We were lucky to catch up with Rory Hoffman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rory, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’m not one to learn to do things the conventional way. I lay the guitar on my lap, and play it overhanded, with my right hand on top of the neck. I started doing this because I was too little to wrap my hand around the necks of my dad’s and grandpa’s guitars, and they were heavy to hold, as a three-year-old kid. But, I could plop the guitar on my lap, and press on the strings and change the notes, so as I grew older I kept developing that. Fast forward a few years, I wanted to learn banjo. There was a gentleman who offered to give me a banjo, if I’d learn to hold and play it conventionally. He was convinced a 5-string banjo could not be played doing it my way. So, I decided I’d buy a banjo…

Rory, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a full-time musician. This takes many forms, performance as a leader, performance as a sideman to other artists, recording projects, sometimes even background music for corporate events. I grew up in a musical family, so I’ve been on stages and recording studios since age 3. Music is as much a hobby as it is a career, which is nice, because I can turn the hobby part of it into the career. This is one of the things that sets me apart. I have a very large instrument collection from all over the world. I’m actually interested in learning how to play them, not just store them and be proud of my collection. If someone is working on a recording project, for example, and they need that exotic or unusual sound, I’m one of very few people who will be contacted. This also makes me very valuable as a stage musician. Someone who likes a large variety of sound in their performance can hire me, because I’m the guy who can bring the accordion, and the hurdy gurdy, and the pipa.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Excellent, idea/tech, we can work on implementation/use case. I’m a fan of blockchain and crypto innovation. As with all things, a lot of it is utterly garbage, money grab, hype. But that doesn’t mean the tech is the problem. I, myself, am not as big a fan of the meme culture aspect of NFTs. But I certainly do see a use case for having, not only a provable, but also transferable, ownership of a piece of art or property. I can see the value of NFT holders having special privileges or opportunities.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Pivots happen all the time. There was the time I decided I decided I had to move away from South Dakota and come to Nashville. For me, it was kind of opposite of the stories you hear or imagine. I didn’t move to Nashville to “make it big” as an artist. A lot of time, energy, and money had been spent in South Dakota, building a recording studio, Paying for magazine/press articles, paying for intense nationwide radio promotion, creating a short-lived television show on a Christian network, even hosting artist seminar/conventions with competitions and prizes. I could go on. So by the time I moved to Nashville, i no longer had the attitude of “I’m moving to Nashville to become a star, or die trying”. By the time i made the move here, it was with more practical motives like, “I want to use my skills as a musician to earn a living. With that living i earn, I can still be creative and artistic, but I don’t need to succeed or fail strictly as the headline star.”

Contact Info:

• Website: roryhoffman.com
• Facebook: fb.com/rorystory
• Youtube: youtube.com/roryhoffmanmusic