Pull a few strings
One of my bigger regrets in life is not bothering to learn any sort of music when I was a small fellow. I remember during assembly at Royal all the band kids used to come with that melodica gadgematics and I’d giggle and think what sort of deranged kapuwa set up a bagpipe with a piano. I was happy enough getting burnt in the sun playing cricket, and playing badminton in what could well have been a sauna in narahenpita. But of late I’ve been thinking damn shame, should have bitten the bullet and at least fiddled around with a melodica bc playing an instrument is a good thing, if nothing else to impress the paler sex.
So it wasn’t with much hesitation that I said “shuper let’s do it” when a friend suggested we invest in a couple of guitars and pull a few strings (and maybe in due time pull more than strings). Went up to that Yamaha place a few days later, eyes popped when the bugger said to buy one for 10grand, and then popped back in when he said he’ll put a discount. My bank balance from last year’s work is slowly being eaten away, so this better be a good investment, and I better start work, sharpish. The first class was a hoot. I thought it was going to be one on one but to see there were wholesale buggers and buggerees there, of all ages. Two little tots ran up to me and shouted “aiyay aiyay which school do you go to?” , now I love this, when ppl think i’m at school or uni or something. That sort of mistaken identity is good, but the other day I was at DHL and the bugger called me miss. Bad form I thought so i went and chopped off the excess locks. So anyway I grin and tell the buggers that I quit school a long while back. Apparently those two are in year 6 in Royal and Ananda, I said Ananda hodi, buth kannay madi, and the Royalist was thrilled. But back to the class, it was as I said, a hoot. There were about 8 buggers, all playing different tunes, of varying quality, and everything was just very haphazard, but in a chilled out and fun sort of way. Now my friend and I have literally no clue about music, so the teacher asks us a bunch of stuff and we grin like idiots and shrug shoulders in unison.
We took a stab at learning C, G minor and F. Not too tough to get the fingers in place, but the bitch is trying to shift from one to the other. But happily enough we couldn’t hear ourselves playing over the noise of the rest of the class and the two small buggers having a yelling match over who has prettier hand writing. So after a few initial struggles the teacher got us all to listen for a few seconds and everyone started to play the same song. He told us to just put on C and try to strum along and catch the rhythm. And it sounded awesome! Like one big jam session, and we really got into it and it felt like we properly belonged with the big boys. I thought to myself, this guitar business is quite the piss in the park, the only problem being fairly painful fingers.
So then I went home and thought must show off my new skills, and started to play Come back Lisa for ammi and Teqbeq, who clearly didn’t appreciate this piece of wood that makes noise. And fair enough too, I sounded awful! Playing alongside everyone else lulled me into thinking I too had caught the rhythm and sounded just as good. My friend complained of the same problem, so we thought best to get together and put a practice session of our own. And last night we played a bit and it became quite apparent that this is going to be a long long road. Apparently one problem is that you really need to hold the strings down precisely and firmly, and this is no easy task bc the fingers keep slipping with time, and specially when shifting chords my fingers have a mind of their own. The best way to test if you’re holding it right is to pull each string and see if it sounds dodge, if so you’re buggering up royally. But at the same time we did become a tad bit better in that short time, we learnt a couple of new chords and got a bit better and shifting chords too. So hopefully with lots of practice we can improve upon our current duet of Come back Lisa (where I play C and she plays g minor). To our credit we invented a bass version of Louie Louie. Rockstar (insert cool band name) here we come!
