I’m not sure what I want to write about today. I’ve been feeling under the weather this past week; no fever, not much coughing, so I think it was just a cold, but there’s always the paranoid thought of what if I caught COVID-19. My husband seemed to catch something similar, but he got over it faster than I did. Cheater!
Even with feeling sick, I’ve been keeping up with picking up the guitar every day I’m home. I didn’t take it out camping, because I didn’t buy a case for it. I figured I wouldn’t be taking it many places in the near future. Maybe I’ll get a case if I want to take it camping next year.
For now, I’ve been practicing chords in a bit of a random fashion. Years ago, I stole a songbook from my dad, Great Songs of the Sixties. When I tried to learn guitar on my ex’s guitar, many years back, I worked pretty hard on “Eleanor Rigby” from that book. It has the advantage of not using a lot of chords, and the chords it does use aren’t terribly hard for a beginner. No trying to hold down multiple strings with one finger, mostly easy reaches. I got okay at it, I think.
Naturally, that’s the first song I went back to, and the shapes of those chords are starting to seep into my fingers. If I go slow, I can almost sing and strum that one now. Still got big pauses on the C6. I’m also working on “The Sound of Silence”. It is a bit harder, but I’m using some simplified versions of the listed chords to make it doable. I’m still looking at my hand to make sure the chord is right before I play it, and that slows things down a bit.
I haven’t got a routine down yet for the practice. I’m looking for one, but I haven’t landed anywhere yet. Just practicing the chords that I know in my mind, trying to imprint them into my fingers, and a little bit of plucking practice for when I get up to learning Rush’s “The Trees”. I tend to make time for practice in the mornings before work, and in the evenings just before bed – though I did skip some nights in the last week with feeling ill, I didn’t skip my mornings.