Hello.  My name is Brent Murphree, and this is my guitar.  I've had it for about 4 months now, but to be quite honest, I still can't play for beans...at least yet anyway.  This guitar symbolizes (at least to me) my life and how much music impacts it.

As I recall it, the start of my music career started in the 6th grade, learning to play the french horn.  I wasn't a slow learner by any means, but I was certainly not the fastest.  It wasn't until about 9th grade or so that I really started to take hold of my musical abilities.  In high school, band was all I ever knew.  From 1999 to 2003, my life revolved around band...my life 'was' band.  From the start of the first football game my freshman year to the final concert performance my senior year, band was my life, my friends, and most of all my passion.

You know, one of my most favorite memories I have from my high school band years was my senior year band banquet.  They were handing out awards for outstanding accomplishments.  Barely paying attention, I hear the category of Most Valuable Player and think nothing of it.  I should mention at this point that I was sitting right by my parents...they announce my name, and without hesitation my father goes "You've got to be kidding me!"  There's no way that's my son!"  Obviously, he was being sarcastic.  I do however remember walking up to the podium with one of the biggest smiles on my face ever.  That trophy that was awarded to me sits in the curio cabinet back at home.  Every now and then I'll walk by it and start to have flashbacks to that one moment.  It was the proudest I have ever seen my parents of my musical accomplishments.

Unfortunately though, once I graduated high school, I started suffering from hypertension and kidney stones.  There was one thing though that was always able to bring me back from the depression that held a firm grasp on my life...music.  I can pick up my horn, or my trumpet, and just start playing a few verses from old high school stand tunes or marching performances, and I could literally feel my heart mending itself by releasing my worries through the instrument itself.  If you have never felt it before, it's an extremely powerful experience.

Even to this day, I still never go more than a day or two without pulling out my horn, trumpet, or my guitar.  I still don't get to play my music as often as I'd like to...mainly because of schoolwork and working odd hours doing pharmacy tech work.  Whenever I do have free time however, I love to just sit in a quiet room and fill it up with music from my past.  

Here lately though, I've been trying to pick up playing the guitar though.  In my mind, I see the act of playing my guitar as yet another challenge.  So far, I've accomplished or at least am on my way to, accomplishing all of my goals.  Learning how to play the guitar though reminds me though that even though I might be where I want to be right now, there is still so much I need to learn.  But I'll get there...eventually.