Sunday, October 08, 2006

My fingers hurt!!

My fingers hurt. I haven't been hammering on them.. or doing some intensive labor. They are not frozen from the very cold Minnesotan winter yet...

They hurt because I have started to play the guitar again. And I say again because I took some guitar lessons when I was a kid... Hm... 10 or 12 may be? Anyway... I was never very good with the guitar but I decided I needed to go back to it.

It all started with the songs I do in my Spanish clases at Spring Hill Waldorf School. Songs like Guantanamera o La Bamba sound a little dull if you don't have some instrument to accompany them. I have tried with some shakers or maracas before but it's not the same. I needed to get back to the guitar.

I am a lefty -meaning left-handed person...I am not stating my politival views here :-)
When I was a child and I was taking guitar lessons I used to have the strings in reverse order of the regular guitars. This I could do the chords with my right hand and the stroke with my left hand.

This time I wanted to try something different and challenge myself. I bought a cheap beginner guitar and I didn't change the strings. I had this idea that I should learn to play with a regular guitar so that I could play with any guiter everywhere I go. I tried very hard to learn to do the chords with my left hand. It was very very hard...and I got discouraged and stopped practising after a while.

About a week ago I had the realization that all I wanted was to accompany my songs with the guitar and nothing else. Besides it's not like I go to dozens of parties or meetings were there is a guitar and I have the opportunity to play it.

Mr. Jansen, our first grade teacher helped me last Monday to change the strings in my guitar and gave me a 30 minutes crash course. I was pumped! My right hand immediately started to remember some of the chords. When I got home all I could do was practice with the guitar and look online for the chords for the songs I wanted to play.

This practice was interrupted by my trip to Iowa this weekend, but today I played my guitar again and I was able to do (in an almost acceptable form) "Zamba de mi esperanza". I beautiful dance/song from Argentina. May be I will post a song or two in the future... I have to practice way more!

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