Item: 1 beat-up Beethoven guitar
This is one of the things that has to go with me wherever I move. It can have a calming effect on me, or it can take my playing frustrated strokes of Janis Joplin songs as loud as possible. I don't even play it often, but when I do I'm always grateful that I have it. I don't even have to be playing anything purposeful, just the feeling of strumming it and the deep, live sounds it gives back are enough.
I played the piano some as a kid, but the relationship of the player to the guitar is a totally different thing. This is a curved instrument; a person has to hug it to play. It's the difference between sitting next to someone on a bench and holding someone in your arms. With this guitar, my so-so singing voice can open up onto another plane and sound like it's part of the strings.
This sounds as if I know what I'm doing, but I have had exactly 1 guitar lesson in my life (1994 or so), and it wasn't on this guitar. I no longer remember why, but one of my friends had a guitar, and one of my other friends knew a guy who played guitar, and somehow this resulted in him giving me a guitar lesson. For one lesson, it was very helpful. The rest of what I can do I've gotten from looking at chord charts and church songbooks. Thus, I can play a small number of chords really well (mainly A, G, and D), and can choke out songs that use only those particular chords, or make my own versions of songs where I just skip the parts with hard chords.
I think I mentioned to my parents that I had done this random guitar lesson. My dad picked up this guitar for me at a garage sale for some price like US $.50. I don't think it had all the strings, even, and it's nicked and scratched; the tuning pegs are slightly rusty, and I think the neck is bent back in a direction that was not intended. My friend Becky borrowed this guitar for a few lessons once, and the instructor seemed to be insulted that he was expected to teach someone with such a guitar.
The scars are part of why I like playing it. This is an instrument that has seen it all. This is me and the music. This is one of my favorite gifts ever, and it cost hardly anything. Think about that.
I played the piano some as a kid, but the relationship of the player to the guitar is a totally different thing. This is a curved instrument; a person has to hug it to play. It's the difference between sitting next to someone on a bench and holding someone in your arms. With this guitar, my so-so singing voice can open up onto another plane and sound like it's part of the strings.
This sounds as if I know what I'm doing, but I have had exactly 1 guitar lesson in my life (1994 or so), and it wasn't on this guitar. I no longer remember why, but one of my friends had a guitar, and one of my other friends knew a guy who played guitar, and somehow this resulted in him giving me a guitar lesson. For one lesson, it was very helpful. The rest of what I can do I've gotten from looking at chord charts and church songbooks. Thus, I can play a small number of chords really well (mainly A, G, and D), and can choke out songs that use only those particular chords, or make my own versions of songs where I just skip the parts with hard chords.
I think I mentioned to my parents that I had done this random guitar lesson. My dad picked up this guitar for me at a garage sale for some price like US $.50. I don't think it had all the strings, even, and it's nicked and scratched; the tuning pegs are slightly rusty, and I think the neck is bent back in a direction that was not intended. My friend Becky borrowed this guitar for a few lessons once, and the instructor seemed to be insulted that he was expected to teach someone with such a guitar.
The scars are part of why I like playing it. This is an instrument that has seen it all. This is me and the music. This is one of my favorite gifts ever, and it cost hardly anything. Think about that.
posted by Karen at 10:32 PM
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