The Musician's Voice

The Musician's Voice


Many years ago, when I was but a freshman in high school, I met a man. He was strange and lonesome figure, not quite homeless but defiantly jobless, as he was seen outside the school almost every bright and shining day. He would sit on the sidewalk, under an oak tree, with an instrument. It was always a different instrument, never the same one twice in a row. Some times a flute, other days a mandolin. The day I stopped to give him money he was playing a guitar.

The music was a quick and simple blues, a few repeated chords with intermittent solos. A case lay open next to him, a sign asking for money. It was a fine guitar case, black leather hardshell and red velvet lining with a combination lock. The man himself was rather scruffy in appearance, unwashed clothes, a short beard and long hair. Such a contrast to see them next to each other.

When I dropped a few dollars into the man's case, he stopped playing. And not a slow, diminishing chord, but a silenced set of strings.

"You." he said.
"Me?" I asked
"Yes, you. Would you like to see a trick?"
"Like a magic trick, sir?"
The man chuckled.
"Sure, a magic trick, of sorts. It involves this here guitar. I can do something no other man, women or child can do: I can make this guitar speak." He whispered the last sentence with a grin.
"Speak? Like words and phrases?" I queried.
"Thats right."
"I doubt it!" The words left my mouth without permission, I hadn't meant to be rude.
The man just chuckled.
"Hows this sound: I'll show you the trick today, and if you can figure it out by tomorrow, you can have all this money I earned today. Deal?"
"Today is Friday, sir. I don't have school tomorrow."
"Well then you get a few extra days."

I entertained the thought that he needed the money more than I, but the man was offering it up.

"Alright then. Deal." I said.
"Good, a risk taker! Thats a good trait in a young man." he said
"Now watch close, boy. I'm gonna make these strings sound like the voice of a women asking for directions to the bus."

The man quickly tuned his guitar to some bizarre scheme. Then he played a few notes, and then a chord progression. But the noise, was that of a young women!

"Hello young man, I was wondering if you could direct me to the nearest bus stop?"

The sounds clearly came from the guitar, but there was no such women in sight. Each syllable, a chord! Every tone came from a string!

"Wha..." I stammered. I must have had a look of disbelief on my face.
"Can't figure it out?" the man said.
"Its... Its a recording!"
"Nome. Its no such modern marvel. I can prove it. It can say your name. What is your name, boy?"

Not wanting the stranger to know my real name, I gave him a fake one.

"Christopher? Thats a good strong name. Here, I'll make it be the voice of an old man."
"No, do the women again." I countered. For all I knew, he had prerecorded names in an old man voice.
"Sure thing Christopher."

"Its good to see you, Christopher." the women-guitar said.

I admit, I was baffled.

The man looked up at the sky.
"You should hurry home, its dark out." he said.

I noticed that it was indeed dark. But I'd been here only a moment or two, not hours.

"Thank you sir, I have to hurry home now." I threw over my shoulder as I ran off.
"Remember our deal, boy! Have a good evening Jonathan!"

I hadn't told him my real name. Maybe he'd overheard a school friend call me that. No, everyone calls me Johnny. How did he know my name?

I pondered how the man did the voice after my mother berated me for being so late. I told her I got lost in the park. No matter how I figured it, there was no reasonable way. He claimed it was only the guitar. I've seen people who can tune guitars to say a single word, but never so realistically, so smoothly as the man did.

Monday the next week the man was not there. Tuesday it rained. Wednesday he was still not there. I waited two weeks, and yet he never reappeared. People wondered where he went, but of course no one knew.

Gradually I forgot about him, about him and his speaking guitar. Untill recently I received a package. Inside the package was a picture of me graduating highschool, and a dated letter from none other than the man! It was dated from three months ago. (Now keep in mind the man was looking forty when we met, and I am currently of sixty five myself.) It was simply one sentence:

'I figured you would need the rest of your life and then some to figure out the trick Jonathan, so keep thinking.

~The Musician'