I took out my old guitar the other afternoon and made a not so productive attempt at playing it. I bought it in 1974 from a local music store when the owner was nice enough to put it on layaway. Some days I would ride bicycle and visit my guitar and give him a dollar or two that I had earned raking leaves, washing cars, babysitting etc. .
It has been abused on the back of a bicycle, motorcycle, jamming in the rain with friends . … poor guy. Held up pretty well until this last year – dunno what happened but well wah wah . My fingers on my left hand are pretty much numb and the fret board and neck are on the smaller side so I so can not finger anything but your basic simple chords on a good day LOL
Now wanting to play something I drug out my Appalachian Dulcimers and gave it a go. Not to darn bad once I remembered the basics. Not enough can be said for the advantage of drone stings.
This is now where I realize that I really should have paid attention and the dreaded piano lessons where I did everything and anything to NOT learn more than necessary to keep time and hit the right note. I even convinced my piano teacher to show me how to play the guitar on the sly as my parents thought guitars equaled hippies.
My poor brain is jumbled up with ioian, mixolydian, aeolian, my gosh I swear I never ever new there was phrygian LOL guess I have alot of catching up to do ha ha … I am betting by the end of next week I will be back to listening to the song and figuring out how to play it however the strings are tuned. When I purchased the ozark walnut dulcimer it was tuned AAD hence the songs I picked out were in that tuning.
‘This method served me well but since I have nothing much better to do I tuned the Blue Lion dulcimer to CAD and I now know that is the aeolian and I can figure out Greensleeves in Dm . … one flat right?
I drone on until I figure out some chords.
Your endeavor sounds so very cool. An ex of mine was big into dulcimers and helped me gain an appreciation.
I was forced to take piano lessons for years in my youth. I did the minimum and wasn’t particularly talented . Not sure that I can even read music now. So, anyone doing much of anything with any instrument impresses me!
Enjoy and good luck!
Howdy!
I loved music I just abhorred being forced to practice when I felt like riding my bike, playing Love Is Blue (L’Amour Est Bleu) when I wanted to learn Simon & Garfunkel songs on a guitar.
I still have a rudimentary knowledge of reading music but learn by listening.
I fell in love with the mountain dulcimer, guitar, banjo, mandolin when I attended a Blue Grass Festival with some friends from our church as a pre teen.
I suspect if you heard my dulcimer playing at the moment impressed would not be the word on the tip of your tongue LOL.
Jan
What a great idea. Play one for me!
Scarecrow and I used to play old-timey music on some assortment of fiddle/banjo/guitar/mandolin/dulcimer. Scarecrow was really the musician; I played with more enthusiasm than skill, but kept at it as long as numb hands would let me.
Play something fun!
I used to play piano and was considered talented, but I only practiced the minimum and stopped taking lessons as soon as I could (after ten years). I never learned anything about any of the stringed instruments. And the last time I tried to play I found reading music like reading a foreign language! What loss!! And to think I am responsible for letting it all go…
Hi Jan,
Please come by my blog and collect the Gold Paw Award on Friday’s post for Annie and Catfish.
Love,
Herrad
Thank you Herrad!
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