h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My daughter and I sort of played a duet, harp and guitar, this last evening! You should see her with the ‘Dusty Strings’ lever harp resting on her shoulder, little arms reaching around the sound board to pluck the strings, her face bunched up in concentration. She’s been at this for over a year now and she’s getting good at it. She’s also been playing piano for over three years, but has ‘put it on the back burner’ for a while. Two reasons: She wants to concentrate on the harp exclusively for a while, and we sold the upright before we moved.

When I say we played a duet, I mean that she coached me through the first bar of “Ode to Joy”, calling out the notes to me as I read the sheet music and attempted to play along. She was very patient, for a nine-year-old, and seemed to enjoy the role of ‘teacher’ as I tried to make my fingers put tension on the correct frets and pick the right strings. You see, I’m learning to play guitar. It was an activity I’d tried in high school, but could never get the hang of back then. Now that I’ve grown and gotten my coordination under control, I’ve gone back to a desire of my heart –- to make music.

By having observed Y---- as she progressed during her tutelage, I managed to pick up a few bits of info and started training my ear to hear properly. D----, her piano/harp teacher, is also teaching me guitar, in back-to-back lessons, with Y---- playing second string.

On the first lesson, I got a quick overview of musical notation. This is a staff, that’s a treble clef. The notes on the lines are E-G-B-D-F; the notes in the spaces are F-A-C-E. This grouping is a measure and these measures make a bar. The numbers atop each other are the time signature, beats per measure over the kind of note to receive one beat. Whole note, half note, quarter note. Now here’s how they look on the staff, and here’s the fret notation. Put your fingers like this and pluck the string. Here are some warm-up exercises. Got all that?

There was a day between the lesson and when I picked up my new Ibanez again [holiday gift], determined to play something worthwhile. I tuned the instrument, then went through the exercises. My wife, A----, sat in the living room with me, reading her latest in a series of novels. My faltering fingers and syncopated picking made her smile several times as I ventured to play “Ode to Joy.” I was reaching a point of frustration when she suggested I call Y---- to play along on her harp. My daughter and I read through the tablature, confirming the notes to be plaid [that’s easier to type than ‘played’, and I got a mental image of VERY colorful music], then we tried the piece together several times. Between the different pace each of us played and the number of ‘flubbed’ notes I twanged out, we managed to sound more discordant than anything I’d ever experienced. That’s when Y---- started coaching me through the notes by saying them as I played them. Once I got the sequence right, I half-closed my eyes and let my fingers find their way along the frets. After a few minutes, I had no frets at all, and I made my way through the first bar of the song.

E-E-F-G | G-F-E-D | C-C-D-E | E-D-D--

The notes on the staff mostly look like little dots, ants crawling across the page, a demented sort of fastidious Rorschach test, which I’ve been failing since birth. The more I work with them, though, the more the little dotties are resolving themselves into their proper pitch. Keeping up with their antics of swapping from one string to another will definitely be challenging, but after my recent success, not impossible to do. Right now, I’m depending on memorizing the patterns and sequences of the notes in order to play a piece, but I’ll get to the point where I can see it and play it. I can do this. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”

B4imakeit2CarnegieHall

*sends her one remaining formal gown to the cleaners and checks the availability of flights to New Yawk City*

So, Hyp, you'll take me up on the invite, even though I haven't managed to make it to one of your soirées?

B4thecallousesstartforming

B4 and Y at Carnegie Hall. How could anyone pass that up?

My wife, A----, and I are still bandying about the idea of making it down to Springfield to purchase a new mattress at one of the many outlet stores there. Another option is to drive to St Louis to pick up a memory foam topper, and visit with the boys while we're there. Still up in the air at this point, but I'll try to vie for the SE trip, just for something different and meeting new folks [like YOU]. Anyway, we have to upgrade our sleeping arrangements soon; old bones creak ever mornin' if'n ya don't sleep good.

B4ilosemyblanky2anewfangled'sleepsystem'

They certainly do. Creak. Old bones.

If you make it to Springfield I'll certainly try to get up there to meet you and A. That's something I've been looking forward to for a long time.