loading
toonhead2102
141
21
starlight
180077
journal
almost 10 years ago
entries
tool
show
week
life
play
told
̰ͅͅ
music
hard
managed
gonna
friday
find
dan
lesson
thing
1849
Third Lesson: Self-Improvement

Friday, May 23, 2014

Had my third lesson this past Friday. As promised I have chosen to share with you all how it went. I'm doing this mainly because I found myself pleasantly surprised. I was expecting much worse, a 'chewing out' if you will, for my lack of results. Or so I thought?

The previous week hadn't exactly gone as expected for me. Nine hours is just too much to ask for I've found through trial and error. Managed to catch a trip to Penticton on Wednesday though so I went to Leggott's Classic Guitars and got me some sweet stuff. Nothing too fancy, just the needed essentials. A digital tuner, a strap, ziplock case, some picks, and spare ultra-light strings. The guy who sold me the stuff also tuned the thing up for me and took a look at it to help me find out why exactly it was so hard to play. It tuned out somebody had modified the saddle, placing a piece of wood underneath, so that the strings were particularly high off the fret board. No wonder it hurt so much to get all the chords flat.

Other than that, didn't exactly get all that much time to practice in. Was difficult to find the time. And it made me somewhat subsurfacely bitter. I was having regrettable periods of doubt throughout the week. Frustration over not being able to get the hang of things. I managed to get a decent rhythm going, and eventually managed to shift from strumming in open E to A. Couldn't remember how the tune that I had in my head went when it came time for the lesson.

I felt so guilty by the time Friday got here. Was I even taking this dream seriously enough? Here I was, hadn't even NEARLY gotten enough practice time in. Had no blisters on my fingers to show my instructor like he said last time. --Much to my surprise though, once again, the lesson made me nervous. He kept watching me, watching my fingers and timing - timing was the hard part during the week to work on. And whenever he would let me go off on by myself it's kind of awkward cause he's watching me, not saying a word, I can't tell yet if I'm doing it right or doing something wrong? I guess all kinds of student/teacher partnerships can get like that from time to time. The teachers down at the community center used to do the same thing.

This week, knowing I hadn't practiced much, he gave me more simple stuff to master, but nevertheless a step up from what I was doing last week. This time I'm getting closer to working on actual songs. This week, it's what he calls a 16-bar blues or something like that. Open 4x; A 4x; E 2x; B2x; A 2x; then the finish 2x; and repeat. He told me he's basically just trying to get my thumb used to keeping in the rhythm cause next time we're gonna try jamming together. I'm gonna play rhythm, him on lead, and I have to stay in beat.

To which by the way, he did tell me I had been IMPROVING since he last saw me. Last time I couldn't even DO strumming, now - although the tune I played him was sloppy, at least was a recognizable pattern. Perhaps I don't give myself enough credit? I was hoping that by the success of all my hard work acknowledgment of this would be represented in my dreams, by lately my dream journal entries have been short and fragmented and thus why I haven't had anything decent to upload in a while.

The more I strive towards including music in my life, and working towards this ultimate goal, whether anyone believes I am truly sincere or not, is not so much about me wanting to live out some adolescent dream of becoming a rock star. Believe me I have entirely different reasons for wanting to get into music. But the more I travel along this path the more I realize this is something that has got more to do with me. And my -what Lenon Honor would call- 'personal refinement'. Or at least I'd like it to be. I'm hoping that when I come out through the other end of this thing, I will be a better man, outwardly and inwardly cause despite Dan's knack for making me nervous in the presence of his tutelage the more I am in his company, the more I continue to affirm that he and I have similar personalities. Perhaps why I was so inevitably drawn to him in life. And this situation all very much reminds me of a similar scenario Lenon Honor spoke of going through in his life, also involving music lessons, that he mentions in his videos. in the coming weeks and months ahead of me I really plan to work on in my own time, re-evaluating my life's direction what is it I truly want during my time here on this Earth and "why"?

Before I left - when asked about my musical tastes the first time I stopped in to see Dan, I told him unfortunately, the only real rock music or otherwise I'm all that familiar with or interesting in happens to be Tool. Him and his wife have never listened to Tool but Dan told me I'm the second young guy to come in for lessons asking him if he knew Tool. He told me he's been thinking "I really gotta check this 'Tool' band out some time to find out just what the heck kind of music they play?" cause he wants to show me what one of their songs would look like on guitar. I decided to lend him my copy of "Lateralus" and he accepted me gift. So now I expect he's gonna show me how to do "Schism" next time I go to see him or something. Oh boy, tough days are still yet ahead of me.

Anyways, if I become the next decent thing you hear playing on the radio some day, you heard it here first, how I came to be. It's not like I wanna become a douchebag like Bono or something, but definitely would like to take this thing all the way. Share what I've learned along the way to an informed public, and just PRAY I have something refreshingly intelligent to share by the time this happens for me...

week
dream dictionaries
music
dream dictionaries
life
dream dictionaries
friday
dream dictionaries
find
dream dictionaries
play
dream dictionaries
theta b3.0
random dream...
Join now!