(no subject)

[artisanal_xara]

I made it back from Tennessee last night. It was lots of fun, and I'll try to recap the bicycle trip, which is the only significant part of the trip that I didn't post about while I was there.

For now, though, I want to talk about something else. I have a guitar!!! It's pretty cool. I stopped in the Boone mall and got a few picks and a book on beginning guitar yesterday on my way home. Today we worked on tuning the guitar, then went through the first lesson in the book. We spent a lot of time talking about how music is written and things like intervals and chords and keys whole and half steps and stuff like that, because I know a lot more about music than George does. I remember thinking when I was a little kid taking piano lessons that I didn't need to know about that stuff, but knowing it sure did help figuring out why most of the notes are two frets apart on the guitar.

The first lesson is titled First String Notes, and we learned how to make E, F, and G on the first string. So we played a little bit of 'music' using only the first string. There's a cd that came with the book, and we listened to the cd, and played along a little. Damned, fretting that first string is like playing with razor wire! Ouch! I guess it'll get easier. I had a lot of trouble making the F, because I couldn't push the string hard enough. We wonder if we might need new strings, because even open and tuned, the string sounds terrible. Stephen said he thought it needed new strings, and dad said he didn't think it needed them, so who knows.

Comments

[stmaybe.livejournal.com]

that E string is sharp the first time you try it. if you do litle bits each day you'll build up some callouses (that can't possibly be spelled right) on your fingers & that'll make it less painful.

have fun learning!

[gorski.livejournal.com]

Well, I think Livejournal just ate my first reply to this, so:

Glad you found an instrument to play. I think you'll enjoy it :)

Could be the strings or any of several other things causing it to sound bad. How in particular does it sound wrong? Is any note by itself bad (how?)? Is it just that the strings don't seem to be in tune with each other when you start playing? Or do they start seeming farther and farther out as you go up the same string...?

Strings are cheap; my last set cost me six bucks at Piedmont Stringed Instruments. Failing figuring anything else out, you might ask Andy over there to tell you why it doesn't sound so good--he should be able to tell you why and what it'd cost to fix. (It could be just slightly out of tune still, even--the way they usually teach you first to tune your guitar is correct but difficult to get right. Remind me next time I see you and I'll show you how to tune it by 'harmonics'.)

The right new set of strings may also make it less painful to play--you can buy "extra light" strings which take very little effort to press down. But be careful about using that as a crutch--if you learn that way it may be very difficult to pick up somebody else's instrument which is strung normally and play it. You'll get calluses on your fingertips before long and it won't hurt to play.

One more piece of general advice: Follow whatever lessons you've found for yourself, but go ahead and learn a couple songs by chord or tablature early on. It's frustrating to only know how to play a few scales and textbook chord progressions after working on it for a long time, so while those things are important and you need to learn how to play right, I think it's a worthwhile thing to do to learn to play something that sounds decent by hook or by crook just to make practicing a little less frustrating. (It's also impressive how far just knowing the C, D, E, G, and A chords can get you...)

Anyways, good luck, and have fun (:

peace,

--me