by James Smart

Created on: May 01, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

When I first picked up an acoustic guitar I didn't even know which end to blow down. I was about eighteen years old and a head full of Eddie Van Halen. Good place to start. The first chord I learned was something like an E minor - oooohhh! Feel the power! Moody too! I discovered the D chord all by myself - nice, versatile. I mainly experimented including a lot of premature bi-dextral tap-on which is hard work if you can't plug your axe in! I discovered other chords which sounded "right" and later discovered other people had found them before I did and already gave them names - A, A minor, C... I would have chosen Keith, Moody Keith, Nathan...When people see you with a guitar there is always someone who would pick it up and trot out a portion some over-played Eric Clapton composition, like it's a demonstration of their guitar prowess, when in fact it's the only thing they can sodding-well play. Or they'll strum it once with a thoughtful look on their face and then declare "it's out!" (Meaning my guitar is out of tune because I'm a pleb.) I would find this intensely annoying. I liked to play along to my favorite heavy-rock music as well - fingering out elaborate guitar solos. I thought I was shit-hot. But I was just shit. I continued like this for about ten years for goodness sake! When I was twenty-eight a friend of mine who was also an axeman came alongside me and encouraged me to learn to play properly. We got some music books and learned all the chords and played proper songs. It wasn't long until I was playing regularly among groups of friends though without ten pounds of weed chucked on the camp fire, because I was not a hippy. It was that easy. If you know a handful of chords you can genuinely fool people into thinking your some kind of guitar hero. I spent about the next four years playing my guitar to increasingly bigger groups of people and even as part of a band. It was hardly Rock n'Roll as it was a worship band at a Christian holiday center. By this time I had got an acoustic guitar which I could amplify. I was playing alongside more experienced musicians and this forced me to improve. I'm sure there were times when they unplugged me. Sometimes they would pick up my guitar, strum it once and declare "it's out!" Bastards. The thing is, when you are playing live before a large group of people, nerves can get the better of you as demonstrated by a warm sludgy sensation in the seat of your pants, but it really doesn't have to be that way. If they've kept you plugged in at least then just muddle through because the other players in the band tend to cover your mistakes. You can always simplify difficult chords as well. A good exercise for increasing the stretch of your hand is to scratch your forehead with your index finger and tickle your toes with your little finger of the same hand at the same time. Anyway after those wild days at the center (hot chocolate at 9pm) I got married and hung up my axe where it sits now as an ambiguous testimony to my days as a guitar genius. Occasionally someone will pick it up, strum it once, and be in danger of having the damn thing smashed over their head.

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