Apprendre la guitare

I spent years with classically-trained musicians. Most my lovers were classically-trained musicians.

Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way (mandatory reading, everyone!) writes about "shadow artists"; people who would like to be doing a certain thing tend to gravitate around people who are doing that thing. It is often the case of critics who get stuck in a rut and can never express, grow or nurture their own talent because they do not allow themselves to do it.

That is the most widespread expression of soul suicide I see around me.

As a matter of fact, I don't think I know people who don't suffer from artistic inhibition, for everyone crushes down their own talent and gifts, and everyone has them. The censorship voices in our heads are many, manyfold, strong, hope-icide, and sound utterly reasonable (why would you buy a guitar? They're expensive you know! You'll need years before you can produce something worthwhile! Who'll be interested in what you do? There are thousands more talented than you out there, you know! Everything's been done already! You haven't been to school for this, what's the point? You don't have room/time/money/support for this....etc).

I am very intimate with those voices myself.

I am sorry to say that my muscially inclined friends and boyfriends very much echoed those voices. They also seemed to consider "it's a boy thing" and spent hours practicing the goddam Stairway to Heaven intro I won't be sorry never to hear again. After mastering that piece of bravura that looked for all the world like spastic wanking off, or as someone else said, like a spider running on a plank, they managed to look both jaded and deep.

Allright, this was not what I had in mind, but music! Music transported me and I won't get cheesy over this, but I know you've all felt the same way about rock'n roll, Andean pan pipes, operas or soul music. The point is, THERE IS NO HIGHER MUSIC or lower music. There is music you love and maybe want to participate in.

It took me YEARS (YEARS!) to actually pick a guitar (I even had one!!) and diddle with it. And that's when, ladies and gentlemen, I learned music's best kept secret

LEARNING THE GUITAR IS EASY!!

Okay, I am not talking John McLaughlin, Al di Meola and tutti quanti. All I mean is that you can play most any rock, pop or folk song.

Now for music's second best kept secret

Most songs are made of 4 chords.

Eleanor Ribgy, a song I love for many reasons, is made of 2 CHORDS!!

So, what you have to do, ladies and gentlemen is learn some chords, and I shall tell you exactly how many:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G (or la, si, do, ré, mi, fa, sol): that's 7 chords.

Am (m stands for 'minor', which sounds 'sad'), Bm, Cm, Dm, Em, Fm, Gm: that's another 7 chords. All in all, 14 chords.

And you don't even have to learn them all by heart at once. You can learn them while you're learning a new song.

Now, d'yall think you can do that?

For instance, Let it be, Dreaming my Dreams, La femme libérée, Save Tonight...etc all follow the same 4 chord progression:

Do Sol Lam Fa

or

C G Am F

(For Save Tonight, you have to start with the A chord).

Then, when you've mastered this, we can go on swapping songs in 2 minutes (clandestino: Am, Dm, E). There are whole websites dedicated to 'sheet' music.

As you have probably judiciously noted, I have enclosed a chord chart in this entry. You can download it, print it and start practicing. Not al chords will be useful at first. The first one to learn are the 14 I mentioned.

It will take a little while, but I guarantee practice makes perfect, and it is good practice for the brain, the fingers and the soul.

The point here is not to revolutionize music, by the way, nor is this the way to become a star (lol!). It is a way to learn something you can love and share with other people. It is a way to switch to your right brain. It is a way to express yourself.

Now for my favorite secret

ANYONE CAN DO IT