Weston Taylor, February 2010This is where I break out the old teacher cliche of "I learned as much from him as he learned from me." I've learned a lot from Weston about passion and drive, focus and dedication: he knows how to block out the voices in his head and get down to business. I've learned that success is not necessarily linear - that four years of no apparent progress can be trumped by four weeks of total devotion to one's craft. I've learned about my own limitations as an artist, as I witness his fearlessness in his writing and onstage. Weston doesn't hide behind his art as so many people do. He's never trying to sound cool, and that's precisely what makes him so cool. Most of all, as a teacher, I have learned through working with Weston that, as Amiel said, "to know how to suggest is the great art of teaching." I do have a lot of step-by-step methods, strategies, tricks, games, et cetera. None of that worked with Weston. What did work was to observe and make recommendations. To get myself out of the way and make room for the artist to emerge. To eliminate my expectations and concentrate on the moment. I am a better teacher now than I was at the beginning, but it doesn't appear that I've messed things up too badly.
Weston agreed to do some writing to share his experiences as a music student. I hope that his story will be inspiring to you, regardless of your particular passion.
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Four years ago, I was your typical well-rounded fourteen-year-old boy: I graduated from Inman Middle School with straight A’s, I played select soccer every fall and spring, I played basketball in a church group every winter, I took guitar lessons every Wednesday afternoon, I surrounded myself with a nice group of friends, and I volunteered at local churches and events. I was making my parents very happy. I was doing what I had been told was right and necessary for a successful future.
But, when I entered my freshman year at Grady High School in the fall of 2006, the extra curricular activities and the academic work began to seem rather routine and boring. Every week I was following the same busy schedule. My imagination and my creativity were put on hold. My life was centered on my social relationships with friends and love interests, for I had nothing else that interested me. Friendship became my only means of expressing myself. But then the excitement in friendship faded away—my best friends from elementary and middle school began going down different paths, my new friends weren’t half as fun to talk to as the old ones, cute girls liked me one week and hated me the next, and everyone’s hormones were out of control.
On a resume, I had everything going for me. In reality, I was empty and without a niche of my own. I needed a purpose. I needed something that—amongst all the extracurricular activities and academics and relationships—stood out and defined me.
It was around this time that my guitar teacher, Casey McCann, had me scheduled to perform a cover of the Foo Fighter’s song “Times Like These” at her music school’s first recital.
The cover was to be simple. I wasn’t required to sing or memorize any lyrics. All I had to do was memorize and perform the chord progression of the song, which had been provided for me by Casey on a nice clean sheet of white paper. But I didn’t do it. I didn’t even look at that sheet of paper Casey gave me. I wasn’t interested in learning “Times Like These”. I wasn’t really interested in anything except for the next text on my phone or the next instant message to pop up on my laptop screen.
Then the recital came around.
I still vividly remember the embarrassment of having to tell Casey on the day of the recital that I had not even attempted to learn “Times Like These”. I told her over the phone, hoping that she would say something alone the lines of, “Well, that’s too bad Weston, you’ll just have to work on it for the next recital.” But instead she told me that I had to attend the recital, and that I had to perform something, even if it was not “Times Like These”.
So, my very disappointed parents dragged me to the recital where I met with Casey. She showed me a very, very simple chord progression and told me that I would be using the chord progression to accompany a little girl as she performed a piano piece.
The recital began. Child after child went on to display what they had learned from Casey. Most of the performers were little kids under the age of ten, playing things like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “London Bridge is Falling Down”. The only other person around my age in the room was Sidney Wise—a talented girl in my class who had been taking lessons from Casey for quite some time as well.
When my turn finally came, I experienced some of the worst embarrassment of my life. There I was, a fourteen-year-old boy, pitifully playing guitar over an eight-year-old girl’s piano piece. I sounded awful and she sounded great. I sat down after the applause and felt terrible. Then Sidney went up.
She sang two original songs—songs she had composed all by herself. They were fantastic. They blew me away. But more than anything, they made me angry, because I had made such a fool out of myself, and she had done so well. I felt jealous and envious and...well, like I really wanted to write a song of my own and upstage her at the next recital.
And that’s when I found my passion. With Casey’s support and help, I began writing songs. I began singing and playing guitar relentlessly. I fell madly in love with songwriting. To this day it is what I enjoy doing the most. It is what helps me to understand the events in my life. It is what keeps me going when all else is awry. I developed this talent from out of nowhere, and now, this talent is my life. I write songs on a daily basis. I play gigs at local venues and festivals. I record my own songs in a professional studio, and share them with the world. I have gone from being the well-rounded, uninspired Weston Taylor of fourteen to the passionate, purpose driven Weston Taylor of eighteen. The point is, I never expected to become who I am today. I didn’t work for it. I didn’t dream about it. I just became.
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Weston, I'm proud of who you've become. Keep it up, and let me know I can help.
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