So... Guitar Is Hard!

Ouch. That's all I have to say.

(OK, I lied. I have a little more to say.)

Last night I went to my first ever guitar lesson. Before I get to the actual lesson part, let me describe the building. The school is on the 11th floor of this crazy building with flight after flight of practice rooms and small recording studios. As I was walking there, I kept passing hot guy after hot guy... ahem, I mean, person after person carrying guitars, and when you get inside the building it's like one big musical love fest. I'm really crossing my fingers and praying to meet the next big someone through a chance elevator encounter.

The people at the guitar school are all very nice, and my teacher is very sweet and patient... which is lucky for me because I will need all the patience I can get! I sort of thought that guitar would be challenging but attainable, and after my lesson I have decided that it is pretty damn near impossible. We learned the D and G chords, and while I can suffer through the G chord the D chord is simply never going to happen. I will now talk you through a quick exercise to demonstrate how impossible the D chord is:

1. Draw three horizontal lines on a piece of paper.
2. Now draw two vertical lines about an inch apart on top of the horizontal lines.
3. Put the number two on top of the spot where the first vertical line and the first horizontal line meet.
4. Put the number three on top of the spot where the second vertical line and the second horizontal line meet.
5. Put the number three on top of the spot where the first vertical line and the third horizontal line meet.
6. Place the piece of paper on top of something flat, skinny and firm (a dvd case, perhaps).
7. Coming from underneath, place your pointer finger on the number 1, your middle finger on the number 2, and your ring finger on the number 3.
8. Push down firmly without letting the tips of your fingers touch any other part of the line except for the intersection.

Fun times.

I think I like to guitar once I get over the pain of it all. I'm pretty sure that I have discovered a way to twist my wrist off quite literally, and so I need to remind myself that that must be the bad technique they were mentioning last night.

For those of you who were waiting with baited breath for my emo guitar videos, it's going to be a while before I can trade in my "10 more minutes of this and my hearing will be lost forever" sound for that of a full fledged indie-rocker.