Chronicles of L

I have a new love in my life.  It is a tan-colored hollow-bodied Epiphone guitar. When I was child I never had an interest in learning how to play an instrument, well that’s not true I wanted to learn how to play the piano, but that passion only lasted for a week or so, but as I hit my mid 30’s I am beginning to crave new creative outlets and the guitar seemed like a noble start.

 My new interest was met by massive support from my friends, which I was thankful for because I had no idea what kind of guitar to buy or even where to buy one for that matter. My friend R took me to Sam & Ash on Broadway and new introduced me to the world of guitars. 

 There are many different types of guitars; you have your bass and acoustic bass guitars, electric and electric bass, classical, acoustic steel-stringed and what I bought an acoustic guitar. Acoustical guitars are hollow-bodied that are unamplified by design.  R wanted me to go with nylon strings, but I insisted on steel strings.  After about three weeks of practice I now know why R wanted me to go with nylon, my index and middle fingers have perpetually numbness, but despite the numbness I am glad I went with the steel, nylon strings are for wimps!

 I was a little concerned about whether I should buy a guitar for left-handed peeps, like myself, but fortunately I am ambidextrous and decided to go with a right a handed and hoped for the best.  So far my left hand has not protested.

 Now, not all guitars are made equally.  I am not an expert with guitars…yet, but my amateur ear did hear a distinct difference between certain brands. I fell in love with a Yamaha, but my friend encouraged me to go with a guitar that was more reasonable in price, in case I did not like playing or if I sucked at it.  I agreed that she was right so I bought an Epiphone, which is prefect for a beginner, even though I drooled over the Fenders and Gibson’s. 

 Guitar stores are a beautiful blend of Grunge New Yorkers, Business men and the Broadway wannabes.  The Grunge folk are the people you don’t want to run into in a dark alley in the LES, not because they will rob you, but most likely will beat you up because you are not wearing the right shoes.  Then you have the corporate business men in their 3 piece suits with their bored faced girlfriends who wished they didn’t agree to tagging along and last, last but not least the Broadway wannabes who grab the most expensive guitars in the store and start to sing whatever song they are auditioning for that day.  R and I were graced with one girl’s voice for our entire stint in the store…which was about an hour.  The girl had an okay voice, but for a full-blown hour of listening to this girl sing and not just a hushed voice but a full stage voice just became downright annoying.  There was also a guy dressed up like a pirate who asked the cashier for some strings, but told the cashier that he was going to buy other things downstairs, but as my friend R informed marched right out of the store without paying for them.

 At the end of my shopping spree I purchased a new guitar, a case, and a pretty cool electronic tuner. R and I headed to Bryant Park with Starbuck sandwiches and my very first lesson began.

 I now know about 5 cords now, A, A minor, E, E minor, and G…working on C. I hope by the end of this month I can play a song.

 Now, the only person who hasn’t been supportive of my new hobby is my cat.  My cat is the most loving, friendly quirky cat on the planet except when it comes to my guitar playing.  As soon as she spies the guitar case she gives me this look of pure pain and bolts under bed. Sometimes, I stop my practice and look under my bed and she has this look on her face that says, “Wake me when you have finished your torture playing.”  I have had many conversations with her telling her that it hurts that she is not being supportive of my new hobby and if she ever gets a hobby I will make sure I won’t be supportive, which of course she just stretches and rolls on her back and meows at me. The funny thing about my cat as soon as I put the guitar away she comes out from under the bed. She stretches a little relief and rubs up against my leg and asks for a treats.  I guess she thinks, “If I had to listen to that racket for the past hour you need to give me at least half a bag of treats.”

 Til next time reader,

L.

Chroniclesofl by Lee Ann Walton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.