You can’t. You can’t tell. You can’t tell just by looking. Whether it’s musical instruments or people, it’s the same thing.
Musical instruments look different. People look different. They both are different colors, and different shades of color. Brown, black, white, yellow, etc. and variations thereof.
If you see a person and he or she look really nice, it doesn’t mean that they are. If you see a musical instrument and it looks really nice, you don’t know if it is good just by looking. Sure, you can look at people and musical instruments from the point of art. But if you really want to get to know the whole thingness of either, you have to get past just the view.
A person may look nice, but then you have to be with them for a while, hear them talk, see how they act, shake hands and see how they feel. And you have to find out “where they come from” on a variety of topics. The bottom line is that you have to get to know them before you make a judgment call on their total worth to the world at large.
A musical instrument may look nice, but then you have to be with it for a while, hear how it sounds, shake hands with it and find out how it feels, see how it acts when being played, find out who made it and how well it is made, and get an overall impression of it before you make a judgment call and decide to own it.
The “Great 48 Pickin’ Party” is happening his weekend in Bakersfield, California. There are all kinds of different musical instruments, and all kinds of different people. It’s a good chance to make all kinds of comparisons and contrasts. This is going to be a short Welcome Column today, because today most CBA folks are pickin’ away, not reading. Maybe I’ll see you there, maybe not. It’s a big world, and a small one at the same time, even in Bakersfield.
In a nod to our welcome columnists who are also poets, here’s a short one:
Who was I?
Who am I now?
Who will I be?
Maybe an old man
With a banjo
On my replaced knee
