A Guitar and a Challenge

Learning an instrument seems to be a lot harder than I had originally thought. I have always wanted to be able to play an instrument properly whether it be the piano (my current musical desire), the drums (my instrument of choice if I were in a band) or the guitar (my current challenge). I play a decent enough recorder but this raises the question of what exactly does a decent recorder sound like. It isn’t exactly the most pleasant of instruments. I know how to play because of school requirements more than anything-it was either the recorder or the choir. There was also a small phase of being taught how to play keyboards but after learning three chords, which I have since forgotten, my Mother stopped paying for lessons. Fair enough as after a while my attendance at these lessons was rare, I was a very shy child and had become increasingly embarrassed about asking to be excused from lessons to go and learn the keyboard. Anyhow, many years later here I am complaning to my Mum about her not forcing me to learn an instrument as a small child.

I’ve got my hands on an acoustic guitar and some beginners guitar books. I’m working my way through them, slowly. So far all I seem to have achieved is hard fingertips and a state of confusion.

Chords-there are so many to remember but the thing that gets me is the position of the fingers. If it was possible to tie fingers in knots then I’m sure my left hand would be useless by now.
Strumming-I can strum down, I can strum up but the combination of down and up and down again isn’t as much of a smooth motion as many people make it out to be. Not just yet anyway.
Holding the guitar-No matter how many different positions I hold it in I feel like a hillbilly or country folk singer type. I’m hoping this will be overcome quite soon.

I’ve been told that the first part is the hardest, i.e. learning chords, strumming etc and once you pick that up it’s easy. Surely once I’ve learnt the chords and how to strum I can play guitar! Putting the chords in order and turning the strumming into some sort of rhythm is learning how to play a song. That would be a whole other challenge that my “skills” haven’t advanced to yet.

Will hopefully keep you posted about my improvement!