Category: Guitar chronicles

Day two, check!

Posted on by euniceo

So, I had my guitar session for the second day in a row! It was at 8:00pm though, not the scheduled 7:30pm; but it’s “better late than never” like the adage goes. Of course, I don’t think I’ll be journaling every single day of guitar practice, but let’s see.

I’m using the beginner course by Justin Sandercoe (highly recommended by the way). There are nine stages on the beginner’s course. I’ve kind of mastered stage 1 now based on the amount of times I have started from scratch over the past couple of years ha! So, I started stage 2 today and will probably be here for a least a week.

It’s interesting learning a new skill. My fingers hurt and there are chord progressions I don’t think I can get. For example, the transition from the Dm to the A chord seems to have stumped me at first try. I had to stop and place my left fingers one at a time on each string while strumming with my right hand to try and make sure the chords sounded right. After a few minutes of “why can’t I get this?!’ exclaims, it did sound slightly better. Key word here: slightly. I’ve still a long way from mastery! Sorry if this is sounds like jargon to you!

Basically, “if at first try you don’t succeed, try and try again” is the moral of today’s story. I can’t rush it. It can be overwhelming to think of the end goal and look at where I am now and doubt that I will make it there. But like I was recently reminded, God doesn’t give us the grace for tomorrow. He gives us the grace for today. If I tried to include tomorrow lot in today’s it would be unwise and unproductive, among other things.

So I will focus on today’s progress and be thankful for it. The very fact that I am practicing today is progress in itself! 🙂

Guitar practice, prayer and everything in between

Posted on by euniceo

So I started my guitar lessons for the umpteenth time this evening. When I mean started, I mean resumed from a long hiatus of non-practice. It’s happened before. I would have a good practice streak for a couple of weeks and then something would happen and the consistency would halt. Weeks, months would pass. The guitar gathering dust and I staring at it and wishing I had the self discipline to pick it up and just start playing; but at the same time feeling bad for not having the zeal to, and therefore shying away from facing myself by finding something less productive to distract myself with. A vicious circle I tell you!

However, this evening I picked it up! A dear friend of mine got me a “8 Chords 100 Songs for guitar” book for my birthday a couple of days ago. Such a thoughtful gift. It contained familiar songs and hymns. As I browsed through, I got excited at the prospect of learning and being able to play them in private singing sessions between God and I. That’s one of the reasons I had wanted to start playing in the first place.

When the lockdown started in March, I knew that I need to actively do something to maintain some kind of routine especially since I would now be working from home. So I decided to set alarms for my hourly activities daily. For example, 5am wake up, 6am devotion, 7am exercise, 8am get ready for work, 8:30am start work, 1pm lunch time, 5pm finish work, 6pm dinner, 7:30 guitar lesson, 8pm journal/blog post, 9pm evening devotion, 9:40pm bed time. Pretty structured if I do say so myself! I mean look at all that productivity! I did keep to it for a couple of days. But then work would spill over to 6 or 7pm, or I would have trouble sleeping and would wake up feeling tired which would have a knock on effect on the rest of the day. Come 7:30pm, I would snooze or cancel the guitar lesson alarm and it became my new habit of snoozing or cancelling these faithful reminders of the habits I wanted to develop. The irony!

So, I am glad I picked up the guitar today, even as I type these with sore finger tips (a reminder that I haven’t played in a long time). I pray to be more consistent. Speaking of prayer, I realise I need to pray more about the seemingly mundane. I do a lot of thinking and I sometimes mistake that for praying. I want to pray more for God to help me. The reality is that I depend on him for everything. He enables my every breath, and He can give me the strength to be more disciplined. So I pray that tomorrow at 7:30pm when the alarm rings for my guitar lesson, I will pick it up and play.