. My parents gave me a check to give to Tony in the amount of $12.00. This was to pay for one half-hour lesson. I sat and waited and waited. My lesson was supposed to start at 3:30. Where is this guy? A few minutes later, this long-haired, disheveled, hippy dude stumbled through the front door and into the store. His shirt was un-tucked and he looked like he had just fallen out of bed. Tony walked over to me and asked, "Hi, are you Dave?" I stood up and shook his hand and answered, "Yup, that's me." I followed him into his lesson room and sat on the chair. He grabbed my guitar and began to tune it by ear. I knew nothing about tuning a guitar. He played it and tuned it some more. That was when I discovered from Tony, that the guitar strings were officially “exceedingly high” off of the fretboard. Tony was careful not to deter me from going ahead and using that guitar for my lessons.
I took lessons with Tony on and off for about two and half years. In that time frame, I saved enough money from my paper route to buy my very first electric guitar. I wanted something that I could actually play that wouldn't kill my fingers. I don't remember when or how that old Kay guitar ever got returned to Barb. I think I only had it for about a year until I got my new one. By the time I was going on fifteen, it was abundantly clear that the guitar had become an extension of me. Whenever I was home, I was playing my guitar. I would play for hours. I didn't have an amplifier, so I Jerry-rigged (sacrificed) my old tape recorder to use as an amplifier. I was a resourceful kid. I actually built my first amplifier and it worked!
By the time I got to high school, I was playing the bass guitar in the jazz band. Picking up the bass guitar was a total fluke. I just happened to be at the right place on the right day. I think that I was even more surprised by how quickly I learned how to play the bass guitar, than when I first picked up that Kay acoustic guitar. The bass guitar just made sense to me. My band director, Al, showed me a few things to play, and I “got it” immediately. Al told me that in order to play in the jazz band, I needed to learn how to read notes. This meant going back to Tony to see if he would teach me how to read notes. I met up with Tony one afternoon and sat in his lessons room with him. He asked me what I could play on the bass. I told him whatever he wanted to play on the guitar, I would do my best to follow. I don't remember what we actually jammed, but whatever it was, it surprised the hell out of Tony. We finished the jam and he asked, "Why do you want to take bass lessons with me?" I told him what Al had said. Tony shook his head and said, "I know Al, and I agree that you should probably learn how to read notes, but you can clearly play without reading." It was a huge confidence boost to my ego, to hear him say that. As it turned out, I couldn't afford to take lessons anyway; and I simply didn't have the time. I had an after school job, high school homework and a lot more responsibilities at sixteen than I did at thirteen.
So, I faked my way through all of the songs in the band. Al probably knew that I wasn't reading the notes in front of me, but he never said anything to me. I figured that if I had the songs we were doing in the band, recorded on a cassette tape, I could just practice them at home and know them by heart without needing to read the notes. I could just follow the chord charts. I brought my boombox to rehearsal almost every day. I recorded the rehearsals and then listened to the tape when I got home. I knew those songs better than anybody else in the band - well, maybe except for Kevin, (R.I.P) our keyboard player. He was a classically trained pianist. I just knew that I never wanted to be the weakest link in the band-chain. I was always prepared and ready for rehearsals and gigs. Al ended up giving me straight "A's" across the board for my Sophomore, Junior and Senior grades.
Fast forward.
I saw Al when I was in Wisconsin in 2019. My friend Lisa was taking guitar lessons at another local music store in town. I drove her over to the store one afternoon. We walked in and she went to her lesson. I asked the guy behind the front counter if Al was in. He went back and got him. Al wandered up to the front and saw me. He was old and pushing eighty. He didn't immediately recognize me. The last time he and I had seen each other was nearly forty years ago. I shook his hand and asked, "Hey Al, do you recognize me?" He answered, "No..." I said, "I'm Dave Garski." His eyes opened wide and he asked, "You still playing the bass?" I answered, "Yes sir!"
Can you believe that after all this time, he remembered me as his bassist in the jazz band in school from 1978-1981? He then said, "You know, when you guys played in the band, it was the best years of that band in all the years I directed at that school." I think my mind was blown when he said that. He had directed dozens of versions and variations of the jazz bands and ensembles for thirty or forty years. In his old age, he actually remembered how great we were back then. I said, "Al, it was all because of you that we were that good." He smiled and had to go teach a lesson.
My entire life, just about everyone I have ever known, knows me as a guitarist or bassist. That’s a pretty great identity. The guitar truly is an extension of my soul. I have been playing the guitar for going on forty-eight years. I have been a guitar teacher for nearly twenty-eight of those years.
I don't know what ever happened to Tony. Last time I saw him, he was playing the bass guitar on a float in the Fourth of July parade sometime in the 1980's. Mark and I played in several bands together as kids, but our musical tastes were very different. So much so that it got to the point where we couldn't play together at all. I think he was a little jealous of me. While I was learning how to understand jazz fusion in the late 1970's, he was burying himself in punk and new wave in the early 1980's. Don't get me wrong, he's an incredible punk rock guitarist. He's very good at what he does - at least he used to be. Mark and I lost contact with each other about ten years ago. People grow and they grow apart. Even best childhood friends. My old man died in 2022. He was eighty-two years old. He retired from playing drums many years ago. They buried him with a pair of drumsticks in his hands.
I have regretted for a long time, never having gone to college to get a degree in music. I know I could have done it. I probably could do it now, if I didn't have to worry about finances and living like a pauper. Life happened, and it got in the way of my musical career early on. Life still gets in the way. In a perfect world, I could play, teach and write these stories about the guitar, and never have to worry about paying bills. Unfortunately, it most certainly is not a perfect world.
I'm the oldest of five kids, and not one of my siblings ever took up a musical instrument. As far as I know, only one of my cousins became a musician. I think she also retired from playing her flute. Maybe that's just a rumor. I don't know. I can't imagine never playing the guitar again. When I say that the guitar is the air that I breathe, I don't ever want to find out what it is like to not breathe. Being a guitarist, it is my deepest identity. Without it, I am nothing.