Industry and Intimacy: on connection, craft, and listening

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NAMM itself was exactly what I expected, and somehow still more than that. The scale was immediate and undeniable. Sound layered on sound, innovation stacked on innovation, an endless sense of motion pulling you forward whether you wanted it to or not. It was impressive in the way standing inside a big city is impressive. You feel the energy, the ambition, the momentum. You also feel how quickly your attention gets pulled outward, and the unescapable sensory overload. Craft was everywhere, unmistakably so, but it existed inside an atmosphere that kept pulling me forward. There was always another sound, another room, another reason not to stay too long. I enjoyed it, even felt energized by it, and at the same time began to notice how rarely I slowed down enough to really listen. That noticing, more than anything I played or saw, ended up shaping the experience.

Wood Wire Volts ran parallel to NAMM, a much smaller and infinitely more intimate setting. The moment I stepped inside, the pace changed. The room was hundreds of thousands square feet smaller, quiet enough to connect through conversation and shared passions, human-scaled in a way that immediately affected how I held the guitar in my hands. Instead of being pulled forward, I felt invited to stay. Each builder represented a philosophy rather than a product, and that alone changed the pace of attention. Nothing was asking to be consumed quickly. The work invited you to stay, to listen longer, to notice what only reveals itself when you stop rushing.

I played guitars I’ve admired for years from a distance. Guitars I’ve only known through photos and videos - back to back, without comparison or urgency. What stood out wasn’t excellence so much as specificity. Each instrument asked something slightly different of me, not in a dramatic way, but in subtle shifts of touch, patience, and attention. At some point, the sense of evaluation dropped away entirely. I wasn’t comparing or deciding or even thinking in language anymore. Time flattened out, and what replaced it was a kind of quiet, physical bliss - hands moving, sound responding, nothing to manage or improve. I remember looking up and immediately wanting to find my friend, Hank. Not to explain what was happening, but because I knew he would recognize it. Some experiences don’t need translation - they just need to be shared with someone tuned to the same frequency.

Another moment, in particular, brought everything into focus at a boutique pedal builder’s table, Beetronics. The setup broke my expectations completely. A circular table with a few levels, and more pedals chained together than I could count. The "standard" pedal demos, in contrast, have you put on headphones and stand in front of an array of switches, knobs, and flashing lights in an isolated space. At this display, however, the builder also had on a set of headphones as he listened along while I put my headphones on. At first I said to myself "but I want to push the buttons, turn the knobs, and tweak my sound." As I questioned what was about to unfold, I strummed my first chord and the sound opened up. An array of chorus, reverb, and echo played through our headphones. Inspired by the tones, I started to shape my playing to the textures and and echoes of the pedals. Then, without saying a word, he began turning knobs, switching pedals, reshaping the space around my playing in real time. I adjusted to the changes, then he would respond again to my playing. The sound shifted again without explanation, without the need to understand, without a sense of clock-time. It didn’t feel like testing gear; it felt like being inside a conversation, closer to a DJ mixing a room than someone showing features. Neither of us was in control, and that was precisely what made it work. We acknowledged each others efforts and the co-creation of a beautifully improvised sonic landscape. As I continue to reflect on what stayed with me beyond this experience, it was the realization that craft doesn’t announce itself - it listens back.

I teach a lot of people every week - more than fifty, both in-person and online - and yet I still think of myself as a student first. Not out of humility, but out of necessity. Craft demands curiosity. The moment learning stops, teaching hardens and becomes predictable, less responsive, less alive. Every student reflects something back; about tension, about habit, about expectation, about how attention actually works under pressure. Teaching, like building, isn’t about delivering outcomes. It’s about shaping conditions and staying awake inside them, adjusting the environment while listening for what’s actually happening rather than what you think should be happening. The pedal builder wasn’t chasing sounds, and the guitar builders weren’t chasing perfection. They were responding, moment by moment, to what the materials were offering. That’s the work I’m interested in!

NAMM showed me the industry - its scale, its ambition, its momentum. Wood Wire Volts changed the pace. It brought me back to listening, to touch, to relationship. It reminded me that guitar isn’t something you master and move on from, but something you stay in conversation with, if you’re willing to slow down enough to hear it answer back.

I’m grateful for the friends who invited me into that experience and for the shared listening that made it meaningful. The deepest parts of this instrument don’t live in volume or novelty, but in attention. That’s the orientation behind this site, behind my teaching, and behind the upcoming book Guitar as a Mirror. This isn’t about getting better faster, or finding that one "hack" that's going to open up the guitar for you. It’s about learning how to listen to the instrument, to the sounds, and to yourself with more honesty. Learning to let go of expectation and trading it for the alchemy in the process. I’m still listening, still learning - are you?

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