Guitar Hero

For about 6 weeks preceding my birthday, I told everyone who would listen that I was going to get a guitar and finally learn to play. Will's gift to me was guitar lessons...but I still didn't have a guitar. Then last Sunday, the music director at church surprised me by bringing his old guitar for me to borrow.

If he hadn't played it for me before handing it over, I would have been convinced that something was seriously wrong with this instrument. When I first tried to play it, horrible sounds came out of it, like the cries of a dying animal. By Day Two of DIY lessons off the internet, it was sounding slightly musical, but still more like an out-of-tune ukulele than a guitar. (No offense to ukulele fans.) On Day Three, I went to work and my fingers were so sore that it hurt to type.

On Day Four, I played This Land Is Your Land. When I say "played" I don't mean anyone would actually recognize the song, but I did all the right chords in the right order, very slooooooowly. It seemed like the right song to start with for two reasons. A)it only has 3 chords, and B)it was the first song I learned on the piano two-handed. It always reminds me of Grandma Lemke, whose stubby fingers could make beautiful music come out of her creaky old upright, in spite of several keys that stuck. (Did honey really have something to do with this, or was that just my childish imagination?)

Today is Day Five, and I learned another song, Peace Like A River. My strategy is to keep trying to play a little every day, until my fingers toughen up enough to withstand an hour long lesson, and then I will go to a legitimate instructor.

I suppose I ought to learn how to tune it.