Tag: music
Friday Oct 16 I got an email from my 306 prof suggesting I bring my guitar to one of the music supply stores to have them restring it for me. I was able to borrow a vehicle so I could make the trip between my morning class and my music class. I walked in the store and went to the first employee I saw and explained to them that I was new to playing the guitar and wanted help restringing the high E string.
That is when the employee took one look at the guitar and told me it wasn’t just the string that was broken. They took the guitar from me to have a closer look at it. Since their back was turned to me I couldn’t really see what they were doing other than loosening the strings with some kind of tool, and then inspecting the area where the neck joins the body of the guitar.
Then they turned towards me to explain that two of the screws that hold the neck to the body of the guitar were not working. The employee suspected that since there was a different tension on the string when I was tuning the guitar compared to the tension when pressing on the fretboard and that was the reason my string snapped. Looking at the guitar I could see exactly what they were talking about and I was surprised that I hadn’t noticed earlier. However, now I was stuck with a broken guitar instead of a broken string. I didn’t have time to do much else at the store and since I was borrowing the guitar from someone I didn’t leave it at the store to get repaired. So despite my efforts I had a five string guitar for the class.
After my class I was able to chat with my prof about the situation. It was then that they suggested that my frustrations with playing the guitar might stem from using a defective instrument. Which would make sense given that the neck of the guitar wobbles quite a bit. It could explain why I thought the sounds I was producing were off despite having just tuned the guitar. At that point we made a plan for me to get an instrument from MERR and stop by their office for some coaching.
I had mixed feelings about switching instruments at that point but I didn’t have much of a choice because I definitely couldn’t keep using the guitar I have. I picked up a rental acoustic guitar from MERR and went to see my prof. It was great to have some in person feedback on tuning, hand placement/shape, and general tips on ways to practice.
After that I started feeling much better about my guitar learning journey. Yes I had spent time playing an instrument that wasn’t working properly but the chords and strumming are the same and transferring that to an acoustic guitar has been okay despite the size (a big part of my reluctance to start with the acoustic). Even with the rollercoaster of emotions I was finally seeing some improvement and have been steadily working towards my midterm goals.
Until next time!
In my EDCI 306 class each person is tasked with learning a new instrument. For beginners the professor suggested to try the recorder, ukulele, or guitar. I tried playing a friends acoustic guitar and it felt really large and clumsy for me so I tried strumming my partner’s electric guitar and that felt a bit easier to handle. I decided to email my prof to see if I would be able to use the electric guitar instead, after I got the green light from them I was ready to go!
First I started looking at chord charts and lists of songs for beginner players. I also started playing the guitar using the game Rocksmith which was a bit overwhelming but had some great lessons on tuning, chords, picking/strumming, shifting and basic things like how to hold or sit with your guitar. I was really excited to learn guitar so it was easy to fit in the 10-20 mins each day for the first week, then things started to fall apart a little.
After the first week or so I was becoming more and more frustrated with my guitar practice. I was sure that I had tuned the guitar well, or well enough for my purpose, but when I went to play a chord or tried shifting it just didn’t sound good. I would start my practice sessions by going through my chord chart trying to place my fingers on the right frets and strumming a few times before switching to another chord. I liked to end my practice time by trying the “play a song” mode in Rocksmith. I would only be playing a small amount of the notes in the song, but it seemed like a fun way to get familiar with the instrument. While the “play a song” was supposed to be a fun ending I would often get really frustrated because the game would often tell me I was using the wrong fret so I would make adjustments within the fret and would still be missing chords or notes in a song. The combination of having the beginning of my practice time with the chords and shifting sounding off, and the Rocksmith game telling me I wasn’t playing notes/chords properly really started to wear on me. Eventually I started to dread playing the guitar and was feeling pretty hopeless about the goals I had set for myself.
One fateful Thursday night I was practicing because I knew I was going to be meeting with some fellow students who were also learning the guitar the next day. As I was strumming I heard, and felt, something weird. Next I felt a combination of confusion directly followed by horrible realization, as my stomach dropped to the floor as I saw that I had just broken the high E string on the guitar. So it was 11 pm, my guitar was useless, and I needed it for a 1 pm class the next day. After taking some time to decide if this just sounded like a made up excuse I elected to email my prof to let them know what had happened. I was a little worried that this would come across as a “the dog ate my homework” situation but I was feeling so discouraged that sending the email seemed like the only thing left to do.
My next post I’ll be writing about the email I got on Friday morning, and the turn my musicianship journey has taken.
Until next time!
This term I will be learning some beginner guitar and exploring music with it