I love music in many forms, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Symphonic, hell...I've even started getting into Techno a bit, which is a frightening concept at times. I had my first guitar when I was about six years-old. It was this old hollow-bodied acoustic that I discovered in my grandparents attic. I couldn't tell you who made it, but it had a sunburst paint scheme to it, was terribly out of tune, and when I sat down to try and play for the first time, it was akin to me putting a cello across my knee now.
While I had no clue what I was doing, it didn't stop me from trying to make something which resembled a tune, and bless my Nana because she let me make what had to be a rather annoying din in the attempt to figure it out.
The annoying thing is I never really learned how to play it. I lost the guitar when I was about 10 when my second stepdad (who was a music teacher by profession) tried teaching me, but the poor thing was so out of whack that one day I went looking for it, and it was nowhere to be found.
*Editorial Note - I don't hold my stepdad responsible for this, btw. At the time we had talked about eventually getting me a newer guitar I could actually learn to play and own. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my days at home were already numbered, so it simply didn't happen.
By the time I was a teenager, I still wanted to learn how to play, because let's not kid ourselves, EVERY kid wants to play one. But once again, I didn't only because I changed to something else. I became a drummer instead. Since I still couldn't afford a guitar, having a pair of sticks to practice with was nice, but I also couldn't afford a drum kit either.
Didn't stop me from becoming the best "Air Drummer" in the lower 48, though.
Don't get me wrong. I love being able to play drums and even though my chops are still rudimentary at best, it's not the same as picking up the proverbial "axe," cranking the amp to 11, and trying to blow the roof off both your's and the neighbor's house.
You can't play Kind of Blue on a glockenspiel and you can't really rock out without a guitar.
Over the years, as my fascination with music both grew and evolved, I still looked for time and the means to properly learn an instrument. Which brings me to this guitar, because it's mine. I bought it about 18 months ago for dirt cheap off a local guy on Craigslist because I knew in order to learn how to play, I needed functional much more than I did fancy.
When I got it home, I was psyched because now I could finally learn the proper way to play and start taking these notes and melodies and tunes I've had in my head for decades and start actually shaping them into something.
Except there's one problem. In 18 months, I've barely played a lick because I got so frustrated that I put it back in the bag and have let it sit there ever since.
I'll take it out once in a while and try to duplicate what I'm listening to or relearn the two or three chords I picked up out the gate, but otherwise it's a case of my ambition exceeding my current capability.
Since I couldn't afford proper lessons, I decided I'd go to the next best thing. The internet. Unfortunately, the lessons I found jumped from beginner to expert with such speed that my being able to keep up simply added to my frustration. It's like the scene in Good Will Hunting where Will talks about his photographic memory and brings up playing the piano.
"I can't play a lick," he said. "I look at a piano and I see a bunch of keys, three pedals and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they looked at it and it made sense to them. They could just play."
I look at my guitar and I see and hear David Gilmour, Alex Lifeson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, Page, Harrison, everyone who's ability to manipulate the instrument and bring things out of it are truly incredible. Only when I try, I sound like a baboon.
I want to be able to play and in some ways, I feel like I need to be able to play because there are things I can express about myself through playing. The trick will come in finding a means by which I can learn how so I won't be so frustrated to want to quit.
Maybe then, I can start making some real music.
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