Boxer

I'm just trying to find my feet
Just one more time to find my feet
And one more time the next time
And one more time the next time

You swung and missed the mark
And I'm coming after you

And one more punch the next time

Just one more punch the next time.

Some lyrics I wrote for a song I was working on.

Still Noodling

Hello out there in cyberland!

Just stopping in to say that I continue to pick up the guitar fairly often and try to discover new chords and sounds.

I'd still classify if as just noodling around and I get a bit bored trying to learn songs I already know rather than creating something new.

I still have the chord chart for Concrete Blonde's Mexican Moon that I printed out years back.  I was going to learn that song at someone's suggestion but the song is just a bit too mundane to me.  I truly love Concrete Blonde but that song is certainly not one of my favorites.  Perhaps I should look up Carry Me Away or (You're the only one) Can Make Me Cry and try to learn those.

I can still somewhat comfortably play Runaway by The National and I go back over those chords sometimes.

There one other song that I started to work out the chords on a couple of years ago is Moonage Daydream by Bowie.  I loved that song from the first time I heard it and have never grown tired.  I may have to learn to play that one in full.

Those are all of my guitar playing thoughts for today.

Cheers!

Picking the Guitar up Again

I haven't posted here for nearly two years but I haven't forgotten about this blog.

I just thought I would stop in and let whoever may read this know that for the last couple of months, I've been trying to pick up the guitar every day and play it for a little while.  It usually amounts to me playing around with different chord progressions until I find something that strikes me.

I find it soothing just to noodle around a bit.  Sometimes I do try to sound out songs I'd like to learn to play or search up the chords and work on those a bit.

I'm not sure that I'll ever really learn to play properly.  I seem to get bored too quickly.  For instance, learning and playing a couple of measure of a song and then switching over to another song right in the middle, sort of medley style and then it quickly devolves into me just messing around to see what unique sounds I can get out of the strings.  Still, as I wrote above, I find it soothing and relaxing just to pick it up, feel the strings under my fingers and create sounds that spark my spirit.

I went for quite a while, not picking up the guitar because I just felt melancholy to even think of playing it.  I'm glad that has passed for the most part.

I'll try to get back here more often.

Cheers!

Maybe I Should Change This Blog Title...

The last time I posted to this blog was May 19th (approximately 6 weeks ago). 
And in that post, I lied.  It wasn't intentional, but it turned out to be a lie nonetheless.
I said, "I will be picking up the guitar a little more often now that I have curtailed my running activities a bit."   Well, that day was the last time that I have picked up that guitar, or any other guitar for that matter (I would never cheat on my guitar!).
There's just no inspiration.  I'm just not feeling it.  And, no one has asked me about it so it's been pretty easy just to leave the guitar sitting in a corner of the bedroom. 
Still, I thought that I'd probably better post just to be honest about my lazy ass. 
Perhaps I should change the name of this blog to "JJSB Plans to Learn to Sing and Play but Feels Blah So Instead Doesn't Touch His Guitar for 6 Weeks."  No?  Too long and cumbersome of a title?  Oh well, life is long and cumbersome right now so why not match the title to life. 
Oh, Okay.  I'll leave it be for now.
And maybe I'll pick up the guitar again soon.  For a couple of hours... and then set it back down for 6 weeks.  A practice session every month and a half.  That should help things progress well.  Eh?

Bob Dylan's "Mississippi" added to the Songs to Learn List

I will be picking up the guitar a little more often now that I have curtailed my running activities a bit.  I spent some time yesterday evening playing the couple of songs I (sort of) know.

I'm posting this YouTube video here because I came across it while looking up different version of Bob Dylan's song, "Mississippi".  I am finally becoming familiar with some of Dylan's songs and I first heard an acoustic version of this one back in January and just really fell in love with it.  I love the sound.  I love the bluesy feel.  I love the imagery.  In fact, it strikes such a chord with me that I have plans to speak about the song in one of my other blogs:  Digging Deeper

At any rate, I was excited to come across this video series, in which this guy goes through how to play the song.  I wanted to link it here to may sure that I can find it easily again.

And here is a copy of the version that really does it for me for your listening pleasure:

Playing While Drinking Beer? Absolutely!

Well, I took the opportunity to pick up the guitar a few times last week so that's good.  The first couple of times were a little short and uninspiring but a couple of days ago, I grabbed a beer and the guitar and sat down for around an hour and a half and it felt really good.  I think I might prefer to be drinking beer as I learn to play.  I'm not sure whether it's because I sound better when alcohol is in play or if I'm more forgiving of my amateurish playing when alcohol is in play.  Or maybe there's some other reason.  At any rate, it was definitely more enjoyable... with alcohol in play.

I've been playing "Runaway" by The National for a while so I worked on that one a bit.  I had just been playing the basic chords, but that always bores me after a while and sounds so plain so this week I worked on adding some notes between the chords as well as singing while playing.  It felt good.

I then picked up a chord sheet of "Mexican Moon" by Concrete Blonde that I had printed out back in January.  I love Concrete Blonde but that song in particular hadn't ever been one of my favorites; Still,  a friend (fellow CB fan) recommended that I start with that one because it's easy to play and sing so I went with it and started working on it but then tucked it away out of sight for a while because it began to depress me.  At any rate, I pulled the chord sheet out and worked on that one some and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.  It has a lot of the same chords as "Runaway" so it came fairly easy.  I also added some notes in between the chords that sounded good to my amateur ears.

The other song I worked on is one of my own that I am writing.  I get bored kind of easily so I thought while I'm learning some songs by bands that I like, I would use the chords I've been practicing to write songs of my own.  I've had a lot of inspiration lately so that has helped.  I didn't get very far on this but just kind of felt it out a bit.

Well, that's it for this post.

Just a little update to let everyone know that I have been working on it and it has been good for me.

 

I suppose I actually need to pick up the guitar to get started...

... I'm frankly, having trouble doing that.  Playing the guitar sort of gives me some painful thoughts right now so, yeah, I'm trying to work through it.  If I ever get some time alone (who knows when that will be) I'll push myself to do it.  WHY IS IT SO HARD?  NOT FAIR!