Tangier Sound

During the 1970’s the CB radio craze completely freaked America. Everyone had a CB radio and a “handle”. The handle was sort of like a mask. You could be anything or anyone with complete anonymity. Little old ladies became tough eighteen wheelin’ mommas. Mild mannered office drones impersonated brawny over the road truckers. Everybody knew that everyone was full of horse feathers but nobody cared. It was harmless fun to let your alter ego loose.
There was a corny sort of elegance to the game.

It went something like this:

Breaker-Breaker. This is the Diesel Dragon here. Anybody got their ears on?
Ah, roger that Diesel Dragon you got the Turnpike Terror. What’s your 20, over?
Just passin’ the 147 marker on 80 west. Saw a Smokey in a plain wrapper with a Polaroid, over.

Ah, roger that Diesel Dragon. Them bears are thick and mean out here. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll ease off and catch your rockin’ chair after the 147, over.

And on, and on, and on………

Now fast-forward thirty years. Citizen Band radio is as dead as the dodo. Turnpike emergencies are handled by cell phone and nobody plays make pretend anymore, right? Wrong! Simply log onto any Internet music chat room or forum and ask a simple basic musical question. You will immediately be swarmed by experts offering up advice that any competent musician would laugh at. They may hold forth from a platform consisting of thousands of posts. Others hide behind handles that protect them from scrutiny. Some even hope to impress you by using “banjo” or some other instrument as a prefix to their name. How is a beginner to know that the advice being offered is not coming from a non-musician who has no real knowledge, ability, experience or chops?

The sad fact is that you cannot know. The Internet has opened the world to each and every one of us. It can be a blessing or a curse depending on how it is used. The harmless games played out on CB radio a generation ago were just fun. No harm, no foul. However the confusing, conflicting and often downright wrong musical advice offered by folks playing let’s pretend can do irreparable damage. The formula is quite simple. Agree or experience firsthand just how much noise an empty barrel can make. Ask for a demonstration of the technique or skill that is being boasted about and you will get an elaborate excuse. Press the matter and you will be swarmed by toadies and sycophants berating you for upsetting the status quo. Now in all fairness, some of these characters can pick out a few tunes from memorized guitar or banjo tablature but they are not musicians. Their world is a very limited musical subculture and they are quite content to use the forum social structure to create an Internet personality at your expense.

If you are a beginner listen to all types of music. Ask a lot of questions. Challenge what your common sense tells you cannot be true. Read all you can. Play, sing and interact with the people in your neighborhood. Join or start a jam session. Be sure to make everyone welcome. If you go into a forum just be careful. The posers will say and do most anything to convince you that they are grizzled old timers with a lifetime of musical knowledge when in fact many of them have never taught, performed or jammed except in a fantasy. They have no skills to share so they endlessly repeat (or make up) the nonsense that all too often passes as sound advice. These people are not your friends. They do not care whether or not you ever play a note. Their one fear is that you may master the core musical skills that they did not have the character to learn. Their worst nightmare is that you will go on to play, sing, perform, teach and generally change the world.

My only fear is that you may give up before you have the chance.

Peace to all,
Pat Costello (Dear Old Dad)