My guitar mentor was born from an ordinary Filipino family and was raised as a typical farmer.
Together with his older brothers, they would wake up very early in the morning and perform their tasks while the sun is not yet out.
Back at their place, only the upper class citizens can affor to buy television sets.
All they have was a radio in which they would listen to news, dramas, and music.
And so, the common recreation of the kids his age during night time was to gather around a pyre and sing songs.
Of course, there's a guitarist among the group and it happened to be his older brother.
When they grew up a little older, his brothers became hearthrobs at their place because they were guitarists.
My mentor was very amazed with how his brothers would play the popular songs at that time. Perhaps, songs by The Beatles.
He wanted to learn how to play the guitar too and so he asked his brothers to teach him.
He became in love with the guitar, and he practiced everyday or whenever he gets a chance to.
Whenever there is a song he wanted learn, he would patiently wait for it to be played in the radio and he would listen very carefully.
He would play his guitar while listening to the song. He would then write down the chords which seemed to sound in tune.
He would usually do these many times in a day just to get the right rhythm and melody.
Few years after, because of his diligence, he became known as one of the best guitarist in their locality.
He was usually hired to play for amateur singing contests and he was still around 19 years old at that time.
He can play the songs at different starting keys, transposing the chords to match the singer's pitch.
For that, a lot of people admired his unquestionable talent.
He used to play by "Oido". Oido is a spanish word which means "ear".
He would listen to a song for a couple of times and he would immediately be able to play its rhythm.
Funny thing is that, when he was asked about the name of the unusual chord he used, most of the time he wouldn't be able to answer.
He didn't take any formal lessons about guitar and he didn't know how other chords, aside from the basic, were called.
That's the story of my very first mentor - my Father.
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