My Story Part 1: Escaping The Choir

Being a guitar teacher was never in my plan book for life growing up. As a matter of fact, it was the furthest thing from my plans. But it is the road I have traveled for almost 20 years. I grew up the son of, what Southern Baptists call, a minister of music. This puts certain expectations on you. None of those expectations seemed wrong or overly difficult. It just meant a requirement to participate in the music of the church, specifically the choir, until I left to forge my own path. 

The Choir Central

For those unfamiliar, this may seem like a small expectation. However, when the church has a 5,000-member congregation. The music program has a much larger presence than at a church with 50 families. Our church had an adult choir of about 85 members, a full orchestra, and choirs for every age group. There were musical programs throughout the year but a huge one at Christmas. My father loved and still loves the church despite all its imperfections. With such a large program, the expectations were, if only by my perception, much higher when it came to involvement in the music of the church. The problem, I didn’t really care about music. My interests lay in sports, specifically tennis. 

Tennis Takes Over

I began, somewhere around 6th grade, to make it my sport of choice. Upon getting my driver’s license, my day began driving to the YMCA to work out with a school friend before picking up a bagel and heading to class. When the school bell rang, it was time to hit the courts for a couple of hours three days a week. I would have preferred to hit it five days a week but a minister’s salary was already stretched.  

Though I played in tournaments on the weekends and for the high school team, I could never get into the winner’s circle. I don’t think I ever won a single tournament I entered. Now that I write that sentence, it sounds depressing. Not being the best was a theme that would continue throughout my life. My coaches enjoyed me as a student. I even remember praising statements like, “he may not be the number one player but he practices like he is.” To this day, I still cannot figure out if that was just a backhanded compliment. As hard as I worked, deep down I knew I’d never be the best or even second best.  

As with most siblings, I also felt second best to my brother. In school, my brother seemed to always enjoy success. I’m sure hear this and say the opposite of me. But being the little brother of the favorite and likable student didn’t make it easy. You see, I was a freshman when my brother was a senior. I know it was an annoyance to have to drive around his little brother his senior year in the cool Chevy Camaro. In any case, I always felt inferior and unsuccessful to him.

My teachers, especially my English teachers, seemed to always reference him when I didn’t meet up to their expectations. I had two teachers that did this, but it is funny how I cannot now remember their names. But in reality, this is probably the most I’ve thought about my past in years. I wondered how I couldn’t make the same high-level grades as my brother and be liked by my teachers. Only later did I realize that I was in much harder AP classes than he took while in school.

I’m definitely not smarter than him in many ways. We have different gifts and talents. I just say that because I look back and realize how difficult it is to see from a distant perspective when you are in the moment and lack certain information. In any case, after choosing music my AP classes did little to no good in college. 

Enter The Guitar

Back to the music thing. I did music (the choir). I just hated it. As mentioned before, I was required to participate in musical activities at church. By the beginning of my junior year, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, I did what any teenager does when needing to tell his father but doesn’t want to, I talked to my mom. I told her that I didn’t want to sing in choirs anymore. Of course, she sent word to my father. He decided I did not have to sing in the choir but I had to pick an instrument to play while others sang. And, drumroll, enter the guitar into my life. Also, I would have to take lessons. YouTube didn’t exist and I didn’t know how to hold a guitar much less play one. 

I began lessons with a jazz guitarist who made his income repairing instruments. I remember a few things from him. The first is that he was unmarried, lived alone with his brother, and had instruments all over his house. Not nice instruments, instruments in need of repair. We visited once to get a used guitar from him for me to begin learning. I don’t remember if we paid for it, but it was really ugly. The back was black and the front had triangle green shapes on it.  Obviously, this guitar was from the 1980s glory days. Fortunately, I only remember one other time at his house because I met him at the church for my lessons. The other thing I remember is the first chords he taught me were blues chords. Considering the type of music I was playing, looking back, it made little sense.  

With this ugly guitar, I began to play at church while the choir sang. You really couldn’t hear me. I turned my volume down and just played the part. But there was a seed planted. Or, maybe it was just watered. I recall an instance when I was in elementary or middle school. My parents were off on a mission trip somewhere. An older woman watched after my brother and me while they were away. She and I were out to dinner. I don’t recall my brother being with us. She asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told her I wanted to be a concert artist like Steve Greene. He had been to our church a number of times to perform. He was a singer and recording artist in the Christian music industry. They say it’s easier to see God’s path by looking back. 

My First Performance Outside The Choir

My close friend, James, began playing guitar as well. In some ways, we were both rebelling against our upbringing and were listening to Seatle grunge like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and metal like Metallica and others. The church had an event that year honoring our parents and we decided to play and sing two songs. Neither of us claimed to be great singers and both of us had little guitar performing under our belts. But alas, we did it. Somehow, we were allowed to play Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly and some other song that I cannot remember. I say we were allowed because playing secular rock ‘n’ roll in the church is a big no-no in the Southern Baptist Church. 

It must have been about then that the idea of being a rock star was born. I don’t know why but I decided to go to school for music. Yeah, it made no sense. For some reason, I always try to do, or even feel called to do, the thing that most people say I can’t or shouldn’t do. But it was the path God had destined me to take. I have to give my parents a lot of credit for supporting me. I told them I wanted to go to school for music and, from my perspective at the time, they were completely supportive. I’m sure they had many discussions about why it was a bad idea. I even remember one summer, being home from college, and being told bluntly by my mother that I should put my mind to becoming a doctor or lawyer. 

Music School Ambitions

With the support of my parents, and girlfriend at the time, I applied to five schools in Florida. I managed to get into all of them on the basis of academic achievement. But this was a music school, I had to audition.  Therefore, I chose to audition at only one school, Palm Beach Atlantic College (now Palm Beach Atlantic University). My father knew the dean of the school of music. It had a classical guitar program, which, I knew nothing about. And, it was in Florida and, as my parents joked, I could wear shorts year-round. 

Leading up to the audition, I focused on learning two jazz pieces arranged for fingerstyle. Mind you, I did not play fingerstyle anything up to this point. The two songs, Georgia On My Mind and Stars Fell On Alabama, I had never heard of and didn’t really know that they were not in the classical guitar canon. I didn’t even know what classical guitar meant at the time. I had moved on from the black and green ugly stick to a black Ibanez Strat-style electric guitar and that would have to do. 

Whether I was nervous or not at the audition, I cannot remember. I probably didn’t know any better at that time. I had zero experience with auditioning. My audition was held in the concert choir room of the school of music. I sat down, without an amp, an electric guitar, and proceeded to play the two songs. I can only imagine the judgment passing from the jury on what they saw before them. 

There Is No Escaping The Choir

When it was over, the dean called me over to the piano and asked if I could replicate with my voice what he played. He played a line. I sang the line. He played another. I sang another. I waited. After conversing with the other jury members, he let me know that I didn’t make it into the guitar program, yet.

Then, he proceeded to make me an offer. He’ll give me a scholarship to sing in the concert choir and the oratorio chorus. Seriously, sing! Remember, the whole reason I began guitar was to get out of singing in choirs! I had no choice. If I was going to journey down this path, then this was the price. I knew that no other school would admit me based on my audition. I also knew that I could re-audition at the end of the first school year for the guitar program. 

My next four years were relatively set before me. I didn’t know anything about the classical guitar and I didn’t really care. This was my chance to learn guitar and become a guitar hero, be on the cover of Guitar Player, and learn to be a master guitarist. That was my plan and I was way over my head, but I was all in. 

If you haven’t checked out the Life By Guitar podcast, then click here to listen.

Chadwick Becks

I have two degrees in guitar performance and was privileged to study under Aaron Shearer, Tom Kikta, David Skantar, Ken Karsh, Tim Bedner, and currently Christopher Berg. Outside my editorial work on this blog, I teach full-time across many genres including classical, jazz, blues, rock, funk, and metal.