At a far corner of the Gig Harbor Farmers Market, a young man sits on the pulled-down tailgate of a parked car, slowly strumming the strings of a guitar. While shoppers roam about, sipping cups of latte and carrying newly purchased packages of freshly baked bread and homegrown vegetables, the youth’s only focus is the instrument in his hand. His mentor, seated in front of him, gives him pointers and helps adjust his fingers to the proper place on the neck of the guitar.
Billy Farmer offers free guitar lessons to anyone who wants to learn at the Farmers Market every Saturday morning at the Kimball Park & Ride in Gig Harbor. And 12-year-old Triston Bills has been showing up since Day 1.
Farmer even accommodated Bills early one Saturday before his gig at the Wenatchee Apple Blossom festival.
“He was making good progress,” Farmer said. “I didn’t want there to be a break. He needed that lesson.”
Bills said his goal is to learn Metallica’s “Run to the Hills” by the end of the summer.
“He’ll be an expert by the end of the summer,” Farmer deadpanned. “I always ask the student what song they want to learn to play, and use that. With a specific song, they think, ‘As soon as I can figure out that song ... ’ and by the time they do, they find out they’ve been playing all the time.”
Farmer recalled when he was learning how to play, he was taught with “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.”
“Now that I’m older, I think it’s a great song,” he said with a laugh. “But when I was a kid, that wasn’t what made me want to play guitar.
“When a kid comes to me with a song they want to learn, I have to learn it to teach them. So that has caused me to learn to grow.”
Bills, a student at Kopachuck Middle School in Gig Harbor, brings his own guitar, a Peavey Raptor, and amplifier, but Farmer has equipment for students to use if they don’t have their own. Farmer even bought a smaller guitar that’s comfortable for young people, plus a left-handed guitar.
“I had a 15-year-old student who just couldn’t get it,” he said. “So we flipped it around the other way, and she started to go. She was fine after that. She played left-handed.”
Bills said when he played guitar, he felt like he didn’t have to worry about anything.
“It makes me not have to worry about school,” he said. “The guitar is a very interesting instrument. It looks like you could only play a few notes, but then you find out there’s hundreds.”
Farmer voluntarily plays at the Farmers Market from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., and he plans to perform and give guitar lessons at the Skansie Park Farmers Market when it opens on Wednesdays in June.
Farmer plays a variety of music, ranging from country to rock to folk. After 30 years in the music industry, he said he’s “done with drama” and likes the casual, relaxed atmosphere at the market.
“People stop by and sometimes sing a song with an open mic,” he said. “It gives me a chance to break out a banjo or a mandolin and do something different. I like working with people like Triston. It’s the absolute hope in music.”
Teaching also has helped Farmer expand his mentoring style.
“It’s different teaching someone to play on an electric guitar,” he said. “I used to think you had to learn on acoustic guitar, but I’ve changed my opinion.
“Triston doesn’t have an acoustic guitar,” Farmer added. “You have to deal with the circumstances you’re presented with. You have to continue to adapt.”
Farmer was spurred on to give guitar lessons when he had a young student drop out of one of his classes because he couldn’t afford the lessons.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “For every one that you see, there’s a whole bunch of other kids that would like to learn but can’t afford it.”
That’s a sad scenario, Farmer said, because a lot of the children who want to learn have talent.
“I am able to see it right away,” he said. “It’s like turning on a light switch. Then you see the whole self-esteem thing, and it just goes from there.”
Bills said he’d continue to take lessons at the market as long as he could get a ride, which usually comes from his grandmother, Ellen Bills.
“We read about the guitar lessons in the newspaper, and we were here the very first day,” she said.
Farmer said he’ll also be available for his young students throughout the market.
“I’ll be here until the last tent is torn down,” he said.
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