Guitar Lessons: Progress Has Been Made!

My guitar and I have a complicated relationship. Sometimes I give it all the attention it needs, sometimes I leave it alone for weeks at a time. Sounds like some relationships at my high school. Speaking of school, since school started, I need something to relax every once in awhile. Don't worry, I'm getting my homework done. But I've come crawling back to my guitar. Fortunately, it accepted me back willingly. My calluses are coming back.

Oh, and I learned how to strum upward. What's that? That's right. An accomplishment. No, it's not a very big one, but I think it's pretty awesome I can play "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz all by myself because of this newly acquired skill. And the song that I wrote a little while ago called "Beautiful Girl" sounds a lot better when I strum upwards. Wait...did I tell you I wrote a song (of course I did. Right here.)? I've written two, but one was for my friend because she needed one to put in her story. She'll probably post it at some point. She's Rugphan's Fiction. The other song I wrote, though, actually has some meaning to how I was feeling at time. I'll have to record it sometime and post it.

But alas, I still know no barre chords. I'm so disappointed because this song called "Rhythm of Love" is an amazing, and it's really easy to play. As long as you can play chord B7. B7 is a barre chord. A relatively easy one, but a barre chord nonetheless. Curse you barre chords!

I don't really share my "accomplishments" to my fellow guitar players at school, because they're way ahead of me. One of them is learning similar songs that I'm learning, and he's encouraging. But when I told him I can strum up now, he laughed as he pictured me simply strumming downward. It's not like he hurt my feelings, but I realized he didn't share my enthusiasm. The other guy already knows guitar really well, but he plays metal. He's shocked whenever I tell him I don't know a band he's really familiar with. We clearly didn't learn guitar for the same reasons. I never want to play metal. I mean, if I have the capability at some point, that's fine. But I'd rather write beautiful music that can warm people's hearts or make them cry. Now that I think about it, he took the "guy" approach to music and I took the "girl" approach. Yes, I know I'm generalizing. You don't have to remind me. I know there are girls who play metal songs, and guys that write songs like "I'm Yours."

Anyway, I'm sticking to sharing my accomplishments with my blog. Because half the people who read this don't play guitar. So I sound like a genius. The same thing happens when I speak Arabic to people. I don't know that much, but I'm better than them, so I'm awesome at it. It's all relative. I'm happy with people being impressed by my writing, Arabic, and niceness. Guitar is optional. I'm already good at other stuff, so this is just for fun. Professionalism is not what I'm aiming for. My future career will hopefully involve computers. See? That will be another thing I want to be good at and can impress people with. Why bother with guitar when I'm good at so many other things? I'm just kidding. If I have kids, I'm writing their lullabies.

On another note, school is going well. I've never laughed so much at school. Sno-Isle is always funny when I'm not stressed. AP Lit always makes me laugh. It's hilarious because my teacher will tell a joke and start laughing. Then we're laughing because of the joke and because of his laugh. His laugh is the best bit. The jokes you wouldn't really get unless you've read Crime and Punishment. So, if you have, you can contact me and I'll let you in on some of my classes jokes. And modern fiction is funny because of the people I sit next to. They make me laugh constantly, even if I don't want to. They're just the kind of people who always make me laugh without trying at all. If I tried to explain those jokes, you wouldn't laugh. Trust me. The jokes we tell are usually only funny for a day. Except for "Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-apple juice!" See, it's funny because the song goes "Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol!" Get it? I told you that you wouldn't laugh.

To conclude, I have my first cold of the year. So yay for that. This is the first cold I've had with glasses. Sinus pressure in your nose + Glasses resting on your nose = not good. My head throbs when I stand up, but whatever. This is probably my cold's worse day. I'm only wearing my glasses at school. There's no real reason to wear them at home. When I think about it, if I take my glasses off for whatever reason at home, I don't usually put them back on. They're a nuisance. It's so much work to pick them up, put them on, all that stuff. What am I, active? Yeah right!

That is all for today. I'm going to back to grabbing tissues, complaining, and listening to my music collection. When I don't listen to my "favorites" playlist, me listening to music usually goes like this.

"Oh! Coldplay!" *listens* "Ok, no more ColdPlay." *skip skip skip skip* "Come on! Where's Basshunter!" *skip skip skip skip skip* "There he is!" *listens* "Ok, no more Basshunter." *skip skip skip skip*

Does anybody else skip a lot of songs when they're listening to music? Or do I have to delete a lot of songs?

So long for now. Stay healthy! Colds are no fun.

Guitar Lessons 2: Doctor, I Can't Feel My Fingers!

Well, two of them. Yes, day four is upon us and I am happy to announce I have an official callus forming on my middle fingertip. The ring fingertip's getting there, don't worry. I realized today while practicing that when I notice "fret buzz" (which is when the guitar string buzzes from not being pushed hard enough) I tend to push my middle finger down harder. Then when I played each string individually, I noticed it was the ring finger I wasn't pushing down hard enough, explaining the smaller callus.
Because of these calluses, I am also proud to announce that I can transition from the E chord to the A chord without it hurting as much. It still hurts occasionally when I hit the wrong spot, but it's certainly an improvement.
Speaking of transitions, I was also able to successfully transition today. Yesterday, I had to pause almost every switch to the A chord. Now I can do it more successfully. Certainly not perfect, but it is progression. Mostly today I tried to get through the song without pausing, ignoring any mistakes I will make. And while I can go from E to A easier now, I still need to pause more frequently when going from A to E. Not sure why. But sometimes when I did so, I hit the wrong spot on my fingertip so it hurt.
I tried to focus more on singing today as well. I have noticed this: Guitars hide voices well. Too well. I'm worried that when I get the nerve to sing in front of people I won't be able to hear my voice well enough to know if I'm singing on-key. I guess that's what microphones are for.
Oh yeah, about Open Mic. I'm having second thoughts. See, I have this thing where I'm really really excited to do something until about two minutes before I do it, then I chicken out, but do it anyway. And then when I do, I'm incredibly nervous and don't do as well as I could. My dad reminded me of this yesterday. Then I talked to my friend this morning who is also learning to play the guitar (about four months ahead of me) and he said singing and playing is way harder than it looks and I shouldn't do it.
Now, even though the whole reason I'm doing this is for Open Mic, I might not do it. I probably won't do it. I'm not going to do it. Not unless I can find someone to play the guitar onstage with me. Or maybe a group of five friends just stand behind me. Would that look weird? Yes. Ok, I'm not doing it.
I love speaking in front of people, though it does make me nervous. But when my voice gets shaky, I just cover it up by cracking more jokes, making my audience laugh which calms me down. If my audience doesn't laugh, or if I'm not playing a character (not in a play or anything really, but if I'm pretending to sell something or something like that) I do get really nervous. But I've never broken down or anything. And I do love presenting to people. Maybe I just love talking.
Anyway though, I'm not going to stop playing the guitar. I'm interested to see where it takes me. I'll probably do it for six months or a year or so, and see where I'm at. If I like it. It's better since so many people play the guitar, I can talk about it with a lot of different people at school and Sno-Isle.
Maybe next time I post I'll be able to play the song without pausing at all. Maybe.