Monday, July 18, 2011

5 yrs

I think its been alittle more than 5 yrs I've picked up the guitar.

My story isn't the usual i-have-always-wanted-to-play-the-guitar thing. It started when I was still attending church and I just graduated from secondary school. Dad wanted me to learn a skill during the holidays, and since he was playing the guitar he asked me to take up guitar lessons.

My dad played guitar for many years, he once told me he was one of those guys you would see @ staircases with their guitars jamming.

Well I was really reluctant to learn it in the beginning, cuz I never had the interest to learn it in the first place. Even when guitars are in the house and readily available.

Went for lessons for quite awhile. Learned the basic chords, strumming patterns what not. No theory nothing. I then practiced stuff at home with the Zion 21d, my dad's precious guitar at that time. The action was ok, but the string tension at the first fret was, argh!!! I continued using it for the 4yrs anyways.

There was this term of guitar lessons that introduced fingerpicking and stuff. Woah, I remembered that was really hard stuff when I was starting out.

Dad often would introduce guitar players of his time and ask me to check them out on youtube. I was amazed by the astounding amount of notes they could play, the speed.

He brought me and my sister to watch Pat Metheny in concert. We had no idea who the hell was he and why the hell he brought us to watch a jazz concert. All we listened to that time were mando pop, english pop. I couldn't remember much except the very one song that really struck me.

Lone Jack - Pat Metheny

That was it. There was something jazz about me, I liked it. After that concert that tune kept playing in my mind and my family members would often find me in my room with a guitar on my lap humming the tune and pretending to play it like Pat.

Dad really did gave me many names to youtube. Then there was Tommy Emmanuel, I can say he totally changed my life and could be the reason why I still play the guitar now.

Angelina - Tommy Emmanuel

I never knew the guitar could be played in as solo and have so much melody pouring out. I told myself the time I was watching that video with my dad, I must play this.

I really did try to play it my first year of playing guitar and it was a total mess. Tough as nails.

Fingerstyle ftw.

posted by: J0sA1Ac @ 7:37 PM

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