“If music be the food of love, play on.” (Orsino, Act 1 Scene 1) What Music Can Teach Us About Financial Advisors

First impressions matter. In music, in people—and in financial advice.

One of the greatest rock guitarists of all time also holds a PhD in astrophysics, which might give you pause. That tension between expectation and reality is the point. Brian May, the legendary lead guitarist of Queen, is also a trained physicist who returned decades later to finish his doctorate.

He builds guitar harmonies the way an engineer designs bridges—layer by layer, with precision, intention, and a deep respect for structure.

Most people meet Brian May first through sound, not credentials. And most people encounter financial advice the same way—through surface impressions, inherited bias, financial journalism, or past experiences that might not reflect an accurate picture.

Music, it turns out, offers a useful lens for thinking about advice, judgment, and value.

Different Guitars, Different Genius.

Consider Eric Clapton. Clapton’s brilliance lies in subtraction. He pares music down to its emotional core. Few notes. Clean phrasing. Nothing extra. His genius is restraint.

Brian May does the opposite. He builds music upward; harmonized leads stacked like architectural beams. Where Clapton edits, May constructs. Neither is better. Both are masters. They simply answer different musical emotions.

And then there’s David Gilmour—my personal favorite. Gilmour is the clean poet. He uses space the way silence is used in literature and film. A handful of notes, sustained just long enough to let emotion bloom. He doesn’t build cathedrals or strip things bare. He paints landscapes. You don’t rush through a Gilmour solo; you inhabit it.

Three guitarists. Three approaches. Three kinds of brilliance.

Bias, First Impressions, and Missed Value.

Too often, people judge financial advice the way they judge music genres they’ve already decided they don’t like.

“I don’t need an advisor—I can do this myself.” “Advisors just sell products.” “Insurance has high costs.” “Roth conversions will save money on taxes.”

“It all sounds complicated.”

Those reactions aren’t irrational. They’re human. They’re also incomplete.

Just as no one guitarist defines what music should sound like, no single planning style defines what good advice looks like.

Some advisors specialize in simplification—paring decisions down so clients aren’t overwhelmed and take forward steps. Others excel at building complex structures: estate plans, tax strategies, intergenerational wealth transfer.

Some focus on emotional clarity—helping clients stay grounded during volatility. Many say they’re retirement income specialists when their real specialty is annuity sales.

The good ones know how to connect the dots to create a beautiful image.

The problem isn’t that people lack access to advice. It’s that they often don’t know where to look for value—or how to recognize it when it’s quietly doing its job.

The Architecture You Don’t See.

Great music often hides its complexity. The listener hears feeling; the musician sees scaffolding.

The same is true with planning. The most effective advice rarely feels dramatic. It feels steady. It arrives in manageable phrases, not overwhelming sounds.

Progress is made in achievable bites—adjusting savings rates, refining risk exposure, updating beneficiaries, investing in time-based sleeves, revisiting assumptions.

A good advisor doesn’t hand you a finished score. They help you learn the rhythm of your own financial life.

That’s where real value lives—not in predictions, but in process. Not in noise, but in structure and discipline.

Finding the Right Sound.

If you expect every advisor to sound the same, you’ll miss the music.

Some clients need a Clapton—someone who strips things down and keeps them clean. Others need a Brian May—someone who can design and maintain a complex, long-term structure. Many benefit from a Gilmour—an advisor who understands pacing, emotion, and the importance of steady space when markets get loud.

The value of advice isn’t always obvious at first listen. But if you know where to look—and how to listen—you begin to hear it in the consistency, the calm, and the quiet progress over time.

When you find an advisor who can break planning into achievable, meaningful steps—who helps you move forward without feeling overwhelmed—you don’t just get a strategy. You get clarity, confidence and, eventually, a result that feels less like noise and more like music.