During his interview for this inaugural issue of Guitar Player, jazz and fingerstyle legend Charlie Byrd was spied scribbling this simple intro on the back of a notepad. The next moment he was playing it. Byrd was an inspiring beacon of musical literacy.

“Sure, some great musicians claim not to be able to read music, but they’re not great because they can’t read music,” he said. “They did it the hard way, and they know it. Can you imagine taking a course in history without being able to take notes, to have to keep all that information in your head? The system of musical notation is over 500 years old. We can learn from what all musicians did before us.” Charlie Byrd MP3