In Which She Writes Her First Song

That's right, my two friends who read this, I took a giant leap today and wrote my first song. I hesitate to call it a classic-in-the-making, but it's a giant leap for me. I can now officially bill myself as a "singer/songwriter." I also have something to do with my guitar when I get sick of playing the songs I already know--I can write new ones!

Okay, so it's a bit rhyme-y rhyme-y, and the lyrics aren't, like, groundbreaking or anything. (If, for example, it were a book, and it were on submission to me, I would reject it out of hand.) But I'm cutting myself some slack on this one. It's my first song ever, written in one afternoon, and for that it ain't half bad. It's a full-on song, after all, with a chorus and a bridge and an opener and a closer. It's already playable, too, as evidenced by the fact that I played it tonight for WJ who came over for dinner to help me reduce the obscene beer content in my fridge.

The song is called Wait, and it's coming soon to a Brooklyn garden party near you.

Wherein She Plays Her First Concert

As SL pointed out to me last night, I have yet to announce to my Go Go Guitar Girl audience the enormous fact that I have now officially played my first concert. This revelation is late, as in the time that I've been keeping this secret I went on to play Concert #2. But that does not diminish the enormity of meaning behind Concert #1, which took place in my very own backyard at my Memorial Day BBQ.

I sang Nashville, Closer to Fine, Romeo & Juliet and Land of Caanan by the Indigo Girls, as well as old favorites like Brown Eyed Girl, Leavin' on a Jetplane and several (but not all six) verses of American Pie.

I was shaking with fear and happiness. It was one of the highlights of my life, I think.

So last night was Concert #2, on the occasion of the gathering of my friends to visit the annual St. Paola di Francesca carnival in the elementary school parking lot a block from my house. I sang two songs I'd recently learned, Carolina In My Mind by James Taylor and A Campfire Song by 10,000 Maniacs. Later, by request, I reprised Leavin' On A Jetplane and tried my hand at Jack & Diane. AP was there too, and he tore the house down with Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi. The others sang along between bites of deep-fried oreo.

In Which Her Baby Sees the Light of Day

I thought my loyal readership would like a look at this so-called guitar I keep talking about. Alas, as is the fate of any electronic gadget that has the misfortune of finding its way into my possession, I lost my digital camera. So I'm going all sorts of not-digital on you here, and posting my very own rendering of my very own Oscar Schmidt guitar. Which I'm now going to go practice.

Wherein She Goes Back to Telling You About Her Practice

Tonight I practiced for an hour and a half. Or, at the very least, I held my guitar for that long. Some of the time wasn't spent actually playing, but instead looking for tabs on the internet. Honestly, I don't know what beginner guitar players did before the internet. If they wanted to play their favorite songs, did they actually go shell out cash for songbooks? Nowadays that seems like a big waste of money. As Gillian Welch puts it, these days

Everything is free,
That's what they say.
Everything I ever done,
They're gonna take it away.*

After investigating several songs I was interested in learning, I settled on A Campfire Song by 10,000 Maniacs. BTW, I base my choice of songs on the following criteria: 1) comprised mostly of chords I already know how to play; 2) fun to sing. If the arrangement is meant for a male voice, I'll just capo it up a few frets so it better fits my second-soprano range.

But I digress. The one snag in A Campfire Song is the bridge, wherein I have to sing not only Natalie Merchant's part, but also Michael Stipe's cameo appearance. Hard to be in two places at once.

*Note: I have long believed this to be a song about internet piracy. If anyone knows differently, however, by all means feel free to correct me.

In Which She Directs Your Attention to a New Feature

Being that I am far from a computer whiz, and know relatively little about this html bag, I'm very proud to have found a way to add a "Links" sidebar (at right). The links posted will focus primarily on guitar topics, but will also include links to pages I find inspiring. Case in point, the Everyday Matters blog by artist/writer/neophyte guitarist Danny Gregory. It is because of Danny that I have started to draw again, which I believe in some way helps my guitar playing as well. If you look at his blog, go to his archives and read January/February/March 2004. These are my favorite entries.

Oh, and yes, there's a link to the Shambhala website, since without meditation I could never have summoned the patience to become the Go Go Guitar Girl.