Calloused fingers

I took a beginning guitar class this quarter through the UCLA Department of Recreation for several reasons: first, I wanted to learn how to play (good first reason, no?), and perhaps just as importantly, it was cheap! Much, much cheaper than private lessons. I spent two hours a week in class for the past eight weeks building up these fine callouses that I am damn proud of. And no small amount of time at home practicing. My goal for the summer is to practice what I know - this sounds a little dumb since I already know it, but the past hour that I just worked on the songs I already know may prove otherwise - and find new tabs online to learn over the summer.

Before this class started, I could play you some of the main chords, but not much more. Now, my extensive repertoire includes the following songs:

Wild Thing - The Troggs
Love Me Do - The Beatles
Good Riddance - Green Day
Times They Are A-Changin' - Bob Dylan
Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan (as covered by The Byrds)
Redemption Song - Bob Marley
Hurt - NIN (as covered by Johnny Cash, way better)
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
Everybody Hurts - R.E.M. (way more boring than I thought it would be)
Dust in the Wind - Kansas
Blackbird - The Beatles (my favorite of the class)

Not so bad considering it was only eight weeks. The class also humbled me I think. Since I picked up the bass when I was young, but never formally trained, I felt that I would automatically be good at guitar. Boy, was I wrong.

I also came to a breakthrough about why I quit violin when I was in elementary school. At the time, the lessons were so painfully boring, and I got it very easily - in my head. So much so that I thought practicing was a waste of time, especially when it involved very monotonous exercises. But that's just not true, there is a certain amount of practice you have to put in to train your brain and body to work together, no matter how much you understand it in your head. I realized the same is true for guitar - just because I have Blackbird memorized does not mean I can play it well. I can stumble through for sure, and am quickly improving. There's just that inevitable amount of time that must be spent repeating the song over and over.

I kind of like to joke with myself how much it goes to show that I just like the learning process itself, not the execution. It explains why I'd rather learn theory and read a book and solve problems on the computer than perform actual experiments. So in a way, taking guitar lessons has also served to teach me a little something about myself. Pretty good deal for $40.

Guitar was so much fun that I decided I should always, always, pursue things that interest me outside of engineering. Keep life more than one-dimensional. So my summer project is the beginning violin class that's being offered by the Santa Monica College Continuing and Community Education program. Again, private lessons would be far too expensive just to explore whether I really like violin, or if my younger instincts were somehow correct. Those lessons won't begin for a few more weeks.

For now, I'll just leave a link to a You Tube video of Blackbird that someone posted, I like to leave it playing in the background. I don't know how to embed, but it's the next thing on the to do list.