Gwnewch y pethau bychain

Tag: guitar

Back to Basics

As I wrote about over the weekend, I’ve finally done something I’ve needed to do for some time, which is find someone to sit down with who can help me expand my guitar toolkit.  Tonight was my first meeting.

They have a nice little setup in the basement of a marina on Lake Union, with two small studio rooms.  I met with my instructor, Mike, and spent a lot of time discussing my background, how I learned, what I was already good at, and so forth.1   Mike is a curious mixture of laid-back and hyper-focused, but I think I’ll get along with him.  He had me play a song for him2 just to watch my current style, and then we got down to the brass tacks of what I wanted to learn and how to get there.

We’re starting out by refreshing on theory.  Now, I know a bit of theory, because you can’t hang out with folks like Gwen Knighton and Mary Crowell without absorbing some stuff just through osmosis, but I’ve never made a formal study of it.  The last time I had any formal music instruction, I was too impatient to get to the “I wanna play a SONG” stage to really focus on it.  I think I’ll be a slightly more disciplined student today.

We did have an entertaining digression talking about how my personal guitar idols are.3

My homework for next week, aside from making a list of five “desert island” songs to send to him as background, is to play the note C.  More specifically, to play all of the C notes on my fret board.4   I’m looking forward to Wednesdays for the next few weeks!


  1. Actually, the very first thing that happened was I opened my guitar case, and Mike immediately gushed about what a lovely instrument it was, and took it to his partner’s studio to show it to him. Because it’s that nice. 

  2. I randomly pulled “But The Days And Nights Are Long” by Cheryl Wheeler out of the air 

  3. The Two Richards: Thompson and Shindell, Paul Simon, Robbie Robertson, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour… 

  4. I do actually understand the point of this exercise, but I’ve still been humming Beethoven’s “Minuet in G” over and over since I left. 

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a slight detour

When I was 16 years old, I bought a guitar.

It was a bit of an impulse.  I’d been working all summer as an inventory clerk for the county Board of Education, and having very little to spend my first real wages on, I’d just been putting the money in my savings account.  I was visiting a friend in Greenville, and we stopped by a music store because he wanted to look for something.  And there was this guitar.  It was a black Rickenbacker solid-body six-string,1 and the guy who was selling it needed exactly $250 to buy a keyboard for a gig, so that’s what he was selling for.  I didn’t know a lot about guitars, but it seemed like a pretty good deal, so I decided on the spot to buy it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to play it, and I turned out to not be very good at figuring it out for myself.  A few years later, needing money to move, I reluctantly sold it to a friend.  But I always regretted it,  2 and told myself that one day, I was going to buy another guitar and learn to play it.

Ten years later…

A near-death experience has a remarkable ability to bring your future plans into sharp focus.  I decided that I should consider doing those things I’d always meant to get around to sooner rather than later, and so I began looking for an instrument to suit me.  I finally purchased a Fender 12-string acoustic3 from a shop in Alpharetta, and signed myself up for a 12 week group class at Mars Music.  Once I’d completed that, I borrowed song books from anyone I could, and leafed through them looking for songs I knew the chords to.   These I copied into a binder, which I then played through as much as I could, trying to develop at least enough technique to accompany myself.  I’ve kept at that over the years, adding new songs as often as I can and trying to improve my playing.

I haven’t done too badly at that, I suppose.  I’ve played on stages in front of tens of people from time to time.  But a long time ago I found the plateau of where I could push myself, and I’ve been stalled there ever since.  Good enough to do what I’ve been doing, but not where I wanted to be.  I’ve known for quite some time that to get to the next level, I need an instructor.  For one reason or another, I’ve not actually taken the  step of finding one.  There was always a good reason.  I didn’t have the money, or I didn’t have the time, or we were going to be moving soon4

But there was also fear.  For all that I seem gregarious and outgoing, I hide a lot of shyness and social anxiety, and the truth is that part of what I had to overcome was my own mental blocks.  I knew going in that I was going to have to say to a potential teacher:  “This is what I have.  15 years of bad habits, cheats and short-cuts that have kept me from stepping up to the next level.  I will have to unlearn those before I can move forward”, and that was a harder thing to do that I realised.

But after searching around, I finally decided to take that step.  I reached out to an instructor I found on the web who isn’t far from where I’m now living and inquired about availability, and have since exchanged some emails5 and set up a time to go in and meet with him.  I’m hoping that we click and that I’ll be able to expand my horizons and start doing some of the things that have felt out of my reach.

And despite all my trepidation, I’m really looking forward to it.


  1. I’m pretty sure it was a Rickenbacker 230, but since I don’t have it any more, I can’t really be certain. 

  2. I’ve happily in recent years, thanks to Facebook, reconnected with the friend, but sadly she sold it to someone else some years ago, so there’s no chance of getting it back.  Alas. 

  3. I liked the wider fretboard on the 12 string.  I have large hands. 

  4. which has been the excuse for pretty much the last two years, honestly. 

  5. I told him a version of this story you’re reading, with a lot more focus on the specific skills that I’m lacking and wanting to pick up.  So at least he knows what he’s in for when I show up the first time. 

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