#1: The Guitar and Me

Progress:

Earlier this week, my good friend Dylan dropped off his guitar at my house. With this instrument finally in my reach, my musical journey into the world of string instruments began. After my friend left, I gently slipped the guitar out of its case, and seeing how torn up the case was made me admire the dedication of a musician that lasted to the point where the case was visibly degrading. When it was finally out of its case, I placed it on my thigh, not knowing what to do next. I didn't know where to start or how to properly hold it. I was a confused mess. Learning how to play a completely new instrument is hard enough itself, but not having the guidance on where to start makes it even harder. After I recollected my thoughts out of the confusion that was going on in my head, I searched for guitar lessons for beginners on YouTube and came across a variety of tutorials from different YouTubers. Not knowing which one to learn from, I briefly watched little pieces of the videos that caught my attention to get the gist of the learning style and credibility of the instructor and decided on the following video:

My first checkpoint was to properly hold the guitar. I played the video with the initial expectation that I would surpass this checkpoint relatively fast, but it was trickier than I thought it would be. Ok, step one was to place my arm on the body of the guitar and that was easy, but when the instructor started talking about the correct and incorrect way to place a correct pivot point, that's when things started getting confusing. The actions were simple, but many important factors are hidden by internet videos as the angles are sometimes unclear. I passed this checkpoint after a few minutes and moved on to learn the basic open strings. The 6th string is the low E string, the 5th string is the A string, the 4th string is the D string, the 3rd string is the G string, the 2nd string is the B string, and finally the 1st string is the high E string. It is important to have this basic knowledge down because it would be easier to advance forward by building upon these core values.

Reflection:

After being introduced to the some of the basic values and steps of learning how to play guitar, I was brought back to the days when I first began how to play the flute. The only difference this time is that I have no instructor by my side correcting my mistakes. Instead of having someone else I could trust to fix my errors, I have to trust myself and evaluate the situation alone. From this brief intro to my musical journey ahead, I'm certain that this experience will help me improve my self confidence. Usually, I tend to depend on others. What I mean in that case is that I would have the security of others that can determine whether I've made a mistake or not. However, through this project, I would have to depend on myself since I have no instructor other than the one in the YouTube video. I still have a long way to go. Stay tuned with my musical journey into the world of the acoustic guitar as I attempt to surpass each checkpoint and improve my guitar skills and my self confidence along the way!!