A Penny Wiser Take Your Pick  by David Pell

All guitar players have many challenges to overcome when first learning the guitar. Things like eye hand coordination, painful finger tips, strengthening muscles, tendons and ligaments that are only used when playing the guitar, posture, ear training, using a pick, finger picking, chords, scales, etc.

Skylar is a nine year old who is currently studying the guitar with me and has developed a typical guitarist disease – losing his pick. It doesn’t matter the shape, color, or size. They go missing and he has no clue as to where they are. No fellowships in the study of this disease are currently on going, but I know that it happens to the best of us, including me.  Today, I buy my favorite pick by the gross. I have often thought that maybe we are more like squirrels than we would like to admit, hiding our picks for safe keeping and in turn forgetting where we have placed them.

But anyway, Skylar is preparing to perform at his first live event, the Celebrate Hampstead Festival. Of course his lesson starts with “I’ve lost my pick again,” or “I can’t find my pick,” etc. So I tell him that Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top played with a coin and that he should consider doing the same since I felt pretty sure his parents had spare change laying about the house at all times. He just needed to figure out which coin worked best for him. He settled on a penny. At one of his lessons, he performed his set very well and I asked what year the penny was dated and suggested he always play with that year penny. It was a 1991 penny so, every lesson thereafter we always made sure he had his 1991 penny. The 1991 penny sounds different than any other year penny, you know. It’s a guitar thing.

So, it’s the big day for Skylar to perform live in front of his first crowd. He shows up with two pennies in his pocket and goes off to ride on some of the rides and do what all nine year olds should do at festivals. Afterwards, he comes back and collects his guitar - after I’ve made sure it was in tune - and waits off stage for his turn to perform. He reaches into his pocket and - no pennies. They fell out during his adventures on the rides. His dad, Nat is with him and has no pennies either.  So dad asked the lady sitting next to him if she had a penny in her purse. She searched the deep caverns of her mobile storage bin, located a penny and gave it to Skylar saying it was okay to keep the penny. Well, this made his day and he went on to play his heart out and gave a great performance.

When I gave Skylar his next lesson after this performance, he and his parents were excited. They were all very pleased at how well he performed and the story of how they found a penny for him to use. And what made this event even more special was that the penny the lady found and gave to him was minted in 1991.  Whoa!!!!! Many thanks from all of us to this generous person. Kind of explains why guitarists are so particular as to what pick they use. Spouses, parents, and friends find them in the car, sofa, vacuum or wash and consider them a pest. However, there is something magical about picks and how they bond with their handler.

Here’s a link to Skylar’s first performance with this 1991 penny. 

Go to www.catsimagination.com/CHF2008/SkylarCHF.mov to check him out.