Learn to play a musical instrument

Just the right size for my petite (at least in some dimensions) frame.

What a joy to pick it up and practice effortlessly for half an hour this morning.

I now expect to make some significant progress in consolidating what I’ve learned so far.

And in related news, the little music shop where I take lessons is having its Spring Recital next week. I’m not yet proficient enough to perform on the guitar, but my teacher likes my voice (I tend to sing along during lessons while I’m picking out “Ode to Joy” and “Aura Lee”), so yesterday he asked if I’d like to sing something in the recital.

Not entirely clear to me why, because I’m not taking voice training with them (and in fact have never really had any voice training). I’m not shy about singing on stage, though: I sang in the school choir for years, performed in coffeehouses with a little amateur folk group when I was in my early teens, and occasionally venture into a karaoke bar). So if it’ll help him and his partner showcase their business, I’m fine with that. He’ll accompany me on piano while I sing one of my all-time favourites: The Rose.

Shortly after I wrote my previous entry, his business partner (the co-owner of the little music store where I bought my guitar and where my lessons take place) saw me struggling to find a comfortable way to hold the instrument so that I can see what I’m doing. (Short arms, a generous bosom, and a Buddha belly make this a challenge.)

He suggested that I’d do better with a 3/4-size guitar. I hadn’t even realized that such a thing existed. They didn’t have one in stock, but they let me try a 1/2-size instrument, and I found it much more comfortable to hold. The size of the neck and the space between frets doesn’t change, so I still have to stretch my small hands and fingers to make decent sounds – but at least my arms, shoulders, and neck aren’t all seized up after 15 minutes of practice.

So they ordered a 3/4-sized guitar for me. (They’ll take the other one back, and refund me the difference in cost.) But for nearly a month, there’s been some kind of holdup: their supplier (which is on the other side of the country) wanted to ship it with several other instruments they’d ordered, and those weren’t ready yet.

Meanwhile, I’ve been stumbling along, but not making much progress, because I found it so painful to practice on the full-sized beast.

This afternoon, my teacher called to say that the new one is in. We’ll make the trade at my next lesson.

I’m so pleased. Looking forward to, well, looking forward to practicing.

...and reviewed my goal list with a view to revamping/updating it, I was passing a little local music store (which I go by at least twice a week), and my feet just made me turn in.

I had a lovely chat with one of the co-owners. One concern I’d had about signing up for music lessons was wanting to be sure that I found a teacher who was accustomed to working with adults, not just kids. While I was there, his next student (a budding cellist) arrived: she was easily my age, and when I asked her how she’s enjoying her lessons, she recommended him highly. With their permission, I stayed and listened to the lesson. And that was enough to persuade me that he’s good with those of us who are well past our childhood and adolescence.

So I used some Christmas money to buy myself a second-hand guitar and pay for a few lessons. (Not having taken lessons was the chief reason for my failing to learn guitar when I was a teenager.)

I picked guitar instead of keyboard after some deliberation: guitar was the instrument I first wanted to learn, and it’s more portable. (One of my goals for the first 6 months is to be able to take it to a party and play along for at least one simple sing-along number, even if I don’t have the nerve until everyone else is well-lubricated.) I still own the keyboard I bought a dozen years back, but there’s just something more pleasantly tactile about the guitar for me: cradling it makes me feel closer to the music. It’s like hugging the sound.

I’ve now had a couple of months’ worth of weekly lessons. I haven’t yet gotten into the habit of practising regularly in between lessons, but partly that’s because the guitar I bought is too big for my frame. My teacher has ordered a 3/4-sized instrument for me instead, and when it arrives, the shop will allow me to trade in the “starter” instrument I bought. When I go for my lesson, I use a half-sized model that they have on site, and it makes a big difference.

So far, I can pick out (verrrrry slowly) several little tunes. I make mistakes, of course, but at least I have a good enough ear to hear when I’ve gone off – and I’m starting to get a sense for what I need to do to correct the mistakes.

Chords are still awfully hard for my tiny little hands to create. And I don’t believe that the smaller guitar will help me there: the size difference is in the body of the guitar, not in the neck. Guess I’ll just have to figure out how to grow longer fingers.

My initial goal is to be able to play a tune all the way through in time for a friend’s mid-summer birthday.

(which were way too long ago).

Initially, I wanted to learn guitar so that I could play along with my musical friends. (When I was 14 or so, I spent a glorious year singing in an amateur folk group. But besides my voice, my only contribution to that group was my phenomenal memory for lyrics. If anyone forgot the words during a performance, she or he had only to look at me to pick up the next phrase.)

For my birthday one year, I asked my parents for a guitar. Neither of them played any instruments, nor were they rolling in dough, but they came through. The guitar came with a little instruction book.

Now, I’ve always learned really well from books – in fact, my mother used to tease me that if I could have learned to drive from a book, I’d have tried to. But without the discipline of actual lessons with a living, breathing teacher (which my family probably couldn’t have afforded even if I’d known enough to request them), I got virtually nowhere once I’d “mastered” the first few pages.

I knew zip about how to tune the guitar, and I couldn’t even read music.

So eventually I gave the guitar to my stepbrother.

Later in my teens, I was writing a journal entry. Uncharacteristically for me, I was fantasizing about the future, trying to picture myself in my 20s – where would I be living, what would I be doing, and so on. At one point I started to write that I’d be learning to play the piano, but then I stopped myself.

“Maybe,” my teenaged self wrote seriously, “I’d better hold off on that until I’m older – say, 40 or so. After all, I don’t want to get to that age and find that I have nothing left to learn!”

Well, 40 came and went, and fortunately I still have plenty left to learn. Including, someday, I hope, piano.

Actually, the year I turned 41, I did buy myself a nice second-hand keyboard. I wasn’t flush enough to spring for lessons, though, so once again my initial enthusiasm faded and the keyboard languished in a corner until I loaned it more or less permanently to a pal who can really use it.

Getting back on this particular horse isn’t my top priority at this moment, but my current fantasy is that once I’ve gotten my apartment decluttered, I can find room for a keyboard again. And this time I’ll be able to afford lessons.