Posted by : Unknown Sunday, December 06, 2015


In my last post, I let you all know I picked up my guitar again, but I didn't give you the backstory. I need to now because it ties into where I am in my life.

About five years ago, I decided I was going to stop putting off my dream of learning how to play the guitar. So I bought a guitar and signed up for classes at my local rec center. All was going well until we got to chords. I've played piano nearly all my life and was already confused as I don't what about the guitar having multiple notes on each string, so the thought of finding and combining those notes into chords completely blew my mind.

Around the same time, I was traveling for work and missing a lot of practice and classes - the perfect excuse to bail on the guitar, right? So I did. For five years. But although I could hide my guitar away, I couldn't hide my love for the music, so I decided to pick the guitar back up.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I went to Guitar Center and asked for a recommendation for private lessons. The sales associate matched me with a teacher and I contacted him. I gave him my musical background complete with the fact that I'd been learning guitar some years ago, but shied away from it when I started learning chords.

A week later, I'm sitting in my new teacher's studio and he pulls out a piece of paper containing my first lesson - chords. So we're just going to jump in headfirst, huh? Completely pull me out of my comfort zone from go.  This stepping outside of my box has been the theme for the past couple of months.  And every time I've done it, I've had amazing results - new ways of looking at the familiar and overall personal growth. Why should the process of learning the guitar be any different?

So anyway, towards the end of my lesson, I told my teacher my wrist was aching. He tells me to let go of my guitar and let the body swing out so the neck is at a 45 degree angle to my body. I do it, reposition my left hand on the neck of my guitar and all the strain I had been feeling was gone. I look at him and say "It's that easy, huh?" He replied, "Sometimes you just need to loosen your grip." Simple yet profound. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know this is a lesson I've been trying to apply to my overall life; stop trying to hold on so tightly and control everything. Sometimes I just need to loosen my grip.

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