Could Play a Guitar

My friend Rae asked me the other day if I was still playing guitar. Apparently I’ve stopped bringing the conversation up every five minutes. Though my adventures as a Guitar Goddess have not been exciting enough to post, they have not ceased. In fact, I consider “Teach Myself Guitar” to be one of my more successful endeavors.

Though I cannot, as of yet, play anything that the world at large would call a “song,” I can hear a difference in the way that I play. I have a respectable six chords to my name (okay, maybe five; I can’t really play C but I know how I’m supposed to be able to play it if I had Gumby-fingers). I’ve moved strumming with chords from the “Impossibly Hard” category to the “I’m Not Too Bad at This” category, and I’m happily chewing through the guitar lessons on about.com.

The lessons are structured so that you practice the basics before you get to the real music (crazy, I know). The first couple of lessons feature scales and strumming exercises so that you can learn to move your hands around a guitar. This skill becomes important when you have to change chords mid-word during a song. Right now, my chord exchange time sounds something like this, “Take it ease.......................................................y.” Though the Eagles seem like a laid back sort of band, I’m sure they never intended that audience members would be able to make a cheese sandwich in the time it takes to play half of one of their lyrics. Thus, I practice the scales and strumming patterns daily.

Luckily I enjoy the technique practices. While, yes, they are rote, I do hear a difference in my attempts at playing songs. I’m confident that playing that one scale yet again will someday result in intricately-fingered guitar solos. I’m sure that if I just keep strumming a C chord, eventually it will sound like a C chord (even if my contorted fingers are callused and bleeding).

I like to think of it as the Karate Kid method. I just need to wax on/wax off enough and someday I’ll have crazy ninja guitar skills. Until then I shall play beautiful scale patterns and “take it ease...............................................y.”