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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…

Life has been busy!! Between school, work, home and family I have been having a hard time making time to practice, and it shows! I only practiced a couple times in the last two weeks and it shows. I feel like I am back at square one. My strumming pattern is off, my transitions are not very smooth, but that’s ok, we have so many group assignments that we are working on and of course all of our weekly readings for our classes so I know that this is just temporary and I will be able to come back to the guitar and once the semester is over I will have more time to play and work on my skills.

On Friday, I went to my parents to drop off my poor fiddle leaf fig plant that wasn’t doing well in my basement, my father has a green house and uses growing lights in the winter for some of the plants that need the extra light and care. When I arrived his neighbor was over and went out side for what I assumed was for a cigarette. Moments later he came back through the front door and had his amp and one of his electric guitars! He told me how my father had shared with him that I was learning the guitar and wanted to “jam”. At first, I was very nervous and self conscious to even hold his beautiful piece of art, finally after watching him and working up my nerve I wanted to try. It was absolutely exhilarating! I know that I am not a pro by any means, but wow, playing the electric guitar made me feel like a rockstar.

My parents neighbor was not only helpful by pushing me out of my comfort zone to try something new but he also went through all of the chords on the guitar with me so I can start to get comfortable with more than the handful that are in the song that I picked to practice.

Well, my picks came last week and boy is that a saving grace! My strings arrived today and I will be bringing them to music class on Friday in a couple days, one of my peers has offered to teach me how to string a guitar, so thats really neat, not only will I be learning how to play the instrument, I will also be able to have a deeper understanding of the mechanics, I am still working on tuning and my grandfather has lent me six harmonicas (two of them are in C), they are in chords A, C, D, E and G. I was on the phone with my grandpa telling him about school and how learning the guitar was working for me and he suggested to borrow these so that I could help gain a better ear for the chords and tuning by ear, currently my method has been asking someone with experience for help or using an app that a peer had suggested.

My practice time has still been in short durations due to my strings being so tough and making my fingers sore. It was nice to know that I’m not just being a whiner, I tried using a friends guitar and noticed a huge difference in the feeling of the stings. The guitar I have is my sisters and she has already had it for ten years, and she was the second owner, so I have no idea when they were last changed, if ever. I am really excited to get these strings on and start practicing more, as I said, this is my sisters guitar, she got it as a hobby in high school and took some lessons but never got to the point of playing a song, so the poor thing has pretty much just sat there collecting dust over the years. It spent a period of time with our best friend who also wanted to learn to play, she was trying to self teach and unfortunately did not have as much progress either. I feel like she needs to be played and enjoyed, I am excited to break the trend and let her do what she does best, plus, how cool will it be when I am up at the lake and can actually play something for my friends and family.

Anyways, see you soon!