Unwarranted Optimism

Guitar Lesson, Number Two. Okay. Here goes.

After my first attempt at guitar, I’ll admit it, I was a tad discouraged. Apparently, I’m not an intuitively gifted guitarist. I comforted myself with the knowledge that out there in the big big world are people who teach guitar. While, “I taught myself how to play guitar,” sounds much cooler than, “I learned how to play guitar at community college night classes,” I feel better knowing that I have a solid plan B available.

Thus reassured, I took another look at my songbook. I found The Little Black Songbook: Paul Simon on sale at Barnes & Noble. I love Paul Simon dearly. My subtitle is a quote from “Can’t Run But” off his The Rhythm of the Saints album. I bought his songbook because (a) I want to be the sort of person who buys the songbooks of musicians they love, (b) I love Paul Simon, and (c) I know most of his songs so well that I’ll be able to tell if I’m playing them correctly or not.

After calming down from the initial shock of “How many chords are there?!” I was able to see that the chords of each song are clearly labeled in the songbook, much how they are clearly labeled in my borrowed chord bible. I got out my iPod and began listening to Paul Simon songs for the simplest one I could learn. After calming down from the initial shock of “Why did I choose such a talented musician’s songbook?!” I found the perfect song: “Bookends.” I checked the songbook and, sure enough, there are only three chords! Plus, its one of those sad introspective Simon and Garfunkel songs so I can change chords really slowly. I can totally do this song!

Thus rearmed with completely unwarranted optimism, I began guitar lesson, number two: the easy song!

I started with D minor and I got that chord down cold. I even branched out to F and C. At the end I even tried changing between them, but only a couple times before I decided I could save “changing notes” for another lesson.

As I sit down to lesson three, I’m pretty sure the only thing that stuck from lesson two is that D minor chord.

I feel like a rock star.

Farncombe, T. (Ed.) (2008). The little black songbook: Paul Simon. New York: Fall River Press.