The Dead Guitar
In The Noise of War, Memory, and Broken Dreams
A single state-run television channel broadcast horrible programs in Syria in the 1980s, as in most totalitarian countries (it was a mixture of Orwell’s 1984 and animal farm). In order to wash our brains, they repeatedly talked about the glory of the party ruling the country and how important it was to be against global imperialism and to continue the struggle till the great victory….etc
The only program I was keen to watch was a weekly music program. It was called “the language of the world”. During the last five minutes of that program, short videos of famous guitarists were broadcast. The program introduced me to Paco Peña, Paco de Lucia, Francisco Tárrega, and other notable guitarists.
It astonished me to hear what Nicolo Paganini the greatest violinist of all time (and the one who was rumored to have made a pact with the devil) said about the guitar “ The…
