Rock n Roll Wannabe

Like many with good intentions I bought an acoustic guitar because ‘someday’ I was going to learn to play. Instead, for a couple of years, it became a hipster accessory, gathering dust in the corner of my lounge room, looking cool but sadly under utilised. However, at the start of 2013 I decided to make learning guitar my New Year’s resolution.

So why does a girl in her late twenties with no musical experience suddenly decide to learn the guitar? I’ve never been in a band and haven’t touched an instrument since the Yamaha recorder in 1994 (although back then I could really rock a rendition of Hot Cross Buns). So, I guess the reason is: because I could. Life had become a lot like Groundhog Day, and I needed something to shake it up a bit. That something is my guitar.

I decided to try group lessons, which I thought would be much less confronting than the solo kind. My teacher isn’t scary, but like a kindly primary school music teacher (maybe because he is a kindly primary school music teacher).However, what is embarrassing about learning in a group is when you have a steel string guitar (like me), which plays louder than nearly everyone else with nylon strings, and you hit the wrong note (like me, often).

I didn’t even know there was a difference, and when asked if mine was steel, answered ‘no, I own mine’.

Actually, the most intimidating part of learning an instrument is not even the lessons; it’s going into music shops. When you wander in, there’s some middle-aged bloke with a pot belly and black Def Leppard t-shirt who finally decides to serve you after you’ve been standing there for a sufficiently uncomfortable amount of time. You know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking, ‘you don’t belong here’. Ok, so I have no idea that soft guitar cases are called ‘gig bags’ but do you really have to correct me on that?

Anyway, I’m proud to say I’m slowly building up a repertoire of campfire songs and elevator music, including such classics like Greensleeves and Minuet in G. Even though it really hasn’t made me any cooler, I’m so glad I’ve started to learn to play the guitar. There’s just something about plucking those strings after a long day at work that helps you relax. And you never know, I might even graduate to learning an actual, real, rock n’roll song one day. Stay tuned.

-Eliza Murphy

The always inspiring, John Lennon