In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.
~Shunryu Suzuki
Last week sometime, or perhaps the week before, Gordon McGregor, a fellow photographer and beginning guitar player, sent me an e-mail to ask how my playing was coming along. Thanks, Gordon.
When I started learning, only 2 months ago, I promised myself that, if at all possible, I’d give this a year to see how I do. So far, it has been fun, though there have been times when I’ve not put in as much practice as I thought that I should, instead going with practicing when I want to because it is fun. Also, I’m trying to not compete with myself. That is, not saying that I have to learn this or that by this or that time. Instead, just having fun, and I am.
This weekend, I didn’t take my guitar back to Charlotte with me. I usually do, but for some reason, didn’t want to. This morning, I got up and decided that I really felt like practicing. Mind you, I had been thinking about this all weekend. When I grabbed the guitar, looked at my fingerings, and strummed a few chords, I was amazed. They came out nearly perfectly. That hadn’t happened before. Then, my mind kicked in and said: you shouldn’t be able to do that! Well, after that I couldn’t! So, I put the guitar down for a bit, went and did something else, then came back again after those thoughts had passed. Nice chords again.
Today, in order to inspire a little bit more incentive on my part, I asked the teacher if we could learn some blues chords. Being the great teacher that he is, he launched into the whole history of blues, talked about pentatonic scales, origins, why things were the way they were, etc. I really like getting the whole historical aspect of it.
Then, at the end, he gave me 3 sheets of 12-bar, 3 chord blues to practice, one in each of the following keys: G, D, and A. Also, before I left, he made sure to impress upon me that this is just the beginning, or the framework, and that the sky is the limit. Later, he said, we’ll move on down the fret and get really bluesy, start bending notes, etc. Now, I’m pretty excited. He also suggested that I ‘experiment’ with the rhythm. I got tired of Beatles songs very quickly. They were just not my cup of tea.
In music, as well as anything that you want to learn, I think that it is important to get the foundation solid, then start pursuing whichever aspect it is that you want to. I could have kept learning Beatles song, but needed something more aligned to my tastes. Certainly, I don’t want to be one-dimensional, but if I’m going to learn chord transitions, it ought to be with something that I’m interested in. Who knows, perhaps with these chords, I’ll write my own blues song! 
So, that, my friends, is where I am right now. Sore fingers and a happy heart! Still shooting though. This shot is another from my camera phone. Cropped, but not adjusted for color.
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