Taylor Swift: A computer technician taught you to play the guitar! Know it
Taylor Swift learned to play the guitar and composed her first song when a computer technician visited her home and taught her about music.
Taylor Swift is one of the most important singers and songwriters of the moment. She has won multiple Grammy Awards, and almost a hundred more awards in both pop and country music.
In her days as a rising country star, and even now, one of Taylor Swift's highlights is her talent for guitar and piano, with her acoustic performances being the favorite of her fans.
For this reason, the Daily News medium set out to find the man responsible for planting the seed of love for the guitar in pop superstar Taylor Swift.
Who was Taylor Swift's guitar teacher?
The true story behind Taylor Swift's guitar 'legend' is Ronnie Cremer, a DC Computer Repairs computer repairman who was based in Reading, Pennsylvania until a couple of years ago.
Taylor Swift's story has been told endlessly, but never fully. Anyone with a basic understanding of pop culture can recite her cast of friends, exes, and characters in her official bio: John Mayer, Lena Dunham, Joe Jonas, Karlie Kloss, Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston, and more.
But there is also Ronnie Cremer. The man behind the myth. Or the man who forgot the myth. Haven't you heard of him? Neither did I, until a few hours ago, but he is about the man who taught her first guitar chords to Taylor Swift.
Thanks to the computer repairman, Ronnie Cremer, "Lucky You" was born, the first song composed by Taylor Swift at 12 years of age. The interpreter herself has told a story many times that she tells like this.
"When I was about 12 years old, this magical twist of fate (happened). I was doing my homework [when the technician who was fixing my computer] looked and saw the guitar in the corner. And he said, 'Do you play guitar?' I said, 'Oh. No. I tried, but ...' He said, 'Do you want me to teach you some chords?' and I was like, 'Uh yeah. YES!' "
Which brings us to Ronnie Cremer, and the interview he gave to the Daily News in 2015, when Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off" was playing on all the radio stations and streaming services.
Meet Ronnie Cremer, Taylor Swift's teacher
"I do not want to burn any bridges. But at the same time, at some point it will be the moment," he said about revealing his side of the story to the press, and with a platinum album by Taylor Swift, a gift from Scott Swift, the singer's father on his office wall.
Ronnie Cremer fixes computers, yes, but he is also a respected local musician, who has seen Taylor Swift tell this story on many television shows and has wanted to hear what he says is the full version:
"The first time I heard from Taylor, my brother had a theater company. They had after-show parties and karaoke.
"I only met Taylor face-to-face in 2002. I had a store in Leesport. It was a computer store, and that's where I had my little studio. My brother brought Taylor, his mom and his brother. And he introduced me, and he said. , 'Would you be interested in recording a demo?'
"It was a couple of song covers. I recorded the demo for her. It wasn't a great demo, but it was a demo."
“After doing the demo, my brother and Andrea Swift approached me again. 'Would you be interested in giving guitar lessons for Taylor? We are trying to teach him to play country music. ' I said, "I don't know if I can teach country music. I don't know any country music. I know rock music."
"But we eventually got together. They went to my house once, but from then on we met at his house in Wyomissing." And from there, says Ronnie Cremer, they continued working, two afternoons a week at $ 32 an hour.
"Honestly, it probably took months before I even looked for a computer," says Ronnie Cremer, "I did computer work for them, but the computer work eventually came after I started working on the guitar. He went from teaching him guitar to teaching him. how to structure songs ".
This is a perfectly good story, but how does Ronnie feel about the shortened version of Taylor Swift?
Did Taylor Swift betray her teacher?
"I never wanted to be the person who always envies someone's success," says Ronnie Cremer, "And for whatever reason, and I don't know if I'm mad at the Swifts. It's just that their publicity team, that doesn't sell as much. Okay: a bald 36-year-old taught her. That's not going to work. If you say he worked with her six hours a week, it was basically Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 8. That's not going to sell. "
"Growth is treason. There is no other route. You cannot get to a place without leaving somewhere."
"I honestly thought she was a pretty good student," said musician and guitar teacher Taylor Swift, still sitting on that stool in the front of her computer store during her interview.
"We started with G, D, E, A [...] Where he had problems were the most difficult chords, the F and the B. F is very difficult for the fingers, so I would teach him things like, 'Okay, yes you want to play a song in F, play it in D and put the capo on the third capo. So you realize that when he plays, he still moves that capo a lot. "
At first, Taylor Swift's progress was slow. "The first few months I thought it was a joke," says Ronnie, but the now Grammy winner, she went on and they started working with Ableton Live, a useful computer program for songwriting and recording.
“I said, 'Here's your chorus. Here's your verse. Move these around and see what you got. You can write a verse, a chorus and then you have a song. ' That just clicked for her and it made sense. "
During this time, Ronnie Cremer was also trying to help build a website for Taylor Swift, but says her mother Andrea Swift did that difficult job.
"That was ultimately what led me to separate from Andrea, because she was like a bull in a china shop," she says. "If you didn't stop what you were doing to work on whatever Taylor wanted, she would go crazy," prompting her to stop working with the Swift family.
Did you know this story about how Taylor Swift learned all the basics of music and guitar? Tell us in the comments what you think about her relationship with Ronnie Cremer.
