Hobby: Shawn Hoff stays busy with guitar hobby

Shawn Hoff bought his first guitar at the age of 16, but it wasn’t until he came to Harmony many years later that he actually started playing it. About 10 years ago, he moved from Hastings to Harmony, but Becky, his wife, wasn’t able to move with him for about six months and so he spent his first winter in the area living alone and so bored that he finally picked up his guitar and started playing.

Although Shawn didn’t grow up in Fillmore County, he does have ties to the area through his grandparents who lived in Rushford for most of their lives. So when he and Becky began the search for a home, Harmony seemed like a perfect fit and the fact that the move kicked off his musical hobby was icing on the cake. Shawn started with an acoustic guitar that first winter in Harmony, learning chords and fingerings from books before moving on to YouTube tutorials. “There’s really a wealth of information on YouTube,” he said. “There’s everything from beginner to seasoned pro.” Eventually, he added electric guitar, bass, and keyboard to his repertoire of musical instruments, although his favorite now is the electric guitar, of which he is a self-described “moderate” player.

Shawn credits his love for guitar playing to the oldies radio station he listened to when he was growing up. “I enjoyed listening to Motown… and that style of guitar really impacted me,” he explained, adding that while he doesn’t generally play that genre, listening to it made a big impression on him. Currently, his favorite genre of music is metal, specifically doom metal, although he noted that his tastes evolve and change over time. “I like making noise, like a wall of noise, with kind of a groove to it,” he said.

After spending about four years teaching himself how to play guitar, Shawn met Gary Ronken, a drummer from Harmony and the two started playing open mic night at On the Crunchy Side. At some point, bass player Jeff Junge joined them and the trio formed a band called Charlie Horus. Thanks to the pandemic, they haven’t played in a while, but are looking forward to doing it again as things open back up. Shawn found that playing his guitar with other people even helped him improve his skill after he plateaued working on it by himself.

While the pandemic cramped Shawn’s style in some ways, it opened it up in others. He used the time to start learning guitar repair such as rewiring strings, remodeling guitars, etc. “The hobby goes hand in hand with guitar playing,” he said. His current favorite guitar is a red Epiphone SG that he modified to be unique just for him, with a lot of attention to detail. A few years ago, Shawn also dabbled with recording, laying each instrument track himself before combining them into one song. While he hasn’t done that for a while, he is interested in picking it back up again as it’s a process he enjoys. “It’s a golden age for the home musician,” he said. “There are so many tools for recording.”

For Shawn, the hardest part of playing guitar is learning how to play through any mistakes he might make. The natural instinct is to stop and correct mistakes, but that doesn’t work so well when you’re playing with others. “It’s taking a leap of faith,” he said. Playing with Ronken and Junge is something he really enjoys. “I can zone out and just play,” he explained. Charlie Horus has played together long enough that each band member is comfortable with the others’ styles and know their limits.

Music is his hobby, but Shawn also has a day job as a social worker with Olmsted County along with helping Becky with her consignment business in Harmony, Bee Balm. While he plans to keep music as a hobby, he would like to get into some instrument repair and possibly teaching at some point. “I noticed that there are a lot of people around here that are very musical,” he said. The closest music shops to Harmony are in Rochester or La Crosse and Shawn would like to see some of those services in the Harmony area as well.

While some are looking for fame and fortune with their music, Shawn is happy where he’s at right now. “It’s cathartic,” he said. “It’s a release, mostly.”