The Guitar...learning this thing isn't easy at all. I didn't think it would be and to be honest, it's not suppose to be right?

Nevertheless, here I find myself learning a brand new instrument at a time when I have no job...thank god the 4 lessons I'm taking is already paid for. I never gave the guitar much thought until about a year ago, i bought one thinking that I would take online lessons from Guitar Tricks it's a good enough site, not that expensive...but I swear the only thing I learned was a 4 note song that I could only play with one hand and although I can play that one song well...it doesn't make any sense because it's not a song at all...its just strumming the guitar. What a loser...

So now I am taking private lessons from Blue Bear School of Music...and I swear my teacher is the the lead singer of a band Maron and I saw here at The Independent on free concert night. Although we didn't stay, out of the two acts we did see, my teacher I swear played with one of them...but who knows, sometime all scruffy-looking, folksy white people look alike.

The first thing I am learning is that steel strings, hurt like hell, playing the blues isn't natural as all the blues musicians I have seen on tv make it out to be and part of me wishing I just stuck with the piano...i know I like that alot better. However, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves...learning the guitar is just a matter of time...mastering it will be impossible unless some miracle happens and I win the lottery that I never play and have free time because I can not because I was booted from work.

Pluses of taking private lessons are the same as the minuses...its just you and the teacher...no one else around that prepared for the group setting by learning a few strokes in order not to embarrass themselves in front of a group while you sit there completely discombobulated, forgetting which hand is left and which is the right. Utterly amazed at how uncoordinated you are. You think you got rhythm not just because your black but because when ever a commercial comes on with an recognizable jingle you can tap that thing out all night after hearing it just one time.

But as I am learning, tapping your foot to the latest Overstock commercial is a far cry from actually picking up an instrument you've never played before and believing that you are just going to tear it up!

Lesson learned.

And Now, Door #3:

Dwell

Ever since I got laid off I have been reading a book called The Ax (I will blog about this much later). There has been a few moments in the book where I can look at my particular situation and find parallels....except for the murdering parts (like I said, more on that soon). A couple of the sentences stood out immediately for me in the second chapter...

"...You also subscribe on your own to your trade journals." "...the magazine subscriptions are not part of the severance package." "When they were free, I rarely read them, but now I study them cover to cover. After all, I have to keep up. I can't let the industry move on without me."

And that's exactly how I feel...ever since I left work, all I have wanted to do was to stay in the know...of course i know that this was only a knee-jerk reaction to my current situation, thinking somehow that through magic I would master all that's in these magazines that are collected a nice thick layer of dust in my apartment. But I know the truth...i will flip through them, not having the patience to read every article...even though I know I need to. But I digress...

Dwell is that 'trade journal' for me.

Enjoy,

DjD