It plays tunes

Being so busy practicing on the guitar I haven't gotten around to posting articles much. Since I don't think anybody is following this blog I don't think that hurts anybody so it should be okay.

I've been at it for a while now and I've actually learned how to play some tunes and I'm enjoying that a lot. The first tune I learned how to play (okay, it's not ready for stage yet but it is recognizable) is 'Two of us' by the Beatles. The kids like to hear it so that is a big plus. My son even wanted to get the tune on his iPod after hearing the Beatles version. I'm pretending my playing of the tune introduced him to it so I'm mighty proud.

Since then I've learned the chords for some other songs as well; 'Hotel California' by the Eagles, 'You've got to hide your love away' by the Beatles and 'Brown eyed girl' by Van Morrison. I'm still too slow in my chord progressions to play the songs as well as I'd like to but to my surprise I can actually sing along a bit as I go without my family running out of the house so I guess I'm either doing okay or they've built up quite a tolerance to what is still a horrendous sounding act.

I mentioned earlier that when I bought my Telecaster that the Canadian dollar was more or less on par with the US dollar and because of that I got a good deal. Right now the Canadian dollar has plunged down and my guitar would cost me around $70 more than what I paid for it so I feel good about that too.

I'm still very happy with my choice, I hardly play my acoustic anymore because the Telecaster is just a dream to play. I still go into music stores to try out other guitars but I haven't played anything yet that would beat it.

Did I mention I play from 'Everybody's guitar method 1'? I've reached the halfway point of the book but as I said, I'm not playing out of the book as much as I should. I also picked up a guitar music theory book from the Hal Leonard series to help me understand why chords are put together the way they are and such things. I don't pretend to understand everything in the book but it really helps the understanding and because the book is specific to the guitar it's not too dry.

Another important eye-opener is that I've learned about movable chords so that all of a sudden I can make a whole bunch of bar chords with either the low E or A string as the root note. Um, disclaimer here, that is if my hands can handle it.

Speaking of hands, the left arm does not get as sore anymore although it's not 100% okay. I now do have some pain in my index finger on my left hand which I assume is caused by playing but it doesn't bother so much it stops me from playing.

I had no idea I would get all these little pains and aches from playing the guitar but I guess we can apply the familiar 'no pain, no gain' saying here.

So that's the update for the moment, I can play a few tunes but I still have problems playing picking style and reading music as I go. I should practice that more but because it's hard I tend to avoid it. I don't feel guilty about that because instead I play chords and learn to get more fluent doing that which is also an important skill to have.