Learning to Play the Guitar Isn’t For the Faint Hearted
I grew up around musicians in my family; aunties and uncles who could either play: ukulele, bass, bass guitar, acoustic guitar—a lot of stringed instruments for sure—and sing.
My grandpa played his uke more often, I didn’t even know he had an acoustic guitar until a year after he passed away.
He sang a lot.
His family often played during family get togethers or after someone said grace to bless the food before eating, and he was friends with a lot of the old school local artists.
I only remember Uncle Darren Benitez, he was funny, but I’m not gonna talk about famous local artists.
The point is that music was a big part of my life as it was for my grandpa.
I’m only now learning to play because I have the opportunity and the means to learn.
Gramps wasn’t very patient when it came to teaching, so, I never learned to play and I wasn’t forced to.
Now that I’m strumming his Islander brand guitar, I have a new appreciation for music now.
I Absolutely HATE Learning to Play the Guitar
I just started my guitar journey literally this past Friday and my left index, middle, and ring fingers hurt.
Youcisian taught me how to tune my guitar strings from listening to it and the app tells me to either tune up—twist the knob up—or tune down—twist the knob down—to make sure the guitar is properly set to be played.
Then, I’ve only started learning to strums the open string—you strum the string as it is—the first to third frets—if you look at the neck of the guitar with the lines running across the wood, each divider is called a fret.
Frets pretty much changes the sound of the string compared to its open string counterpart.
After that, I learned how to play riffs.
Riffs are the familiar melodies of the song people can recognize to tell which song apart strumming the thicker strings—which are labeled as strings 6, 5, and 4.
I’ve only put in less than 2 hours across 2 days of practicing different songs from the Yousician app; I love learning things at my own pace.
However, I had no idea how difficult it must have been for musicians to create the end product of all of my favorite songs into what they are today.
It took me out of being just a listener to the one practicing.
- Zombie by The Cranberries
- Stressed Out by Twenty-One Pilots
- I See Fire By Ed Sheeran
- She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
- Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan (I assumed this was a Guns N’ Roses song)
- Something in the Way by Nirvana
These were the songs that I was learning to play with Youcisian and, while I like most of these songs, I started hating them while learning to play myself.
I keep missing enough notes to get a score where, instead of seeing next to continue my lessons, I see play again on my screen.
How Hard Could Learning Be?
If you have friends or family who are musicians, it might look easy to you because you don’t see how much time they put into practicing.
Maybe you hear it, but trying it out yourself will make you see that it’s not easy.
When following along to the song on my screen, I kept plucking the wrong string, my fingers got confused with where I had to place them on the frets, I kept missing so many cues.
I never been so stressed out just by merely listening to Stressed Out by Twenty-One Pilots as much as I had when learning to strum the frets and riffs in time to the musical cues.
Even going at 80% speed, or full speed, and my fingers on the frets and at the base of the guitar are not cooperating together at all.
I can write with both hands.
I can carry things in both hands.
I can catch and throw things with both hands.
Hell, I taught myself how to use chopsticks with both of my hands!
Yet, trying to strum, listen, watch, and repeat was a nightmare!
So far, after 3 days and less than 2 hours of play and practice time, the only thing I can confidently strum is the Happy Birthday jingle.
I’m definitely not gonna have my own guitar solo any time soon and thats okay.
Am I Gonna Make This a New Hobby?
Maybe.
That’s all I can say.
I wanted to see what it was like to be the one playing an instrument than just be a listener.
Sadly, I finally got curious enough after my grandpa passed, but that’s kind how life goes, no?
Curiosity comes after a lot of things and mine happened after a funeral.
I’m not trying to start a band, I’m not trying to become a famous musician.
I just wanted to know how it felt to play and produce music like gramps did when he was alive because Yousician and music lessons in general aren’t cheap.
I’ll see how long it’ll take me to learn to play songs I like and I’ll see how far I get in the next year with Yousician’s yearly subscription. It’s temporary for sure.
Even if I never become good at playing, I’ll never listen to music the same way again.
If You Made It to the End
Thanks for reading this personal spiel about music.
Yousician and learning to play the guitar definitely took me out of my comfort zone and gave me something new to experience.
I’ll see how long I last with my self teaching lessons through an app.
Otherwise, if I don’t post, I probably got cracked upside the head for breaking something that wasn’t mine to begin with—I’m only borrowing my gramps’s guitar, so I better be careful with it—and I had my family whoop my ass.
If you’re curious to other articles that took me out of my comfort zone, I have a few down below.
Feel free to explore the archives and I’ll see you all in the archives later.
More From The Archives
- 2013 Dodge Dart Front Turn Signal Not Working? Here’s How I Fixed Mine
- I Had No Idea What I Was Doing, But I Still Fixed This Xbox 360 (With No EXP)
- Cold Turkey Dieting Doesn’t Work: Why Quitting Foods Without Replacement Backfires on Nutrition, Energy, and Habit Change
- Being a Life Long Learner Doesn’t Always Mean Learning New Skills
