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Music Makes the World Go ‘Round

Music makes the world go ‘round, soothes the wild beasts, and has a universal appeal. All cultures make some kind of music, and it can be as different as night and day. With seven acres of vegetables planted (finally), you know we do a lot of picking. But there is always time for picking guitars, too.

My first guitar was a Silvertone from Sears that cost about $20. I was seven or eight, but didn’t get very far. I loved the Beatles music and tried to strum along. When I was 10 I got a Kay electric guitar and amp. I don’t think I learned much guitar, but I got my moves down.
When I was 14 I got my first real, a Fender. The strings were much closer to the neck, and I started playing regularly. My friends and I had the Jam band. We never played anywhere, just had fun at the jam house. I progressed from pop radio to all the great music from the late 60’s and early 70’s. I haven’t progressed any further, that’s still the mucic I love.
I moved to the Tennessee homestead when I was 18, but we had no electricity. I took our last $400.00 and went to Nashville, coming back with a Gibson acoustic. Now I had an instrument that simply sounded wonderful. In a year I traded it for a Guild, and played it until it looked like Willie Nelson’s. The guitar I play now is a Guild D-50, and I bought it in 1987 for $300.00.
I credit milking a cow (for finger dexterity) and living without electricity (no tape or record player) for my musical abilities. We picked on the porch everyday. We still like to. Songs fill the air, and then disappear forever.
Music is cosmic; the harmony of the spheres. There are seven whole notes, and seven visible planets, and twelve notes altogether in an octave, and twelve zodiac constellations. Many musicians feel like they are just a conduit, that the music comes from somewhere else and just flows through them.
I love to play with other folks. It’s not how good you are, it’s how good it sounds together. Everyone has their own style, so listening carefully becomes paramount. We have to keep the beat, stay in tune, and meld our different instruments and sounds into a song. Every song is a unique opportunity, and I am known to stretch them out.
There are a lot of reasons to have farms. Besides the food produced on a farm, there is the beauty, the caring, and the benefits of education, inspiration, and conservation. Jobs are created by agricultural pursuits, utilizing raw farm products to create the goods we need. I expound on why we need farms regularly, but I may have forgotten to mention an important reason. A farm is a great place to play music. Our annual solstice celebration offers great music. We have extra sweet potato slips to give away.