Guitar: chords and strums

I spent some quality time hurting myself with my new guitar today. I was glad for it, too, since yesterday proved an exercise in frustration and excruciating tone deafness.

Somehow, yesterday, I managed to get completely out of tune. Efforts to tune were comic and embarrassing. With no reference point for a note--any note--other than plastic horns in my kids' toy bins, I had no way of knowing where to begin. Naturally, I went to the internet. There are many online how-to-tune-your guitar tutorials, many of them handy You-Tube videos. One I watched was very straight forward, but required that I be sitting at a piano. Another wanted me to use a tuning fork (I have one for neurological exams, but wasn't sure that would work out). But...the guy in the video was sitting at a piano...right? And if he could summon an E for me, then it would be like I was at the piano.

I had a piano!

I went through the steps of tuning low E, then tuning the rest of the strings by ear. Quite proud of myself, I thought I'd celebrate with a big, happy G chord. Well, it sounded like shit. Really. Awful. Not G. Not anything. I was sure that I'd heard the E correctly and the rest of the tuning went well, so clearly that means I'm tone deaf. So be it.

I had some errands to do, one of which took me right past the Guitar Center (where I'd bought my guitar the night before). I willfully violated Joe's clear advice and bought a tuner. Not only that, an electronic tuner. Clips on to the end of the guitar and tells me it doesn't care if I'm tone deaf.

I also bought some picks. Sorry, Joe.

So today, once I got off my chair long enough to pick up my guitar and put myself back in the chair, I was in tune, or so my new friend told me. My chords sounded good to me, but what do I know.

I spent some time working on the five chords in chapter one of my Fretboard Logic book, working on finding them and playing them without awkward rattles or muted string sounds. I spent about an hour with that, then jumped into one of the free online lessons at Next Level Guitar. I chose "How To Strum," because I don't know how to strum. I watched the short video several times (had to learn a new chord participate--now I know six) and learned a couple of strum patterns and a chord progression. Next I'll learn what those terms mean.

So now my fingers are, well, injured. I would have loved to keep on playing, but couldn't put my fingers on the strings, they hurt so much. So I read about fixed gear bikes for a while and headed out for some errands.

I'm sitting now at Stumptown Coffee, across from the girls daycare, and it's time to pick them up. So off I go, bloody fingers and six chords in my head.

Unemployment is good.

Guitar

Many thanks to Joe, my friend and mentor, who took me out to the Guitar Center last night to help me buy...a guitar (I was tempted by a few drums, though). I am a total novice with the guitar: I know three chords and my fingertips are soft and callus-less. For now. Joe and I sat with several guitars, playing "Little Boxes" using the chords I can play, and eventually settled on a Yamaha, reasonable price.



I stayed up last night playing my three chords, watching videos of people playing guitar, and wondering when my fingers might start to bleed. I also spent some time reading Fretboard Logic, the book recommended to me by Guitar Center dude for learning the "reasoning behind the guitar's unique tuning." The book is good...logical. I'll work on the first chapter, learning the basic open chords, until my fingers can't take it anymore.

I don't anticipate posting any videos of me playing guitar. Nobody wants that.