polly want a cracker

Last night The Mighty Sam gave me chords to:

• Man of Constant Sorrow
  
• Well All Right
  
• Gloria
  
• Lola (at least the beginning part)
  
• Polly

For "Well All Right" and "Man of Constant Sorrow" he introduced me to the capo. I actually knew what a capo was before but this was the first time I've ever played with one. It's rather odd. When you get way up the neck the frets get a lot closer together.

But there's a way to play "Man of Constant Sorrow" without a capo - you just slide the F chord up six frets, then up two more, then back to F. That's the whole song.

I'm quite pleased with being able to play "Polly." Now I need to learn all the words.

I also figured out the chords to "Laid" over the weekend. When I revealed this to The Mighty Sam, he got mighty angry. He thinks I'm weird for liking that song so much.

Spent most of tonight working on a brief for our civil division, but I still took half an hour to play through the additions to my repertoire. There's a beautiful mindfulness that happens while playing the guitar. It's very Zen.

like that episode of TNG

I was practicing.

The Mighty Sam said, "What are you playing?"

"A song by Phil Ochs," I said. "'The Bells.' It has a Bm and F#m in it, so I fake them."

"Nah, don't do that. You may as well learn the barre chords now. Screw those fakes."

He taught me Bm and F#m. Pretty cool, especially since they actually sounded ok when I played them. I've NEVER been able to make a barre chord sound right. So that was VERY exciting. He also showed me a different way to play A7.

Sam went off to do some Sam-things, and I practiced those for a while.

Soon, The Mighty Sam emerged from the hallway with a paper in his hand. "Let me show you this song," he said. It was "Reeling in the Years" by Steely Dan.

It has a lot of werid stuff in it. Sam taught me the Bm7 (barre chord) and Gmaj7 (easy) and F#m7 (barre chord), and then there's this very weird chord in there - a Bbdim7. Sam worked out a way to transition between the A7 and the weird Bbdim7, and he said, "That's pretty advanced." It seemed straightforward to me though: Play the A7 the old way, with index and middle fingers on the B and D strings, then slide them up one fret and put pinky and ring fingers on the E and G strings.

I practiced that for a little bit, then the whole song.

"That Steely Dan song is kind of advanced," Sam said.

I said, "Yeah, but it's good to start working on this. I'm going to have to learn it eventually."

The Mighty Sam said, "It's kind of like that episode on TNG when Q flings the Enterprise way out into deep space, when they first encounter the Borg, and they barely get out of it alive."

I am very happy to be learning barre chords already. And even happier that I can make them sound more or less ok!

practice makes better

I practiced a little bit tonight, even though I didn't feel like getting started. I figured I'd just get through a quick song or two, just to be able to say I practiced today.

It's funny though... once I get started I stop thinking about time and just practice. I play a song once, and I feel like I could do it better, so I play it again, and then again. And then I go to the next song and play that three or four times. And before I know it 45 minutes or an hour have passed.

It's kind of neat how, even though my chord changes seem very slow and awkward when I first sit down to practice, they get easier and faster after I've been playing for a few minutes.

Sam came upstairs while I was practicing tonight. He said, "You're a funny little elf."

I know he means it in a good way. Because a couple of days ago, while I was practicing, he said, "You're doing really well. You're doing better than ANY guitar student I've ever had."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes," said Sam, "and it's because you PRACTICE."

It's been a month now. Well, a month since my first lesson. Three weeks of solid practice. I'm still not a Guitar Hero. I am no prodigy, no idiot savant. I have to work to get what I want. But because I am practicing, I am getting better, little by little.

compliment

Practiced guitar for a while tonight. Sam complimented me on my progress, and how much I've been practicing. That was really nice. I had been frustrated because I am not already a guitar superstar genius. Fortunately for me, The Mighty Sam has the knack of saying the right thing at the right time.

you've got to hide your love away

I have now been practicing guitar for two weeks. I missed one day of practice last week.

The Mighty Sam brought out the electric guitar and a little amp and told me to switch back and forth between it and the classical, so I've been doing that.

I noticed a tendency to play certain chords by putting down one finger at a time. I was particularly bad at that with C, especially if I played a C after a D. Sam told me to practice this by repeatedly tapping the chord on the strings, without using my right hand at all. This is very boring practice, but it does seem to help.

I am now able to play Fs pretty well most of the time - they sound like real chords instead of muffled messes, unless I've been practicing for a while so that my hand is getting tired.

I found some chords on the internet for "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", which is one song I've been wanting to be able to play forever.

Here's something I've noticed about chords and tabs on the internet: A lot of them are the same. One person comes up with some chords or tabs and they post them, and then every other chord/tab web site copies them.

So I found "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" in several places, and it was all the exact same thing, word-for-word, chord-for-chord.

I played it, and it was all good, except the chorus. The chorus was G-C-Dsus-D-D6-D. I played that, but the D6 sounded all wrong! And because everyone copied the same tabs, I couldn't find an alternative.

So I messed around with the guitar for while and soon I found the right chord. I didn't know what the chord was but I could tell it was the right one. Sam had shown me a series of D chords that you can do with very little movement - D, D6, Dsus, and this one other one. It was the one other one that sounded right.

I was SO EXCITED when I got it. Sam was off playing golf so it was just me and the animals in the house. I yelled YES! at the top of my lungs and ran around the house laughing. It was great.

the guitar diet

I have found that there is a really nice fringe benefit to practicing guitar: I don't feel like, or even think about, food while I'm practicing. Since I mainly practice in the evenings, which is when I'm most likely to eat when I'm not actually in need of fuel, I've seem to have broken myself of the habit of mindless eating. Pretty much effortlessly.

Well, not entirely effortlessly. Practicing guitar requires effort. But it's a different kind of effort. A good kind, not a bitter kind.

A couple of those excess pounds have been lost too.

Now I think I'll practice a little more, then go read in bed.

take the skinheads bowling

The Mighty Sam played a couple of chords: C, Fmaj7, over and over. "Do you know what this is?" he asked. "Listen," he said. "Think back to your first year of college."

I listened.

I listened some more.

Finally I said, "Take the skinheads bowling?"

The Mighty Sam laughed. It wasn't the song he was thinking of, but it was the same chords. "I'll stop the world and melt with you," he sang.

I laughed too.

The chords for the chorus of "Take the Skinheads Bowling" are G-F-C.

He said, "You know what other song uses those chords?" (meaning C-Fmaj7) He started playing, "Best of My Love" by the Eagles. He played it for a while, and then said, "And do you know what you do next?"

We both played and sang TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING, TAKE THEM BOWLING!

rough spots

I have gotten the chords to Phil Ochs's The Bells, which is a really cool song because it's based on an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

All of the chords are easy except two barre chords, B minor and F# minor. I figured out fakes for them and showed The Mighty Sam, who pronounced them legitimate fakes. He showed me an even simpler way to do the F# minor.

Then I lost my pick (or really, Sam's pick) and The Mighty Sam said, "I'll get you another one. I was going to move you to a different pick anyway."

I'm kind of in awe of the calluses on my fingers. Feeling the toughness get thicker is just as cool as feeling your muscles get stronger after you've been lifting weights for a while, or running farther and farther without getting tired. It's tangible evidence of my practicing. It's a good thing, to have tangible evidence of your effort. Even a little thing like calluses on the ends of your fingers.

simple as a flower, and that's a complicated thing

Calluses are definitely building up. Left fingertips = rough; right fingertips = smooth.

Oddly, my ring finger has the thickest callus buildup.

A nice fringe benefit: keeping my fingernails short. BG (before guitar) I'd never think about cutting them and next thing I knew I'd have these monstrous hell-nails that would develop tears and sharp spots and they would snag things and look totally disgusting. Having nice short nails all the time is way better.

Tried playing without looking at my left hand today. It was hard, but got easier as I practiced more.

Today I thought: Man, I SUCK! But then I thought, So what? I'm having fun and with luck, The Mighty Sam won't be driven to strangle me in my sleep. And anyway, I haven't even been practicing for a full week yet. I'm going to suck for a while.

It's hard to be patient. But it helps if what you're working on is fun even though you suck.

My favorite song to play right now is "No New Tale to Tell." Because the right-hand stuff is simple enough that I can make it sound kind of the way it's supposed to sound. "Kind of" being used in the most loosest way. And also because all the switches from C to F have improved my F, big time. I still play a shitty F. But at least it's recognizable.

the milkman of human kindness

A while ago, The Mighty Sam went upstairs to fix dinner. "Is there anything I can do?" I asked.

"Practice guitar," he said.

So I did. Until dinner was ready.

+++++++++++++++

Today I thought of:

Billy Bragg! And Phil Ochs!

Will practice again in a few minutes.

day four

This is my fourth day of practicing. The Mighty Sam actually gave me my first lesson some time last week - I don't remember what day, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I can't even remember why we started practicing guitar, but it was so fun that I did a bunch of searches for tabs and links and things late last week, and started drawing chords.

Then Saturday Night we had that long fun lesson where he gave me all those song charts, switched me to the classical guitar, and gave me lots of instruction on how to hold my hands and fingers and wrists.

The next day he found a pick for me to use. I practiced until my fingers wouldn't move right anymore.

This morning I practiced for just a few minutes. Tonight I've had a few practice sessions. When I went to the stool and picked up the guitar, The Mighty Sam groaned, "oh god."

"Do you want me to practice somewhere else?" I asked. It's got to be painful, being a professional composer and having to listen to a rank beginner bang away at C-G-C-Em-A-D. On the other hand, perhaps he remembers when he was a kid... he told me a story of hearing The Cure for the first time and then buying himself his first bass guitar right afterward. I bet he played until his fingers wouldn't work anymore.

He is being very nice and helpful.

Today he gave me a chart for "Pink Houses." I practiced that, and "Heart of Gold", and "Demi Sue", and "Not Fade Away" (I found some Buddy Holly song charts on the intarwebs, and that one is really easy) and "No New Tale to Tell." That last one is hard because there are a ton of Fs in it. But! I must master the F at some point.

I feel like I made some good progress on the C chord, at least until my fingers started getting too tired to press down anymore.

how i love my dog

The Mighty Sam told me that I can start playing Buddy Holly and John Mellencamp.

I got the chords to "Peggy Sue", which is really easy except for that pesky F, and sang it to Demi with her words:

If you knew Demi Sue
Then you'd know a real good pooch
My Demi, My Demi Sue
Oh I love my dog yes I love my Demi Sue

Demi Sue, Demi Sue
Pretty pretty pretty pretty Demi Sue
My Demi, my Demi Sue
Oh I love my dog, yes I love my Demi Sue

Demi loved it. She wagged and smiled. She just loves it when people sing to her.

I also played "Heartbeat", which is even easier than "Demi Sue" as there is no F in it. However, it is kind of hard to go from D to A and from A to D.

The Mighty Sam said he wanted to find a Cure song for me to play but most of those use bar chords. Bar chords are too advanced for me, seeing as it's only my third day. He also played "Creep", which he says is going to be the first bar chord song he teaches me.

i've got blisters on my fingers!

The Mighty Sam gave me a guitar lesson last night.

I'm pretty happy with how it went. I started playing on his electric guitar, and then switched to the classical guitar. I would like to eventually be able to play a big steel string acoustic guitar, so even though the classical guitar is harder to play I like the feel of it much better than the electric.

Sam made song charts for these songs:

• Heart of Gold
  
• No New Tale to Tell
  
• Pictures of Matchstick Men
  
• Last Dance with Mary Jane
  
• You Got Lucky
  
• Breakdown
  
• I Won't Back Down

He also taught me some of "Everybody Hurts" (but I don't have a chart for it). And I found a chart on the intarwebs for "American Pie", which I would probably only want to play if I sang the Weird Al lyrics. A lot of folks were croakin'/The battle droids were broken...

I had made up a little chart for myself so that I could build some chords. I showed it to The Mighty Sam, who pronounced me "smart."

I now have a blister on my right thumb from strumming.

It was fun though. Given that it was only my second lesson, I was pretty happy with how I did. I took guitar lessons for about 3 months in the late 80s, so I remembered a little bit of what I learned then, but I also recall that in three months of lame-ass practicing I never got very good at transitioning from chord to chord and could never manage an F.

Being more disciplined in my middle-age makes a lot of things more rewarding than they were in my foolish youth.

guitar lesson

The Mighty Sam is giving me guitar lessons.

I learned to play parts of "Everybody Hurts" and also "Heart of Gold."

Sam is now trying to find a Tom Petty song I can play.

He is very mean. He made me put the guitar down and just listen. I want to play, damn it!

first lesson

The Mighty Sam gave me a little guitar lesson last night. I know a few chords. He taught me a couple more and helped me with my arm and wrist position and told me to cut my nails.

Learning to play guitar well enough to play and sing while sitting around a campfire is one of my long-term goals.