practice guitar

It sucks when you don’t feel good enough to do the things that make you feel better – yes, music is one of those things.

When I moved I left behind my great teacher and I have not found one here yet. But I will. I want to make music – just for myself. Just to be able to sing and accompany myself. I am all over the map with my businesses and nonprofit, etc. – but that is all the more reason to set aside the time for music and art in my life. I spend so much time doing what I ought – or trying to, paying that lip service, etc. – rather than following my bliss, as Joseph Campbell advises. Music and art feed my soul, are the well-spring of my creativity, and everything in my life benefits from art – my health and well-being, my businesses, my loved ones and friends. Time to align with my true values.

almost the same chords as DCFC song of yesterday. Today, practicing is a form of procrastination. I’m trying to deal with anxiety about the things on my plate by avoiding and playing guitar, which may not be optimal.

Well, my well-laid plan for learning a new song every day for 100 days went bust. I just don’t have the determination to focus on it right now. However, I did pick the guitar up again tonight to try to teach myself something new. It makes me miss my old guitar teacher. I really loved him a lot and trying to teach myself songs isn’t going nearly as well as learning from him went. But, I’m making due.

ANyway.. tonight’s song is the Death Cab song which seems to have some personal significance for thousands of people, despite the fact that i feel like it belongs to me.

Started learning it tonight. I’m getting it down, struggling with the finger picking mixed with strumming. I can do finger picking OR strumming, but mixing them will take some new learning. It’s a toughie… but it will be worth being able to sing and play. It’s quite beautiful.

I’ll say this for youtube, it makes it a lot easier to figure songs out. I’ll say this against it: there are so many amazing people out there recording themselves that I sometimes feel like pawning my guitar and giving up singing altogether is the only appropriate response.

in two different keys. and recorded myself! yay!

play better than the source!

WHAT are you going to do? Use action words (such as direct, organize, coordinate, lead, develop, plan, build etc.)

Practice one new song each day

WHY is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish?

Learning guitar will be a good brain-stimulating activity, relaxing, a fun way to get involved with other people, something I can do for the rest of my life

HOW are you going to do it? (By…)

Set aside a block of time in my schedule for practice each day, get out my microphone and maybe start recording myself like I used to, try to find Jason’s music sheets and relearn all those songs, keep a log of each session, what song I learned

Okay, so that’s Specific and measurable and attainable and realistic. As far as time-bound, I’ll say that once I’ve practiced a new song every day for… 100 days, then I’ll consider this goal completed and my next goal will be to take guitar lessons again.

So two nights ago I pulled out my old sheets of guitar tabs from my high school guitar class, and I began to re-teach myself some of them. I learned A7 and B7 and all of a sudden could play Cat Power’s “Sea of Love.” WOOT! :)

... well, not really. I did buy a new music stand and tuner (because those had been misplace or dispersed during past moves) ...and I even bought a foot stool (something I had never had before) ... I was hoping that by getting all of the details taken care of it would encourage me to start practicing again… just for the sake of practicing, not because I’m going to do anything useful with the skill, but just for the relaxation of it… well, at least I’m ready when the bug hits me again =)

things keep going pretty well with this, ive gained enough confidence to keep myself playing almost every day! now if only life can get less busy so i can commit even more to this…