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!