Wednesdays with Steve

For the past three years, it’s been my only standing appointment: “Wednesday, 5 pm: Guitar with Steve.“

Every week I’ve packed up my black guitar case and driven across town for my one hour lesson with Steve Barbour, a time slot I took over from my daughter Grace when she went away for college.

The lessons with Steve haven’t been “lessons” in the way you might be thinking. I’d walk into the studio he’d set up in his home. Keyboard and drums on the floor. Hanging on the wall a guitar, a banjo, a cello, a violin – he’d played and taught them all.

Steve played keyboard, guitar and anything else needed for Barbour and Hinton, his long-time duo (Facebook photo).

We’d start out talking about the newest interesting thing one of us had read. Then we’d listen to a piece of music he’d just discovered or rediscovered and was excited about. He’d ask me about the latest song I wanted to learn. We’d practice some pieces we’d been working on, talk about our families, then say goodbye for another week.

Until this week. Steve died this week.

The sudden massive heart attack came out of nowhere. Steve was my age, joyfully teaching guitar – and keyboards, and percussion, and composition -- after a life of traditional work that supported his side hustle as a musician (and collector of CD’s - his wife Phyllis estimates he had 150,000+ CD’s!). One of his daughters had just gotten engaged. He’d just scored VIP tickets for a Todd Rundgren concert. We were making plans for my guitar “debut” concert at a party for friends in a few months – he would back me up to make it sound like I knew what I was doing. We’d just picked out one of the songs for that – he was going to show me the chords for it this week.

Steve with family. I never saw him in the same rock band t-shirt twice (Facebook photo).

And then he was gone.

A lot’s been written about the wisdom of people who know they are on their way out. Tuesdays with Morrie, about a series of conversations between Mitch Albom and a professor friend with ALS, remains the biggest selling memoir of all time: people want to learn the kind of wisdom that comes when someone is facing the end. I know I’ll never forget the conversations I had with my father over his final six months: I got to tell him about my dreams and ask him about his life and what he’d learned.

Tim McGraw’s song, “Live Like You Are Dyin’” is a conversation between a man with a terminal diagnosis and his friend. The dying man admits he’s done some crazy things since the diagnosis, for sure, but also he’d “loved deeper, smiled sweeter, and gave forgiveness I’d been denying.” Then he turns it around on his friend:  “If you knew tomorrow was a gift/And ya got eternity to think about what to do with it/ What did you do with it?/ What did I do with it?/What would I do with it?” That’s worth spending some time thinking about.

Steve had no warning. I know he wanted more time and all of us who knew him wanted more time with him. But it sure seems like while he was with us he had some of the answers to those questions. He’d figured out a way to live his life that’s pretty close to how I would if I could “live like I was dying.”

Listen a lot. Most people are pretty good at talking about themselves. A smaller number are good at asking questions. Very few are good at actually listening to others and caring about their answers. Steve would ask, listen and remember. By listening, he figured out which songs I liked, why I wanted to learn the guitar and what was going to motivate me to get better. That made him an effective teacher. But he also listened closely enough to know when I’d had a tough week or was worried about something; when I just wanted to play or just wanted to talk. I always knew there was a student before me and another one after me who was getting the same treatment, but Steve’s ability to listen to me made me feel special.

Steve looking on with pride as “The Thuds” perform @2014. Steve launched a lot of bands (Facebook photo).

Keep learning. There was a reason all those instruments were in Steve’s studio. They were all interesting to him. So were his students. Steve was delighted by my daughter Grace’s taste in music, not because he knew the songs she brought in, but because he didn’t. He was never happier with me than when I shared a song with him that he hadn’t heard or hadn’t thought about for a while (and by the following week, he’d come in with the new song charted out, ready to teach me how to strum it). Then we’d talk about what we knew about the song or the artist or the circumstances that caused it to be written. And when I wrote something in my blog he hadn’t thought about, he’d always have both questions and observations. Life is a lot more interesting if you are perpetually learning.

Love other people. You can’t do either of those first two things if you don’t love other people. I had only one hour a week with him, but I felt loved by Steve.

The final song we worked on before the lesson ended last week will sound different to me from now on. It’s an old Nat King Cole song called “Nature Boy.” I told him I wanted to learn it because the melody was gorgeous and the message was something I’d been thinking about. Here’s how it ends.

“And then one day

One magic day he passed my way

And though we spoke of many things, fools and kings

This he said to me

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn

Is just to love and be loved in return.”

 “I like that,” Steve said. “Yeah, man. That says it all. Let’s do that!”

Notes:

Tuesdays with Morrie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesdays_with_Morrie

Tim McGraw sings “Live Like You Are Dyin’”: https://youtu.be/_9TShlMkQnc?si=b3o2sr-MinUqXHsA

Nat King Cole sings “Nature Boy”: https://youtu.be/Iq0XJCJ1Srw