FRANK VARANO

My life would have been a lot easier if I never learned how to play the guitar. How the simple act of pressing strings on a piece of wood to produce sound has affected my life is immense, if not somewhat comical. The seductive noise it produced was more fulfilling than any "acceptable" career could ever be. Yet to attempt to describe its power to anyone not already under its spell would be futile, like attempting to describe a lavish banquet to a crowd of hungry people. They could imagine it, but would not believe it because no one would allow themselves to become jealous of what they knew they were missing.

Where people spend their time and money indicates what they feel is important in life. I spent over half of my salary pursuing my sonic endeavors, traveled thousands of miles to music meccas all over the world, and spent countless hours beckoning the instrument to reveal its secrets to me. More significantly, I discovered that time is more important than money. As a result, I abandoned my well-paying civil engineering and naval officer careers, which could have led me on a comfortable path of success and prosperity.

Yes, my life would have been much easier without the guitar.

But as a few of us have actually learned through experience, one should never confuse an easy life with a happy or fulfilling life. A life devoid of obstacles is like a featureless landscape: no one stops to pay any attention to it, and no one will ever remember it. Perhaps the guitar is my subconscious way of attempting to achieve the immortality that nearly everyone wants but almost no one risks -not that I may be recorded in history books, but that I just might actually touch someone's life who I haven't met.

Guitar has been more than a full time hobby. It has evolved into a philosophy. If I have learned one thing over the past 13 years of picking and strumming, it has been that guitar is NOT more important than any other facet of life. The way I see it is that everything else in life is equally as unimportant as playing the guitar - but not nearly as much fun. We're alive for such a short period of time. Yet because we've been ingrained from birth with the frenzied belief that we have to conquer the world, we've all forgotten how to savor it! The "real world" has become something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Every chord is a celebration rather than a self-imposed sacrifice. Every note is an exclamation instead of an explanation. It is a triumph of orchestration over administration. Sure, my life would have been easier without it, but by no means better.

The guitar taught me to RISK HAPPINESS. If I can learn this from a piece of wood and six strings, I feel I've found a pretty good teacher. But only because I was willing to listen.