This past weekend, I turned 29 years old. As I’ve been thoroughly (and unnecessarily) made aware, this is the last year the general public will consider me a young person.
As excited as I am to wear sweatpants all the time and generally just let myself go and become a curmudgeonly old man next year, there’s a part of me that still desperately clings to my waning youth. There’s still a lot of irresponsible things I haven’t done! I’ve haven’t stolen a car or hitchhiked across the Mexican border or anything else you can only get away with when you’re young.
I figured I’d start at the top of the list: Become a rock star. So, in the spirit of this last-ditch, Hail Mary effort at rock legend status, I figured the best place to start was to learn to play some guitar and the best time was now.
It’s not that I don’t know how to play any guitar at all. In fact, and this is pretty embarrassing, I’ve had a guitar for several years now and, beyond learning how to play a bunch of chords and a few acoustic songs I like, I haven’t pursued it much. It wasn’t for lack of interest; I just got pretty good at the piano over the past 20 years and it can be really hard going back to square one with a new instrument. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.
The time for excuses has come to a close now. I decided that it’s time I believe for myself what I tell other people all the time: you can’t be too old to learn a new instrument.
I think this will provide something pretty interesting to write about, namely because it’s an excellent way to get into the mindset of a student again. I’ll probably even take a few lessons from some guitar teachers, either with one of the teachers I know or on the ZOEN. I’ve been teaching for so long and found my own rhythm (forgive me) as teacher that I’ve started to forget what it feels like to grind through the challenges and develop the new skills I dream of having.
To give myself some accountability, I’ll be posting about my progress on this blog. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while, first of all, thanks! I have no idea who you are (besides you, Mom) but I appreciate it, I really do. You may also remember the time I tried to keep a running practice journal for my day-to-day piano practice a few years back and may understandably doubt my ability to consistently post about something like that.
I’ve learned a few things since then, namely that, at least for people like me, going from rarely posting to daily posting is nearly impossible. That’s why this time around, I’m not setting any kind of preconceived schedule for how often I’ll post or anything like that. The guitar practice is my own responsibility, but it’s only a responsibility to myself. I’ll write about it when I feel there’s something to write about, but I won’t attempt to track it meticulously, at least not at the present.
I hope watching me struggle inspires someone out there to try something similar, but if nothing else it should be good for a few laughs. Feel free to harass me if I don’t keep up with it. Lord knows I do that enough myself.
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