Strumming My Guitar

At the moment, I'm congratulating myself. I just managed to play one song in my guitar all through out. Sure, there some kinks here and there. The strings don't get "pinched" hard enough when I change chords and my fingers don't really follow me during chord transitions. But I think that's already a big leap, especially after three days of haphazard practice.

What makes it even a bigger leap is that I, not too long ago, had always considered myself a hopeless case. For those who know me, I regard myself as a frustrated guitarist ( which is a very good excuse not to try guitar, come to think of it).

My love-hate relationship with this insane instrument started when a friend and acquaintance, Mark Losentes, invited me to try out Rondalla classes during Grade 6. I was excited at first, excited at the prospect of actually holding a musical instrument instead of sitting in Music class, learning about notes and staffs while holding an illustration board with a piano keyboard drawn on it.

But all too soon, the interest wore off. Every Rondalla class became a torture chamber for my then-fragile ego. I had a hard time keeping up with my classmates who had more adept fingers. And I especially dreaded the exams, where I had to play a piece in front of Mr. Agoncillo and having him see me play lousily when I was actually trying my best.

After several classes, I gave up and went back to Music class. Every now and then, I would pick up a guitar but I had no patience nor the hope to try playing another song.

Until now.

What amazes me about this experience was how powerful your mind can really be. At the risk of echoing the core message of the famous ( and notoriously maligned) book, "The Secret", anything is indeed possible if one puts one's mind into it ( "positive thinking", as the cliche goes).

In addition, seriously playing the guitar after oh-so-many years has made me think about the many things that I still want to learn. It has also made me remember the saying that it's never too late to learn these things. To digress just a bit, in my little sister's ballet class, there is one woman in her early 30's who is dancing ballet. At one glance, she looks like one of those ballet teachers but she's actually a student just like everyone else. I guess this had been a long-kept passion since her childhood and now that she has the opportunity to attend classes, she's willing to take it even if someone, like me, might say she's already too old for these kind of things. Or, take, for instance, a mentor, Ma'am Riza, who took up Law when she was already considered too old by the ADDU Law faculty. In the end, she passed the Bar Exam with flying colors, a testimony that age doesn't really matter at all in most cases.

Now, what are my plans? Well, I would like to venture to other songs. And I'm also thinking about learning how to ride a skateboard (I'm also a frustrated pseudo-trasher. Just can't keep my balance on the board) and learning how to dunk (That would be cool. Just a few inches more...). Also, there a host of many other technical stuff which I still want to learn. Surely, there must be a way to cramp all these learning into one single lifetime. Good luck to me!