The story of the lessons so far…

Sorry for the long silence, but I’ve been busy.

No, really.

Stop laughing! I actually DO things…sometimes….

I do, too!

I’ve been taking guitar lessons for a couple of months now. Remember that I had two goals in mind, the first to learn how to sight-read on guitar, and the second, to learn to use a flat-pick. Both have been a bit of a challenge, but I’ve made some progress.

I’m working with Barry Edelson at Ken Stanton music, an excellent teacher for an old fart like me, and from the Berklee Guitar Method (from the Berklee School of Music in Boston). It’s a challenging book, even for someone like me who can actually already music…but who hasn’t bothered to learn to do so for his guitar-playing. The drills and etudes are simple… but annoyingly difficult. This old dog is learning new tricks, sure, but very… very… slowly. And because I know I can play better than my current level of flat-picking allows, I try to go too fast, and it takes me twice as long to unlearn  bad habits before learning the good ones. Barry, however, is a diligent taskmaster. He doesn’t let me get away with much.

The flat-picking is actually coming along pretty well, in my humble (really, VERY humble) opinion. After nearly eight weeks of practicing (not very religiously… but practicing), I’m beginning to get a better idea of moving the pick up and down from string to string, and to pick eigth and sixteenth notes using the standard alternating up and down technique. As someone who used to just fake it with all four fingers, this is no small accomplishment… okay, yes, actually, it is a small accomplishment, but I’m middle-aged, with little spare energy, and face it, not exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It’s coming a long, though, and I can hit most of the notes… eventually… that I want to hit.

The sight-reading is the tough part. I learned to read music playing single-voiced instruments, my trumpet and my own voice. The guitar forces me to think in terms of chords, which I never learned to do in all those halfhearted piano lessons of my youth, and only learned in a rudimentary fashion playing guitar by ear. Now I’m learning to see the notes as a chord, not as a big stack of notes. This process, I have it on good authority, is not unlike passing a canteloupe through your ear canal (I was going to use a birthing analogy here, but thought better of it; all my friends who are mothers, save one, chose to have epidurals… save one, and frankly, she’s crazy anyway…)…

Where was I?

Oh, yes, sight-reading. It’s a challenge. I’m desparately trying to remember the music theory I learned… well, took, anyway… almost thirty years ago. It’s, um… not helping much. However, I am endeavoring to persevere. Joy has taken to wearing ear plugs during my practice time, but nevermind that now.

The great thing is, I’m playing my guitar again. I’ve got my music back, if only in a student’s fashion, and I am beginning to enjoy the new skills I’m learning. This is a Good Thing ™. It might even be a Very Good Thing (c).

So that is the status report. I will try to keep in touch. Perhaps adter my World of Woe-craft character reaches level 70, I’ll have more time for blogging. Of course, by that time, I might be flat-picking in a hoe-down somewhere. You know, the Raccoon Creek Bluegrass festival is only a year away…

I’m sure they’ll let me hand out fans and bottled water….