For my sixteenth birthday I asked for and received an Alvarez acoustic guitar made of cherry wood. I loved it. It's burnished a deep red-brown with a mother-of-pearl bird inlaid on the front, and it was very beautiful to my untutored eyes. It played like a dream.
I have another guitar, a classical guitar that's easier to play. I broke the tuning pin a long time ago when I'd strung it with steel strings (I know...)
My boy's been asking to learn guitar, so this past week I finally had the guitar repaired and restrung. This weekend we spent hours as he learned to play some chords.
The strings on the guitar are nylon, which means that since they were just put on they need to be tuned often until they stretch. I showed him how to tune the guitar, but don't think he quite has the hang of it yet; oh well. I gave him a chord progression to practice until he can do it quickly: C G Am Em F C F G
How fun it was for me to play the guitar again, after a good 15 years. My fingers are rusty and slow. I couldn't quite remember some songs; I'd spent hours working on elaborate patterns and fancy noteplay and they're now gone. The easy bar chords are still there, but the full ones are mushy now.
Time does march on.
My boy is encouraged, and asks me questions. It's nice to show someone what I had painstakingly mastered, such a long time ago. I tell him his sore fingers will callus up soon.
