No one gets a tattoo of guitar tab.

Joshua Skaja
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

I used to play in a band with a guy who ran a guitar shop. We would rehearse there after-hours.

One night I walked in near closing time and he said, “give me just a minute, I gotta send this email.”

“No problem,” I said, then grabbed a guitar off the wall & began playing.

A minute later he got this weird look on his face and turned from his computer to me.

“Wait… I know that. What is that?” he asked.

“You tell me,” I replied, “it’s tattooed on your arm.”

He looked down at his arm and laughed.

(this is the actual music that was on his arm)

“I used to date this girl who was a dancer,” he began. “One night we were hanging out on her big wraparound porch and I was just noodling around on these chords. A minute later it started raining. She stood up and went straight out into the rain and did ballet up and down the sidewalk in front of her house for what felt like an hour, and the whole time I was just playing this little thing I had made up a minute earlier. It was like a real-life music box.”


It’s a beautiful story, available to anyone who knows how to read. Can you?

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