In Which She Admits She Got No Rhythm

Things I have: a new fuzzy argyle sweater; an addiction to Total(R) 2% greek yogurt; a venue picked out for my 30th birthday party; a desire to rock out on the guitar.

Things I don't have: time to straighten my apartment or call my friends; a car; a dog; enough dental insurance; a functioning umbrella.

Oh, and rhythm. People, I have no rhythm.

This was evidenced at my guitar lesson on Monday, and revisited every evening since. Bob and I decided it was time for me to learn a new song. He asked me what I'd been listening to lately, and I told him about my passionate love affair with the song Doin' Fine by Ellis. So we listened to it on his computer, and together (or so he made me believe) we figured out what key it was in. (D#, though she plays it with a capo on the 6th fret, enabling her to use chord shapes for G, D, Em and C, rather than the wackadoo D# shapes Bob was making me try first. I must have looked like I was in great pain, because as I struggled to make my fingers do these annoying barre chord things they don't want to do, he commented, "Boy, you don't like this at all.")

I was thrilled to have the progression for the song: four very simple chords I know well. So far, so good. We scooched back to the beginning of the song and both set about playing along.

One of us sounded great. One of us sounded retarded. I bet you can match the participants in column "A" with the performances in column "B."

So why did Bob sound so much better than me? To quote one of my favorite actor/singer/dancers of all time, he's got rhythm, he's got music. (Who could ask for anything more?)

Moreover, he knows lots of different strumming patterns, and can apply the right one to the right situation. I know only one strumming pattern. It goes, "Strum along with the words." But when the words are even slightly syncopated, strumming the lyrics means losing all sense of time.

I know, you're bored. Me too. Bored of not knowing how to play the g-d guitar. But hopeful that the more songs Bob teaches me, the more rhythm I will acquire.

A girl can dream.

In Which She Relates Diatonic Triads to Book Publishing

Lo, it is Thursday, and I have not so much as thought about my diatonic triads since my lesson on Monday. I have a whole page of triad fill-ins which Bob very carefully wrote out for me, and which remain empty and neglected in my Clairefontaine Musique notebook. I could have come home tonight and worked on them. I could have, but instead I decided to remind myself why I am learning to play the guitar--by playing and singing some songs that I love to play and sing.

It's kind of like being a book editor. I got into publishing because I loved books with a passion bordering on the maniacal. But now that I'm an editor, I spend all my time reading and rejecting crappy books (and proposals for crappy books-to-be). I very rarely having the time to pick up a good book for the sheer pleasure of getting lost between its covers.

Similarly, now that I'm learning things like music theory and fingerpicking, my guitar practice has become much more civilized than it used to be, more like a study period than a jam session. One of the results of this change is that I've learned a hell of a lot. The other result is that I've lost some of the exhilaration that used to keep me coming back to my good old Oscar Schmidt--back when I knew very little, but made use of what few skills I had in my repertoire to play my little heart out every night.

Wherein She Discusses Diatonic Triads

You know what's more fun than a barrel of monkeys? Well, it ain't learning your diatonic triads, let me tell you that. But apparently they come in handy, and thus it is my fate to learn their mysterious ways.

For those of you who aren't spending your evenings with your noses stuck in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory, a diatonic triad is basically a three-note chord. Like when you hear me complaining that the F major chord is not my friend, because you have to barre it and my fingers just don't want to cooperate, what I'm actually talking about is the diatonic triad of F, A, and C. But the name it's given is "F major" because it's a major chord with F as its root.

So I've barely begun explaining this very important musical concept, and already you're bored. You're totally scrolling down to the previous post, wondering if there's anything that's at all interesting on this silly blog. Don't deny it. You don't think diatonic triads are sexy.

Sigh. I'm afraid I have to agree with you. During my lesson tonight I thought I was going to fall over with boredom (and fatigue, last evening's slumber having been fitful thanks to nightmares about an author whose book I edited yesterday). So much so that when I left I called GTO and cancelled our dinner plans for polish food in Greenpoint, suddenly preferring home and pajamas.

Diatonic triads, I shake my fist at thee! Were it not for you, I'd be eating pierogies and kasha varnishkes right now!

In Which Bob Makes a Joke

I just have to share this. Bob and I were working on my Circle of Fourths, which is basically a torture tool he uses to keep his students in line. Er, and to teach his students their key signatures. But anyway. So when you're learning music theory there are tons of things you have to memorize. For example, you have to remember that most guitars are tuned to EADGBE. The way you remember such a thing is to make up a sentence--in the case of the guitar strings, it's Every Adult Dog Growls, Barks, Eats.

So Bob is teaching me the sentence for remembering the order of the sharps when you're writing sharp key signatures. And the order is FCGDAE. So the sentence is "Frank Cuts Grass During An Evening." "But," Bob said, "you can always come up with your own sentence. Let's come up with a better sentence." So we sit silently, our little brains working. I'm feeling all sorts of pressure to come up with a better, funnier, more relevant sentence. And naturally, I am drawing a complete blank. It's clear I have to say something, but I can't think what. So I squeak out, "Frank Cuts Grass, Dave Ate Eggs?" And without missing a beat, Bob nods earnestly and says, "That really rings true for me. I can almost taste the eggs."

OMG, I was dying of laughter. Bob makes Mondays fun!

Wherein She Milks a Biblical Metaphor for All It's Worth

Time is marching on, my friends, and I am but 2-1/2 months away from the moment of truth--i.e., my thirtieth birthday--which was the point by which I had promised myself I would know how to play the guitar. So the question arises: have I reached my goal? Am I anywhere close?

The answer is so much more complicated than that. It starts with the concept of "learning how to play the guitar," which seemed so simple to me before I picked the ole axe up again. Back then--by which I mean, last New Year's, when I made it my resolution to learn how to play before I entered my (oh dear god say it ain't so) fourth decade of this lifetime--I thought learning how to play meant, well, just that. The transition from a state of not knowing how to play to a state of being able to pick up the guitar and entertain my friends around a campfire.

The intervening ten months have proven, to my dismay, that in the kingdom of guitar there are many houses. (To paraphrase Jesus. Kind of.) First, there is the house of knowing a bunch of basic chords and being able to open a songbook and play the chords labeled there. This is the house I'd entered by, say, May--at which time I could pick up the guitar and commence a singalong. I thought back then that I'd made it: I knew how to play the guitar.

But then I had to go get all uppity. Feeling like I was a bit of a genius, but admitting I might have a few more things to learn, I had to go rustle myself up a teacher. Now, thanks to Bob, I have entered another house. More like a McMansion. Call it the house of the rising Desire To Play The Guitar Well. This is a house that is very large. So large it sometimes feels endless, like I'll never get to really know it. Like I could run right in through the front door and keep running for what seems like miles, and still not make it out of the foyer.

But never fear, dear readers. It's not as bad as all that. There is actually a lot of good stuff to be learned in the foyer. Like how to play "Blackbird" by Paul McCartney. And how to differentiate the rhythm Gillian Welch is strumming from the solo Dave Rawlings is playing on the melancholy and lovely tune that is "Revelator." And there's lots of music theory, which is actually less torturous and more potentially helpful than I would have thought.

So back to the question of whether I've yet learned how to play the guitar. I'm going to say no. But I'm going to say no with a caveat. So deep have I discovered my respect for music to be, that I now no longer think there is such a state as "having learned to play the guitar." It's more like, well, a really large house. And some people stand out on the front porch dilly-dallying, making up excuses for not making the effort to walk inside. And others take a deep breath and cross that threshold. They do it by picking up the guitar every day and, well, trying. And that's me. I've maybe not "learned how to play," but I definitely play. Yes I do, in fact, play guitar.