To teach a child an instrument without first giving him preparatory training and without developing singing, reading and dictating to the highest level along with the playing is to build upon sand.
There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.
We didn't have movies in this little mining town. When I was 12 my mom took me to New York and I saw Bye Bye Birdie, with people singing and dancing, and that was it.
Singing instrumental music is most important because, while you play an instrument, you are singing through the instrument... actually, you are singing inside.
In college I had a weekend gig at a restaurant, a solo thing that was the best practice I could have ever had. That's where I learned to coordinate my singing and my piano playing.
You sang in church, you know, and you didn't act at all. You tried not to act, you tried to tell the truth. The idea of being a troubadour on the road singing for your supper was very disturbing to him.
Shortly after this I was made a member of the boys' choir, it being found that I possessed a clear, strong soprano voice. I enjoyed the singing very much.
What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.
That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in your face. After you got the groove, you were just singing the hooks, because you thought it was cool.
Learn it well in your head, know it well, pick things you know and bring the old you and all the experience you have from singing these various kinds of feelings that are still related to what I have done in the rest of my career.
