Well, it's my first post, and I thought it would be cool to start it off with a story. No, I'm not talking about a made up story about cats (Warriors anyone?), or medieval creatures, I'm talking about a true, down to earth story about real people. Or really a real person, Alicia, aka, me the writer of this blog.
So anyway, if you read the little about the thingy on my blog you will see that I recently picked up the guitar.
This happened not that long ago, Friday to be exact (for those you you who a reading this months after this was posted, that is Friday, August 26th...2011). I had just spoken to my aunt and cousin about an English class I am taking. Long story short, what we talked about made me doubt this class, and I got stressed. I ranted to my parents a little bit, and when they left, I was sad. I felt alone, and somewhat depressed, you could say. I sat on my brother's bed (he just left for college, so I didn't have to worry about him walking in on me) and I cried, not for too long though. Then I got up and flipped though some of my brother's art from when he took a design class. When I had looked though all of them, I still felt sad, then I saw his guitar, and some guitar books he had left at the house. (Just as little background story, my brother had started learning guitar when he was in Jr. high...I think...He learned some song and chords, but when he didn't go very far with it. Then this past year, me and him joined a Praise and Worship class, and he started learning the bass. It ended up that he got decent at it and got a bass guitar for Christmas. That meant that his old acoustic guitar was left in the dust...until I saw it, now on with the story). Now, I had always wanted to play the guitar (if you looked, you would see that some of my favorite music it country music, and the guitar is the main instrument in country music) so I grabbed my brother's chord and music book and started teaching myself the chords and what not (I remembered a little bit from the Praise and Worship class I took with my brother, but not enough to just pick it up and start playing). After playing a few of the chords, I tried playing "Open the Eyes of My Heart." It didn't sound the best, and it was very choppy (I had to find the chord, get my fingers holding the string down correctly, and making sure it sounded good before I could continue with the song), but I played it, and it helped me relax. I also played "By Your Side" by Tenth Avenue North, which is one of my favorite songs. After playing those songs a few times (and attempting playing a few other songs) I felt relaxed, calm, happy, and ready to praise God. I had a skip in my step (literally) and I wasn't worried about my class anymore. My mom even came in and I played her "Open the Eyes of My Heart" I was so happy, she even said I played the chords really well (even though i didn't have a pick to strum with). I was so glad I started learning the guitar that night, and I still am.
Yesterday my mom went out and got all of the strings replaced (I broke one of them while trying to tune my guitar...tuning is one of the things I still need to work on) and she even got me some picks (I actually prefer strumming with my fingers, but I know it's good to strum with a pick too). I also came up with a name for my guitar. When my mom went to get the broken string replaced, the guy that fixed it said the other strings were rusty, so he replaced them all with new, easier to play strings. When my mom came home and told me this I thought of a name for my guitar, Rusty. I like the name, that might be partially because the main cat in the Warriors series was named Rusty, but that's beside the point.
Now I can play Rusty when I'm sad, or happy. It's just fun to do!
Thanks for reading!
Alicia
