You’'re not always what you think you are.

I’'m a musician.
I have three guitars and a penny whistle.
One of the guitars, a little acoustic job, was given to me when I was very small.
I managed to teach myself a one-fingered approximation of the intro to “What’'d I Say?” By Ray Charles.
Then I had five or six lessons and learned a few chords.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G plus a minor and a seventh or two.
It hurt my fingers.
So I didn'’t practice very often.
But eventually I picked up enough to struggle through a couple of Bob Dylan numbers and “Here Comes The Sun” by the Beatles.
Plus one or two other simple tunes.
I wasn'’t really good enough but I joined a group.
We played in youth clubs and at parties.
The fact I had a guitar impressed people even if what I did with it didn’'t.
But they could just about recognise most of the notes I played so they didn'’t complain too much.
They clapped politely.
And once or twice they paid us.
I told myself I would never get any better without a better guitar.
So when I was older, I bought myself one.
My playing did improve.
But not much.
I was good enough to entertain myself at home with some simple songs.
But not to perform in public.
I told myself it would be much easier to play an electric guitar, what with all the effects and such.
So I bought myself one.
And my playing didn’t improve at all.
But, never mind, I can still pick up one or other of the instruments from time to time and pretend I’'m Bert Jansch or Muddy Waters.
And tell myself that, as I know a few chords and can scratch out some basic blues and country numbers, albeit littered with errors, I’'m a musician.
As for the penny whistle, Frère Jacques is as far as I’'ve got but it’'s early days.
I’'ve lost count of the number of copywriters I’'ve come across during the time I'’ve spent on Social and Business Networking sites.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
I read a lot of what they have to say.
A lot of them have trouble spelling.
Let alone writing.
Here’s one for you.
The other day one of our brethren spoke of some written material as, “mascarading as good copy”.
Double ouch!
But I suppose with so many words spewing into the ether these days, there’'s a desperate need for people to provide them all.
“Come on boys and girls, jump aboard our online bandwagon and scribble away!”
Which means that quantity is so much more important than quality.
“Quick killer content” more important than care.
Copywriters can ignore the need to craft their words.
As long as they can get some semblance of sense across, it’'s fine.
The technology will take care of the rest.
And there’'s such a huge amount of online debris among which to hide.
No one will notice, will they?
It will be lost within seconds, won'’t it?
Well, if approximations in English, after a six-week correspondence course and one website worth of experience, are enough for someone to call themselves a copywriter, then my approximations on six strings are enough for me to call myself a musician.
Yes?
No?
Rock and roll.