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here in my car i feel safest of all
Obviously this is a bit late on in the month, but I've decided on a goal for this year: I'm going to get better on my guitar.
I mean yeah, I can play a guitar in a sense that if you slap a piece of sheet music down in front of me, I can play the melody (if it isn't too complicated), but only as long as it doesn't wander too far off the treble stave (though I'm getting better at bass now). I can't play chords with anything approaching confidence, and I only know two, and I think the fingering on one of them is wrong. Also my strumming is all wrong, since I taught myself from books and never had a "proper" lesson in my entire life.
I own two guitars. For a lot of the last twelve or so years, they've just sat in my room, taken out for the occasional strum when I get nostalgic (well, I've only had the full size one for just under ten years; the half size one is the one I learnt to play on). So I'm going to stop being nostalgic and sad that I can't play better, and learn some chords. If I get three chords down, I can learn a song (or three) that uses them. That's an easy enough goal.
Also I find it easier to transcribe music from an actual instrument*. I also twiddle better on an actual instrument. Musescore is great, and everything, but it's just not the same for me. So that it will probably help me with composition is also a bonus.
(One of my non-post-apocalyptic life skills besides being able to sight read is being able to tune a guitar by ear, as long as I have a reference for bottom E. Then there is lots of twanging and humming to myself and then eventually I have a tuned guitar. I've got an app on my phone that just tells me when I'm in tune, and it works so much faster and I LOVE IT).
~
*I transcribed a bit from the Interview With The Vampire soundtrack when I was a teenager on my guitar. I think I did an ok job, though if I went back and checked it now, I'd probably have issues with it, if only because my ear's trained a bit better now??
I mean yeah, I can play a guitar in a sense that if you slap a piece of sheet music down in front of me, I can play the melody (if it isn't too complicated), but only as long as it doesn't wander too far off the treble stave (though I'm getting better at bass now). I can't play chords with anything approaching confidence, and I only know two, and I think the fingering on one of them is wrong. Also my strumming is all wrong, since I taught myself from books and never had a "proper" lesson in my entire life.
I own two guitars. For a lot of the last twelve or so years, they've just sat in my room, taken out for the occasional strum when I get nostalgic (well, I've only had the full size one for just under ten years; the half size one is the one I learnt to play on). So I'm going to stop being nostalgic and sad that I can't play better, and learn some chords. If I get three chords down, I can learn a song (or three) that uses them. That's an easy enough goal.
Also I find it easier to transcribe music from an actual instrument*. I also twiddle better on an actual instrument. Musescore is great, and everything, but it's just not the same for me. So that it will probably help me with composition is also a bonus.
(One of my non-post-apocalyptic life skills besides being able to sight read is being able to tune a guitar by ear, as long as I have a reference for bottom E. Then there is lots of twanging and humming to myself and then eventually I have a tuned guitar. I've got an app on my phone that just tells me when I'm in tune, and it works so much faster and I LOVE IT).
~
*I transcribed a bit from the Interview With The Vampire soundtrack when I was a teenager on my guitar. I think I did an ok job, though if I went back and checked it now, I'd probably have issues with it, if only because my ear's trained a bit better now??