This Confounded Guitar!

That confounded thang! That is what Grandma uses when things are driving her crazy. The phrase was mostly used like this, "Those confounded kids are driving me up the wall!" That was the joy of growing up next door to your grandparents. We never had the loving, doting grandparents you see stereotyped on TV or written about in books. Ours had the power and need to whip us, fuss at us, or do whatever was necessary to keep us in line. Don't get me wrong my grandparents loved us and still love us beyond measure, but they saw us everyday, not once or twice a year. We got on their nerves! Seven cousins all growing up on the same road, running up and down the same hills, slamming the same screen door a couple thousand times a day. I understand why they were the way they were.

But anyways....about this guitar....

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love three things in this world. Those three things are music, sports, and classic cars. Classic cars have no place in this post, so I will leave them alone for now. So onto music and sports.

I have always been the kid who loved music...any kind of music! My only requirement was that I could sing along. My cousin and I would turn on the radio and bust out some "Islands in the Stream." My brother and I could rock out to Travis Tritt's "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" and David Lee Murphy's "Dust on the Bottle." Heck, my sister-in-law and I bust out Lady Antebellum or Jason Aldean EVERYTIME we get in the car together.

I am not a big fan of bands that scream, but if they have a ballad or two I probably like them. I am always on the lookout for new bands so leave me a comment about some bands I need to check out. I have been told that I should be a music rep who sits in bars and listens to upcoming bands and suggesting who should get a record deal. For the record, I would love that job so if any record execs are hiring.....hit me up! I love music and live music is even better. I am sure that I go to at least 6 large production concerts a year, probably 10 small scale concerts, then there are the local bar acts. I would go to more if I wasn't working off a teacher's salary.

The funny thing is about all of this love for music is that I can't play a single instrument. Not that I haven't wanted to though. I've taken piano lessons off and on growing up, and guitar lessons as well. That is where my other love comes into play. Every time that I would start getting in the swing of playing piano or guitar, some sport would pull me away. Sports were literally a year round thing and always took precedent over the instrument.

My sports consisted of baseball and soccer in spring and summer, soccer and football in the fall, and I would wrestle in the winter. Wrestling would overlap both football in the fall and baseball and soccer in the spring. I spent my entire childhood playing 2 or 3 sports all the time. I had wonderful parents who had no life for 18 years following my brother and me around to our varied sporting events. How I found time to even attend music lessons is beyond me but the music was always the first to go.

After high school, I picked up the guitar a few times and said that I am going to learn to play it only to lay it down after a few weeks. Then about two months ago, I decided that I needed to learn to play. This time I have stayed with it, practiced, gotten some old guitar players from church to help me along and am learning how it all works. I am just not learning fast enough for my liking.

With sports, I was always an athlete. I could pick up playing a sport fairly quickly and be pretty good. I was never the best athlete, but I could hang in there with the best athletes in any sport that I played. I never really faced major frustration with sports. This is where the guitar is KILLING me!

I have to admit that I have come a long way in the 7 or 8 weeks I have been intently playing, but it isn't coming along near quick enough. I can play a few songs, albeit shaky and not quite in time. I have a number of main chords in my repertoire and they are coming along, but I am ready to be jamming out like Brad Paisley or Keith Urban yesterday! I just can't seem to grasp it yet though. My fingers do not want to go where my brain is telling them and my right hand just wants to stop working when the left hand is moving! Everyone tells me that I am doing good and if I keep working it will come! I'm working but I do wish that it would hurry. Patience is a virtue that I have yet to be blessed with, though God has tried to put in there.

So the point of this post is that if I could only learn the guitar I would be on my way to Nashville, cause singing isn't the problem. Singstar says I should already be there!


Here is the brother being boring playing Singstar with his hand in his pocket and eyes intent on the screen. Fortunately, there are no pictures of Tanya or myself rockin' it out. I think I feel another Singstar party in the works! Maybe to celebrate the beginning of summer break!

If you have any tips for me about how to play this confounded geetar....leave a comment.