The second discovery that I paid for with money and an emotional toll

The Cycle of Fourths

Introduction

This article contains content that may be triggering for some viewers. Please read with discretion.

So, I had this friend, Billy. Billy, in a fit of what I can only describe as temporary insanity, decided he wanted to learn guitar. Naturally, I, the resident musical prodigy—a title bestowed upon me by my grandmother and a testament to my easily impressed neighbors—offered to teach him. My curriculum consisted of three chords, a questionable rendition of “Smoke on the Water,” and a lot of encouraging nods. I was a big fish in a very small, very chlorinated pond.

Then Billy found a real teacher. A few months later, we were talking, and he was casually dropping music theory terms that were flying miles over my head. Me. The kid who could play Chopin before he could legally drive. The piano man. That conversation shifted something in me. The comfortable throne I had built for myself suddenly felt very wobbly. It was the first time I remember feeling like a complete and utter fraud.

Billy, sensing my existential crisis, urged me to call his teacher, a guitarist named Marty Soleil. I had been through the teacher gauntlet before—a revolving door of instructors, each with their own quirks and metronomes set to “torture.” I figured, what’s one more? So I called the guy. His response? “Oh, I was waiting for you to call.” The sheer, unabashed ego was a force of nature. It was like being hit by waves of arrogance. I was both called and, I’ll admit, a little impressed.

My first lesson involved a 90-minute pilgrimage to his house. Billy met me at the door, nervous energy radiating off him. Marty opens the door, a cigarette permanently fixed to his lower lip.

And the interrogation begins. He asks me about my background. I lay it on thick: classically trained, child prodigy, played all the dead German guys. The usual. Then came the question that would unravel my entire musical identity: “What do you play over a C7 chord?”

With the confidence of someone who was about to walk into a room full of music experts, I replied, “C, E, G, B-flat.”

He didn’t even look at me. He just stared at the floor, took a cigarette, and let the smoke curl out as he muttered, “Man, that’s a fuckin shame.”

My brain short-circuited. A damn shame? I gave him the notes. The right notes. They are the right notes, aren’t they? A cold dread started to creep in. The kind of dread you feel when you realize you’ve been confidently wrong about something for a very, very long time.

He finally looks up, his eyes locking onto mine, and delivers the line that still echoes in my mind on bad days: “You’ve been playing all these years and you don’t know shit about music.”

Silence. I had nothing. What do you say to that? The worst part was the rapid transformation from a fumbling novice to a theory-slinger. My entire musical life felt like a lie. It was a profoundly confusing moment. I felt naked.

As, I believed him. Billy’s as all the proof I needed. My and deeply unsettling.

For the next year, I, an aspiring pianist, became the student of a guitarist. My lessons were at his kitchen table, a space that felt more like an opera theater where my musical ego was being systematically dissected. This was the guy who co-produced with Nile Rodgers, who was working with Sheen E. Aston. The air was thick with a mixture of awe, intimidation, and the constant, low-grade terror of saying the wrong thing.

Our first rehearsal…

In the lesson, he demonstrated the cycle of fourths. It was incredibly simple and logical, almost like a cosmic joke. I had spent years trying to solve a complex equation, only to be told the answer was “4.” The cycle of fifths, the revered cornerstone of every music institution, is a theoretical concept. It’s not playable. The cycle of fourths, however, was real. It was music.

My time with Marty was a rollercoaster of breakthroughs and breakdowns. He was a brilliant teacher, but his methods were unconventional. He was a classic gaslighter, an astringent critic who offered both backhanded compliments and soul-crushing critiques. One week, I’d leave feeling like a god. The next, I’d be driving home in despair, questioning my life choices.

I once missed a lesson. My grandmother had passed away, and in the fog of grief, I forgot to call. The next week, I showed up, apologized, and paid him for the missed session. He proceeded to tear into me, yelling about commitment and progress. It was brutal. I later learned that he was likely withdrawing from painkillers, but at the moment, it was just raw, unfiltered rage. It was traumatic. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t even bring myself to call him. I wrote him a letter, drove the hour and a half to his house, and put it in his mailbox. It was a cowardly goodbye, but it was all I could manage.

And that was the end of my time with Marty Soleil. It was a painful, confusing, and absolutely transformative experience. He broke me down and rebuilt me, leaving me with baggage but also with the key to understanding music in a way I had never experienced before.