A Busy Week and Lesson Number Three

B-Dub

It's been a busy week which promises to stay that way, rain or no rain.  Monday is guitar lesson day and I got a late start for Mount Pleasant, but I made it on time.  More about that later.

Tuesday I cooked.  Yeah, I know that's generally Jeff's thing, but I like to cook sometimes and I'd been craving lasagna.  Being on Weight Watchers I wanted to make a healthy version and figure out the "points" so I could know what I was eating and how to count it.  I even made the lasagna noodles from scratch.  It was a lot of fun and it turned out great, but it pretty much took all day.

Wednesday, B-Dub had the first injection of his heartworm treatment and he was sick all morning.  So of course I had to worry all day.  By afternoon he was feeling better but I've been advised to keep him drugged and inactive.  That's not going over very well.  Yesterday the drugs did their job, but by this morning he's metabolizing them faster and he's looking at me like, "Okay.  Let's go.  What the heck?  Why aren't we out in the neighborhood by now?!  I've got scents to sniff, for crying out loud--let's go!!!"  I'm not sure I'm going to survive three weeks of this.

So today I'm finally getting a chance to write about my lesson.  I must've done okay on last week's practice 'cause we didn't linger over it.  John first showed me some blues and I was thrilled.  Wow!  I can really do this!  I mean, it's still only A, D and E, but it's definitely a basic blues riff.  Yeah, I'm grinnin'.

Next he started talking about music theory--half steps and whole steps--and when I told him I'd had some piano lessons as a kid, he was pleased.  Now I just need to translate the keyboard to the fretboard.  And I'm making progress.  The riff is the intro of Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water and I've seen little kids do it at a couple of Conner's recitals.  Gosh, I wish I could figure out a way to do a drawing here.  At this point, let's suffice it to say my old fingers don't want to go that way.  Hahaha!!

At first it was physically painful; wrist twisting, finger stretching, hand cramping pain.  But as with all stretching, eventually it happens.  Now, I'm not saying I'm all the way there yet, but I can tell I will get there if I don't give up.  I told Jeff I thought I was gonna have to split practice into two, thirty minute sessions, but I haven't had time for that, and it was probably a good thing I didn't.

Monday night I had a devil of a time.  My problem was I visually kept track of the wrong finger.  I should have been watching the position of my number one finger (the index finger) but instead tracked the number three finger (the ring finger) because that was the one being stretched to its limits and I had a hard time getting and keeping it on the correct string.  Oy!  That visual really threw me off, but being a technician instead of a musician my brain needed some way to make the connection.

Tuesday night, after spending all day in the kitchen, I was bone tired.  On the other hand, I was also exhilarated because Jeff loved the lasagna and it was fun making the noodles.  So instead of blowing off guitar practice, I ignored my back pain and did it.  I didn't feel like I made any progress, but I guess I did, even though it must have been incremental.

Last night, I could tell I was moving forward.  My fingers stretched out enough for me to realize I could pick them up to move them up and down the neck instead of sliding them, which wasn't working so well.  And I didn't have to press the strings so hard.  Definitely encouraging and I'm looking forward to today's practice.

I'm learning so much and I'm having a ball.  Sheesh!  What was I waiting for?  Thanks again to Conner and Joe for one of the greatest Christmas presents ever!  Not that I'm gonna stop at one month, but I just needed that push to get me started.

Oh!  One more thing, on Sunday night I changed the strings on the Fender, which I've been using for lessons.  Hahaha!!!  It's been a lot of years since I changed strings and I knew, at the very least, I'd wound one side incorrectly.  John, in his kindness, confirmed that error, and went on to show me the other mistakes I'd made.  Thankfully those mistakes haven't rendered the guitar unplayable, but I'll probably have a professional do it next time.

Stay tuned!  

Year of Guitar

Eric Johnson and Me

Okay, I've decided this blog has sat idle long enough.  And I need something to keep me writing since my fiction muse has gone on an extended vacation.

What I'm most excited about, here in the beginning of 2011, is that my sweet nephew and brother-in-law gave me guitar lessons for Christmas!! My teacher will be the same man who teaches both of them, John Smith at Music Unlimited in Mt. Pleasant.  I haven't scheduled my first lesson yet, but I'm getting reacquainted with my guitars and rebuilding my callouses.  They're coming along nicely, I must say.  I'm very excited!

I began my on-again/off-again relationship with the guitar when I was at Marshall University, way "back in the day" when I started hanging out with musicians.  Through them, I developed a love of live music that is still with me. 

I can't say exactly when my personal music tastes changed from the pop music of my youth to more guitar driven music, but I clearly remember delaying a road trip so I could listen, one last time before we left, to Duane Allman playing "Jessica" on Brothers and Sisters.  Eric Clapton's "Layla" captivated me for not only the guitar, but also that great piano ending.  I did have four years of piano from fourth to eighth grade.  I was never very good at it.

My musician friends helped me get a fairly decent guitar--certainly one good enough for my feeble talents and I learned several chords from them.  I got pretty good at some of the chord changes and 3-chord songs.  I seemed to have better rhythm with the guitar than I did on the piano.

But in 1990 (I know that's a lifetime ago to some people) I became somewhat obsessed with guitar music.  That was the year of Joe Satriani's Surfing with the Alien and Eric Johnson's Ah Via Musicom.  Not only were they released, but they got actual airplay on FM radio!  Thank you to the powers-that-be!  This music was like nothing I'd ever heard before and it I knew I'd been waiting for it my whole life.  Without lyrics, it spoke to me.  It soothed and calmed me.  It defies my description even today.

John Smith, my teacher, has done an incredible job with my nephew, Conner.  He started taking lessons at . . . I think age ten.  Five years in and he rocks!!  I'm so proud of him!  Now, his father is taking lessons from John and soon I will be too.  John also taught the late Wesley Burlingham who, at a party a few years ago inspired me to pick my guitar back up and learn some more on my own. 

(Sigh)  Gosh.  Wesley is so sorely missed.

But I know he'll be right there with me as I begin this adventure in guitar to which I'm so looking forward!  And I hope some of you will follow along as well.  I'm sure there will be successes just as I'm sure there will be struggles.  But I bet I'll have a good time no matter what. 

It's a good thing I can laugh at myself, 'cause there's bound to be a lot of that!