Snapping the beast ring

So, what’s going on with the guitar, you ask?

Well, there was a long gap between lessons. First Ben had an unexpected visitor, then I had an expected visitor, then I had an unexpected cold. 

Finally got to lesson two last Monday. In between, yes, I picked up guitar for at least a few minutes every day. Played the little tune I’d made up early on, played my version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, worked on notes and a bit on chords.

Have I mentioned notes? As opposed to chords? There’s a difference! As I discovered going through the Fender guitar for beginners book that seemed easier to follow than Guitar Theory for Dummies (for which I seem to be too much of a dummy). You can produce three notes on a single string – and it only requires one finger, not three!

Check it out.

Oh, and what do I discover when I turn to the next page?

Be still my beating heart! This all started with Beethoven. Could Ben teach me to play Für Elise? Early days, but I was already beginning to have my doubts. But this! This is Beethoven – and it only requires two strings and two fingers! Oh, my god!

The week before last, still light headed with the cold, I realised the strings probably needed tuning. Ben had, along with the guitar (and the dummies book), given me a tuning gizmo, which I’d watched him use. Dug the gizmo out, attached it to the guitar, switched it on and realised I had no idea what to do next. Sent Ben a message.

The last time I’d sent Ben a message, when I was all excited about NOTES, he’d responded with Too Much Fucking Information.

Wrote back and told him the last time I’d seen a chart that confusing, someone was trying to convince me my moon was in Capricorn. Or something.

This time he responded with instructions I could actually understand.

Of course, by the time I’d received his reply, the cold had put me back under the duvet, so it was a couple of days before I sat down to give it a go. And when I did, I could not find the gizmo. It wasn’t in the guitar case, where I was certain I’d put it. Where the hell was it? Checked under the sofa and chair. Checked under the cushions (unlikely, but who knows?) of the sofa and the chair. It had completely disappeared. I was so frustrated I started crying. (Okay, I blame the cold.) Felt as if the gods were laughing at me. (Ha, ha, ha. You playing the guitar? Ha, ha, ha.) Sent a message to Ben, who said he had another one I could use. He had doubts about the only scenario I could imagine: Someone sneaking into the house while I was out, ignoring the laptop and tablet, instead stealing only the tuning gizmo. I agreed it was unlikely. Obviously it was gremlins.

So, last Monday rolls around and I’m getting ready for my second guitar lesson (a month after the first – I’d forgotten most of that already) and I open my guitar lesson bag to put my notebook in and there is the fucking gizmo. Clearly I’d decided, when I realised I couldn’t remember how to use it, that it might as well go into the bag until my next lesson. I had no memory of the decision.

Before we get started I showed him the music for Ode to Joy. He glanced at it for a second, then played it. Fucking show off.

Lesson two is almost all about tuning the guitar. Apparently you’re supposed to do this every time you use it. (Oops.) He attaches his gizmo to his guitar; I attach mine to mine. We tune every string. Okay, I can do that. I refer back to his instructions, to make sure it’s all clear in my head. Oh, what about this “muting” thing? Ah, you’re supposed to position your fingers in a certain way to mute the other strings whilst tuning each individually. You have to make your hand look like a claw.

I take a picture of Ben’s hand, so I can remind myself later.

Then I try to position my hand the same way. I can’t do it. I just can’t figure it out. Eventually I hold my hand out towards Ben. “Here,” I say, “take it. Put my fingers in the right place, in the right position.” He does, then he takes a picture of my hand.

Okay, I think I can remember that.

Homework: Practice tuning, practice claw hand, use tuning gizmo to check on notes and chords. Okay.

Disaster on Saturday. I could not get the B string tuned. It was all over the map. As I feared, I tightened it too much and it snapped. Hurt my hand, but luckily didn’t smack me in the face. Reported disaster to Ben. Yes, indeed, he could replace the string for me. “Forget the beast ring for now and concentrate on the rest of them. On Monday I want you to teach me how to tune a guitar.” The “beast ring”? Took me a fraction of a second and then I laughed. Ben uses the voice function for texts and doesn’t always check before he sends. The beast ring. The B string. Promised to stop worrying about the beast ring.

The beast ring was replaced last night. I successfully demonstrated tuning.

“What else do you want to do tonight?” he asked.

“Show me something really easy and amazingly cool,” I said.

He did. It seems there’s a sneaky way to do a chord with only one finger. He showed me several times and I did manage, once by accident, to do it, but then I shook my head. I am too impatient. I want to run before I can walk. I need to walk.

But wait! There is something cool that I can do. I watch him strum with the side of his thumb, rather than his finger. I try it. Oh, my god! It’s a completely different sound! A completely different vibration! Excellent!

Meanwhile, some chord work. Once again, my fingers don’t seem to want to bend the way they need to in order to avoid pressing down on adjacent strings. Stupid fingers. And then there’s the positioning. In order to get my fingers in the right place, I have to lean the guitar back and myself forward to see where the frets are. It would be helpful, I said, if there were some markings on the side of the neck so I didn’t have to do that. Aren’t there? he asked, coming over to have a look. No there are not. Oh, he said, usually there are. And he showed me the dots on the side of the neck of his guitar. Well, yeah, that would be useful. One minute and one Sharpie later there were dots on the neck of my guitar. Better.

How long, I asked, does it take for finger memory to kick in? General rule, with regular practice, ninety days. Hmm. End of November? Yeah, okay. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will be early November, in time for my birthday. That would be nice. 

Homework? “I want you to work on the caged chords.” Caged chords? Has he talked to me about this tonight and I’ve already forgotten? How are these chords caged? What does he mean? “Caged chords?” I repeat tentatively. “Yes,” he says. “C, A, G, E and D.” I start laughing and can’t stop. When I explain he starts laughing, too.

Okay, tune guitar, work on making stupid fingers want to bend the way they need to, practice CAGED chords. I can do this. Right?