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Learning How To Play

Learning How To Play Vol. 2

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At the beginning of February, I decided that I would start to begin my musical voyage and try to learn how to play the guitar (see Learning How To Play Vol. 1).  For years, I thought of absorbing the ways of playing a musical instrument appealed to me.  It would be one of the coolest accomplishments I would ever achieve in my lifetime.  I would become a rock star, taking over the streets of our fair town and make everyone just fall in love with me.  The people will just crowd the area bars and just break all the fire codes without thinking that their lives could be in danger just to hear me play.  Women would lose their voices from shouting from the top of lungs when they saw me hit the stage, and flash them a wink their way.  The guys would tip their bottles of beer to show their respect and admiration.  The lights would shine as bright as the sun on me.  The chanting of the spectators would be heard miles away.  The stage would violently shake as if there was an earthquake.

Alright, alright-that’s not exactly what I’m going for.  Sorry I got carried away there.  I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the thought of someone wanting to do that for me.  If anything, I would get yelled at to get off the stage, or have a beer thrown at me.

Nonetheless, I do want to gain a better understanding on the science of learning how to play, and hopefully be lucky enough in the near future to be part of a set with musicians that want to play live.

(Recreate Shop)

To get the ball rolling, I decided to go and check out some of the local guitar shops.  Walking into the establishments, you immediately hark back to being a kid in a candy store.  Replacing all the sugary sweets one could gorge on is a considerable amount of instruments at every corner and every angle of the buildings.  A person that loved music really could get lost in these shops.  Each shop brings its own unique styles.  Hauer Music presents an historic sense when you walk in.  The old canal building provided the presence that makes Dayton a true gem of a city.  Recreate Shop gives guitar enthusiasts a euphoric environment to come to in the Oregon District.  The business provides customers first rate service with prices on instruments that will slap the big businesses straight across the face.  These are both staples in town, and for beginning guitar players-check them out.

Lucky for me, I had two good friends that allowed me to borrow some of their equipment.  One friend, trumpet and guitar player Nick Dever let me borrow a black, electric guitar he had lying around and singer/songwriter Tim Gebard loaned an amp.  Gebard also mentioned that I could come over and learn how to play a couple of songs that contain a few simple chords.  I wanted to see if I could learn how to play on my own first.

The beginning of each guitar player starts with one simple step-sit down and learns the chord structure.  What I didn’t realize is the amount of chords there is.  I think that there is a chord for each letter in the alphabet and then some.  This revelation made me go and see what the internet had to offer.  I clicked on various videos on YouTube, thinking that this could be a fast and effortless way to gain the knowledge needed.  Simply put-watching the videos were a complete disaster for me.  I would see what the instructor on the video would say to do, and I would try to replicate.  As I tried to strum the chord, nothing would happen.  I thought that I was doing the correct procedures.  Place the fingers on the strings.  Pluck the strings with the pick straight down.  Hear the note played perfectly.  Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  As all this was happening, the video would move on.  I would rewind and try again.  Same thing.  No correct note sound.  Repeat the process over a dozen times.  I would watch the video and then try to play.  I would yell at the instructor as if they could hear me through the computer.  This route clearly wasn’t working for me.

With the video learning failing horribly, I called up Gebard to see if he could help.  He mentioned that if I ever wanted some help, he would be kind enough to take some time and help me some. We sat down one afternoon in February and he gave me a couple of printed sheets of songs to dive that had the chords on top of the lyrics.  The finger placement when playing the guitar is like trying to learn a foreign language.  I remembered the years of learning Spanish when I was high school, and wanting to scream because it wasn’t as easy as I wanted it to.  This feeling of frustration showed itself when playing with Gebard.  He would show me the positioning of the fingers for each of the chords that were needed when playing Helpless by Neil Young.  At times I thought that I would start to figure out the fluid flow that makes the song sound amazing.  However, my fingers would let me down.  The holding of the strings is a complex strategy.  If you hold down on the strings a certain way, the sound played is muffled.  There isn’t much of anything.  So, you have to learn how to play with the tips of the fingers.  It’s difficult.  This isn’t a process that comes overnight.

I knew that at the end of this day playing, I had to practice.  And I mean practice.

Well…that hasn’t happened much.

I admit it.  I wish that at this point I would be playing a couple of songs with ease and grace.  Life doesn’t work that way.  I have become so much more amazed at how you go to watch bands and artists perform live.  The time that each performer has put in makes me feel beyond guilty about not playing.  They have dedicated their lives to achieving the professional style that we as observers come to expect.  They have locked themselves in their bedrooms when they were younger and wouldn’t come out for hours.  They would have their fingers gush with blood due to amount of time elapsed while playing.

I have made every single excuse in the world.  I have been busy.  I work long hours and haven’t had the time.  I live in an apartment and don’t want to be too loud. I can only imagine that I am not the only one who thinks the same thoughts each and every second.  Playing an instrument isn’t going to be an overnight thing.  It takes time.  It takes patience.  The days in college have crept back in to my life.   The excuses need to stop I recently told myself.  I had a goal and I plan on sticking to it.  I want to learn how to play the guitar.

So the next step is now finding the time.  I have been told by several musicians when they have been told about my journey is to find a half-hour to an hour every night.  Sit down, put on a television show or go to Netflix and click on something.  The musicians say that by doing this it will help time fly by.  So, I plan on doing this along with getting guitar lessons.

The development of becoming a guitar player is not easy.  There is still so much to learn.  I know this now more than ever.  In the next installment, I hope to bring some better news.  Now, please excuse me. I have to go and practice…

Learning How To Play Vol. 1

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It all began with a thought…

I grew up in the small town of Jamestown, Ohio.  Jamestown is your typical small town-just about 2000 citizens.  A McDonalds  sits right between a Dollar General and the local pizza establishment, Bentinos Pizza.  You have the two traffic lights that await you when you come to town.  On Friday nights in the fall season, the Greeneview Rams take to the field that is located in the same parking lot of the old high school.  On weekends, you grab a couple of cases of cold, cheap beer and drive out to the outskirts of the town, and into the never-ending acres of country land.  If you have some buddies have trucks that have more rust on it than the paint on truck, strap the rope on the machine, and have a tug and pull shake down.

My family and I lived out in those fields that the hijinks and absurd behavior would take place.  When the threat of tornados circled us, we would drive down the road to our friends of the family’s home.  Mike and Liz Bentley would be ever so gracious and open their doors to us, and let us stay in their basement if the time came to take shelter.  Of course, when you live in the country-tornados don’t scare you till they are knocking on your door.  We would sit on the porch, and watch the movement of the storm in the dark skies.  When the threat would move on towards another town, my folks would want to stick around and talk with the Bentleys.  That meant that Mike would go to a small room which was connected to the living room, and put on some music on his record.  The music room was incredible.  On the wall, each shelving unit would stack across left to right, up and down, with records from all decades.  It was a true sight to see.   Any type of classic rock you could think of, Mike had it.  The collection was impressive-still is in my opinion.

For hours, I would sit down at the kitchen table with my folks, and the Bentleys.  They had daughters, so my sister would go and play with girl toys.  Now, being young as I was-I didn’t feel like playing with Barbie’s, playing with dolls.  I was a boy.  I don’t play with those things.  Who would do such a thing, I thought.  I told myself that I would just sit in the kitchen with the adults, and watch whatever was on the small screen television that hung in the corner of the room.  I would never

watch the shows that were being screened with the volume turned up.  The music would be turned up to the farthest that the level that the volume could go.  The walls shook with the sound coming blaring through the speakers.  It was those nights that I would start the relationship that I have with music.  It’s a small part of why I became a music writer.

As I mentioned in my article about open mics in town, I got to college and wondered what it would be like to pick up an acoustic guitar, and learn how to play.  So, I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy.  I received a guitar for my birthday, and soon enough from there I would start to learn.  Well-that didn’t happen.  I had a friend that would try to show me some chords to play, and my fingers would start to bleed.  I was told that this normal, which never made any sense to me.  Why the hell would you want to do something that was going to make you bleed, and you weren’t really do anything that you think would make you do such?

So there I was, trying to push through some of the pain that the fingers would feel, and play some.  I learned how to play ‘Smoke On The Water’ from Deep Purple.  Alright-I learned just to play the chorus.  I would go to college parties, and try to impress girls with my pathetic guitar play.  It didn’t work.   Apparently, you needed to learn how to play songs about love, and also be a little better looking.  I didn’t possess any of those traits, so I gave up playing.  However, for some reason, I would never give away the guitar.  Is it the best guitar to have?!  Probably not, but I wouldn’t give it up.  I have had it for over 10 plus years now.  It’s always been in the black, nylon travel bag that came with it.  It’s always sitting next to the dresser.  I don’t know why I haven’t just hang it up or do anything with it-I just never wanted to give it up.  That is till now.

Starting this past year, I have been going around the Dayton area and watching some of the best music that is played anywhere in the United States.  I will go to show to show, meet up with the artists and bands that would be playing, and write about them and their performances.  I have been going to open mic nights as well.  Being able to live in Dayton, I notice thThe passion and dedication that these people have is incredible.  It’s something that I want to be part of-this special group of individuals around the world that has taken to playing music.

I decided that this year I would dust off the guitar that have had sitting around for so long, and learn how to play.  I would then sign up and play a set at an open mic night around town.  I want to see how it feels to be able to perfect a craft that makes people come together.  I wanted to learn how to play in order to show my appreciation to the people who go out there each and every night and show their talent off.  I want people to read this and see that it’s in fact not the easiest thing to do.  However at the end of the day, the experience will ultimately show that if you follow a dream, it will come true.  I will be doing a monthly update here.  I will discuss the highest of the highs, and the lowest of the lows.  I won’t be holding anything back.  If you have any comments or suggestions, please share them.

Here we go…