Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine

My Guitar Story + Why do I want to learn Guitar

My first encounter with Guitar happened twenty something years ago, and at that time I was a junior secondary school student. I joined a guitar class organized by my school, and I learnt a few basic chords and progessions. And at that time, we would learn songs like “朋友記得那天…” (Chinese Lyrics of the Song – Today ) and House of the rising son using a classical guitar.

Video of John Denver, Live guitar singing performance in 1997:

I took around 10 lessons and I gave up, because I lacked the persistence to struggle through barre chords… it was kind of mission impossible for me at that time, and I didn’t have anyone I wanted to impress anyway.

My second encounter with Guitar happened around 10 year(s) ago, I was married already. I cannot really recall why I wanted to learn guitar again, I just went to Tom Lee Music Store and bought myself a Yamaha steel string guitar, I bought some books and tried to practice on a regular basis, and it didn’t take too long for my guitar to be covered in dust. I probably played too much video games and left no time for guitar practices, and without enough practices, I would not see any progress and my passion died pretty quickly.

My third encounter with Guitar happened probably 5 years ago, and this time was electric guitar. It was all triggered by a Youtube video, where a local (Hong Kong) guy was showing an endless rain solo cover, I was so hooked and really urged to be able to play like that. After a lot of digging on the internet, I got myself a second hand Gibson Les Paul Standard, and I enrolled in some online lessons and started practicing. I bought a lot of this and that, and I researched many things on the Internet, but I guess I didn’t put enough time in practices.

The result was not as good, and my fire inside turned cold rather quickly after a few months… and luckily my Gibson was not covered in dust, as I put it inside a nice hard case.

Finally I became so much bonded with guitars since 3 years ago. On a Sunday morning, I was watching “Hours of Power” and I saw an old man with silver hair playing electric guitar when a guest singer was singing some hymns. I told myself, I wanted to be like that old man, when one day I could play guitar happily and served God the same way.

This time, I took a proper lesson from a tutor and I was following the Rock School Syllabus, and I took exam kind of every year.

I came across some guitars player in my company, and I encouraged one of my colleagues who was extremely good at Video game drummania, to play to real thing. He has been playing Drummania for 10 years, and I told him that he would not regret for learning to play the real thing. He went for teacher, and now he is our company band core drummer. We formed our company band 2 years ago, and practiced together on a regular basis, it was a new and interesting experience to play music together with other people, and it pushed you to improve.

Finally we did our 1st show a few month ago in the company annual dinner… I would not say it was great, but we did enjoy the process and the result. We are still enjoying our regular practices and we are looking forwards to our next show at the end of the year. Rock on!

I do practice on a daily basis, and I do spend time learning music theory. And I guess I need to train my ears more and I do urge to know what I am playing from music theory point of view.

My next target is to be able to sing while playing guitar… it isn’t as easy as it looks on Youtube. I need a dual processor in my head to handle the 2 things harmonically. Haa… And besides Guitar, I do play Ukulele too and I do like to share experience with friends in “I am Guitar Player .COM”.

(by HL)

Above article is representing the author’s personal feelings, does not represent the point of view of our website.

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