[19] 100 Reasons to Keep Living [19]

[19]

This is what hubby bought the other day.  It's a Fender Starcaster and came in a beginner kit with the amp, stand, case, extra strings, strap, tuner and picks.  And it was only $165.  Not bad.

I've always wanted to learn to play guitar.  And it's confirmed that I pick up instruments pretty easily.  I played the flute in grade school (learning to read music).  Then when I was about 11 I taught myself to play the keyboard.  It wasn't a full sized one and I never did figure out doing both hands at once but I could play with my right hand.  I knew enough to be able to play the melody to Fur Elise on a real piano in my college dorm.  In high school I learned to play the violin and spent three years in the school orchestra.  When Meagan took clarinet years ago I was able to pick it up fast.  She was having trouble so I studied the book to learn the fingerings for the notes and within less than an hour I was playing Mary Had a Little Lamb.  She had been playing for a week and couldn't even make a solid sound.  She was so pissed.

I've been playing around with the guitar for a couple of days and found a site that has simple songs using TAB.  No chords yet but I'm getting pretty good at playing simple tunes on the upper strings.  Including the beginning of the theme song from Pirates of the Caribbean which is a ton of fun to play.  Just have to get used to sliding down to the 5th/6th/7th frets.

Last night hubby picked up this Guitarsmith game.  It's like Guitar Hero or Rockband but uses real guitars and teaches you how to play at your own speed.  Can't wait to try it out.  I'm watching him play now and he's so bad at it I'm cringing with each note (and he insists he played guitar when he was a teen).  What he's doing looks so freaking easy compared to the what I was learning yesterday.  Have to hurry and get the house cleaned so when he leaves for work I can play.

Anyway, I've been going back and forth between practicing the guitar and my violin and it's reaffirmed how much I want to pick up other instruments to have around the house--flute, clarinet, trumpet.