Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Guitar goofing and goofing up

At the type-in, the subject of playing music came up, and someone (Justin?) asked me if I played with a band.  I answered (tongue in cheek) "Not currently."  And then spent the rest of the day worried someone had actually believed I meant it, and that I can actually, in fact, play well enough for such things.  I can't.

But I have had the guitar out more since then, out of shame, so there has been that benefit.

Here's something I came up with years ago that I've been goofing around with again: two chords, very simple melody, fingerpicked.  Lots of the audio equivalent of typos: my fingers were tired and I kept buzzing, my guitar wasn't completely in tune.  Not to mention Tam gets in his two cents at the end, sort of throwing me off.  The tune needs a title one of these days.  It's in A minor, so the "A minor thing" name on the track means that it is, in fact, an A Minor thing.  Not a minor thing.  Or, actually, it is a rather minor thing, but...

Oh, never mind.

Anyhow, it kinda feels nice, having sore fingers again!

6 comments:

rino breebaart said...

hey, that's a nice piece of fingerpickin!

Sounds a bit like traditional folk.

Anonymous said...

That's a lovely tune and well played. I like the 'pull off' technique near the end of the bridge.

It had a madrigal/Celtic feel and I could hear, in my head, other instruments joining in, such as uillean pipes and mandolin.

Jeff The Bear

Ton S. said...

I appreciate your guitar piece. It has a contemplative feel, kinda similar to the music of monastic John Michael Talbot.

Elizabeth H. said...

Thanks, all! I need to get back into practicing on a regular basis. I've totally slacked off awhile, and it's frustrating to find myself fumbling with things that used to be easy. Argh!

I dream lo-tech--I like John Michael Talbot's music, so I much appreciate your comment!

Cameron said...

This is my first visit to your great blog (via your recent post on Manual Entry) and it is interesting that you posted something about the guitar -- part of the subject of my latest post!

Thanks for sharing that little tune! Very nicely played. It is a challenge to make something so repetitive INTERESTING, and you definitely succeeded.

Many times, simple music is the best music.

Let's encourage one another to keep playing the guitar! I'm a brand-newbie to it and my fingertips are very sore, even after only 20-30 minutes of playing.

Elizabeth H. said...

Thanks for stopping by, Cameron!

I'm hoping to commit to playing every day, even if it's just for a few minutes. I remember in the past, those few minutes often led to a few more minutes, and a few more. The hardest part, as with writing, is sometimes just picking up the instrument.