Why Play Guitar
Guitars, they say, are easy to start learning to play but the most difficult to master. Among string instruments it is portable in most of its variations – from the smallest ukulele to the upright bass fiddle. It is this portability that makes it handy and readily available to play whenever one feels like it anytime, anywhere.
Started With Ukuleles
With these advantages over another string instrument, the piano, my brothers, the guitar gurus of my life, developed a passion and a growing musical career with the guitar early in life. This came about when our father brought home a ukulele from one of his out-of-town sales calls. They plucked and strummed the uke with the pop hit songs played on AM radio. They moved on to playing steel-string acoustic guitars bought from a noted guitar maker from the province where my father’s ancestors came from in the Philippines.
Playing With A Band
Their talents were soon recognized as they played in our family’s parties as a small band. I joined them, without a guitar, just singing back up. I didn’t care if I was in or out of tune or if they even heard my voice at all. As long as I could catch a few of the coins the relatives threw us after an Elvis song or a Christmas carol, I was happy with money to spend for snacks and soda.
Moving on, my brothers in their teen years joined a band with our older uncles who had enough financial backing to buy electric guitars, amplifiers, and a drum set.
Electric Guitars
They became experienced guitar players with performances at parties, political rallies, and even once on TV. Soon I realized I wanted to play like them or at least learn the basics of playing the guitar.
My First Lessons
So I got my first guitar lessons from my brother. He showed me how to play basic chords. The A, D and E keys were the easiest to play since the finger positions for pressing the strings between the frets were ergonomically simple. The fingers on the other hand plucked and strummed the guitar strings, of course. I very quickly accumulated calluses on my fingertips from applying pressure on the steel strings, not to mention the pain this caused on the skin and flesh under my nails. My brother insisted that the pain and calluses would work to my advantage because it forced me to position the fingers properly on each string with enough pressure to generate the right sound for each chord I strummed and picked. The calluses were worth it since it eventually made it easy to play with nylon strings or any type of string instrument.
My Guitar Guru
In the previous blog my brother, my guitar guru or maestro, tells us how he got started playing the guitar.