As we know, the best way to master something is to work with it and then teach it to another person, this is what I have done to get better with my guitar skills. I figured that if I thought about it in a different manner (from a teaching point of view) I may perform better. I still have more practicing to do until I will feel fully confident but I do believe this has helped me grow.

I was caring for my niece and nephew over the weekend, (grades 4 and 6), and they saw the guitar in my living room corner and asked if they could try it and if I could play. Of course I was thrilled they were interested, and so I offered to show them what I could do and started working with them each with the guitar and had them strumming all of the chords I knew and we even worked on strumming patterns! The confidence I gained from sharing what I knew and being able to be the “expert” was incredible. I can be very tough on myself and it was great to be able to feel proud and knowledgeable in an area where I have felt struggle and defeat, I was able to put things into perspective when I switched from learner to teacher and at the same time was empathetic to the difficulties the kids were having when I was working with them and they were trying to learn.

I have been enjoying learning to play the guitar and now that I will have more free time as the semester is coming to an end, I plan to continue to practicing and learning. There have been times where learning to play has been very frustrating, I have wanted to throw the guitar out the window and switch to a different instrument, and on the other end, I have had some amazing times playing, when it just works, and it sounds good, and it feels good, there aren’t words that can describe that feeling. The experience I’ve had has been so intouch with the arts as I know it and I truly appreciate the struggles alongside with the appreciation that I have found and felt.

Thanks for keeping up with my journey through the strings…