Everyone has a story.  Whether it be happy or sad, long or short, action-packed or calm, we have recorded it in our memories.  However, we do not always fully understand these memories.  Many important events pass us by, and through reflection, we assure that we do not take them for granted.  Those who choose to reflect on their lives often write autobiographies.  The guitar is the pen to which I write my autobiography.
   

It is more powerful when I play the guitar than when I write or say something.  Writing and speaking communicates a direct and specific emotion or feeling to the audience.  Most of the time, only those who share the same story get a deep emotional connection.  However, like a work of abstract art, the guitar communicates to the soul on a deeper level.  It connects to people in a way which gives every note and phrase a more personal significance.  One guitar lick, riff, solo or instrumental can recall memories and emotions from every listener.  This recollection is what makes the guitar such a powerful object.
   

As a young child, I was extremely shy.  I didn’t even attempt to share my ideas with most of my peers or teachers.  I would talk to only my best friends on a regular basis.  As I grew older, this became increasingly harder.  All of that changed once I was acquainted with the guitar.  In fourth grade, I found my uncle’s old guitar in my grandparent’s basement.  After I took it upstairs to be dusted off, I was truly amazed by its beauty.  Then I picked it up.  The thing must have been as tall as me, but I had never felt something more natural in my hands.
   

I bought my first guitar in fifth grade.  I finally took interest in playing the guitar, but it was rather disappointing because I sounded nothing like Joe Perry from Aerosmith.  So the guitar was stowed away.  I had been getting more and more frustrated with myself at this stage in my life.  I wasn’t doing as well as I knew I could in school.  Then sixth grade rolled around.  I was placed, again, in some low math class.  For some unknown reason, I decided to give the guitar another shot.  After teaching myself a couple of Aerosmith songs, I gained insight and confidence in myself.  That year, I was moved up to the highest level math class.

At this point, I hadn’t mastered the guitar.  I had been playing the guitar for less than a year, self-taught, and I happened to get a class called Guitar 1.  This gave me the opportunity to play the guitar with other people.  I started to understand the potential that this instrument secretly held.  I could see the potential, but I couldn’t reach it because of my lack of experience.  After two years with the guitar, I could definitely play it.  However, true brilliance in an instrument comes not from the ability to make beautiful sounds with it, but from the ability to express thoughts and emotions through that instrument.

In eighth grade, I decided to start a band with my friends.  By this time, I had learned to improvise on the guitar.  The skill of (effective) improvisation is one of the most important concepts in music.  Around the time that I started to experimentally improvise, I also saw growth in various areas of school (especially writing).  It is as if my ability to express myself through the guitar opened up new pathways through which I could convey my ideas.  At the end of my eighth grade year, my band had to create a song for Eighth Grade Continuation.  By no means were we good singers, so we expressed our sadness in that song through our instruments.  One of the most emotionally involved moments of my life was creating the guitar part to that song.  I was finally  able to use the guitar for what is was made for: telling my story.  I believe in my guitar because the conveying and expression of thoughts and emotions to others not only gives them understanding of us, but it also gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves.