Playing the Guitar in German

When I saw my future instructor's flyer at Guitar Doc, I was relieved to see that he also offered instruction in English. So why did I speak German when I called him to ask about a trial lesson? 

Having started in German, I supposed he figured I was comfortable in the language and so we continued in German once I showed up at his place last Friday. On the whole, this is not a major problem. It's not like trying to go to a German medical school or anything like that. Still, there are a couple things that I really have to concentrate on, and one in particular that is truly baffling.

The main thing I have to pay attention to (which also includes the source of the bafflement) is the name of the guitar strings. "Put your finger on the low E string" sounds in German like I'm supposed to put my finger on the A string. But the different vowel sounds are already a bit hardwired in my brain,* even though I did have to stop and think about them last week. More confusing though, is the naming of the guitar strings themselves . . . or at least one in particular. Previously, I learned that the strings on a guitar were named like this:

(Courtesy of Storm at guitarteacher.com)

Low E to high E and a useful acronym for remember the strings in between is Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie. Well, in German the B string is an H string. It's not as if there were no B in German. In fact, the letter B is alive and well and useful in words like Brot and Butter (yes, I'm having my breakfast as I write this).

Being a certain kind of student, I didn't want to ask too many questions about this on the first lesson. I gave my instructor a questioning glance, he gave me a smile and a shrug in response, and that was that. So now I have to learn a German acronym or change "Bye" to "Health" or something stupid like that. Making matters slightly worse, is that the letter H is pronounced "Ha" . . . and my inclination is to think, "Ha is right, where's the B string?"

Whatever.

This is all probably a really important development for me. Next thing you know I'll be cooking in German, too! 



*My name for instance, sounds like EE-Nez, because of the different pronunciation of the letter "i."

Dust in the Wind

The fingers on my left hand hurt like hell . . . I've been practicing you see.

The goal is to have a forty-five minute lesson once a week and to practice an hour each day. So I have been working on "Dust in the Wind," the intro to which I learned on Friday. The intro is based on the chords C, Cmaj7, Cadd9, Am, Asus2, and Asus4, as well as a basic picking technique. The trick is to get the chords and the picking in sync. 

The picking is fine and the chords are fine, but when I try to put them together—along with the appropriate rhythm—I feel terribly uncoordinated and wonder why my fingers look as if they don't really belong to me. Hopefully, this feeling—along with the pain—will pass eventually.

In any case, once I learn the entire song, it will be some variation of this:




I also have to learn "Wild Thing" but more about that later.

Guitar Student 3.0

On Friday July 25, I had my first guitar lesson. Not the first ever, but the first as a serious guitar student. My two previous versions of Guitar Student were not particularly successful, but went well enough to convince me to continue. Briefly, they went something like this:

Guitar Student 1.0

I was living in Scotland and was also busy being Doctoral Candidate 1.0. Having lusted after a guitar my entire life and decided that it was "now or never," I talked my friends Matt and Adam into going shopping with me in Edinburgh to test guitars that would be suitable for beginners. I eventually settled on a Yamaha F310. The lessons themselves were given by Matt in exchange for cooking lessons. So we'd meet on Sunday afternoons at my place and he'd give me a lesson and I'd show him how to cook something. Given that I was already heavily invested in being Doctoral Candidate 1.0, it was probably a bit silly to think that I'd actually have time to learn to play the guitar. In any case, I didn't.

Guitar Student 2.0

I moved to Washington, DC after finishing my studies and was anxious to pick up where I left off. I don't remember where I found my guitar teacher, Craigslist perhaps, but I was happy with him in any case. But here again, the realities of everyday life—particularly the new job—meant that I didn't really have as much time to invest in my instrument as I had hoped, and after three lessons I called it quits.

*********

The new and improved version of my life as a guitar student (Guitar Student 3.0) has many advantages over the previous models. First of all, I'm in Berlin, where everything is just better on principle . . . except for dog poo and no shopping on Sunday. I'm self-employed, which means that my schedule is flexible; my living situation means that can practice during the day when I'm at home alone, which is incredibly important for beginners who are always embarrassed because they know that they don't sound that great. Also critical, is that I've apparently hit the Guitar Teacher jackpot. There will be more about him later, in the meantime, just think Zen.


Perhaps the most important element this time around is age. Of course there is that adage, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," to which I have to respond, "Good thing I'm not a dog then." What I am is a music lover, who on some level wants to be a music maker as well. I am also keen on having a new project: one in which the the steady advance in skills will inspire me to keep going; one in which I spend less time on the Internet and more time challenging my aging brain to learn something new; and finally, one in which my lifelong philosophy—"why not give it a shot?"—is once again tested. 


The purpose of this blog is to document the effort and hopefully garner some support along the way. I welcome your comments, tips, advice, and whatever else you think might be useful.