I recently starting taking guitar lessons as a new form of self-care for embracing creativity and to indulge my creative self, which often times gets overshadowed by my analytical self. I stumbled upon this website called Lessons.com where I found a budget-friendly guitar teacher. I had an introductory session in mid August, but then he went on vacation and I started school so I didn’t really invest myself into learning the guitar until a month later. I have since had three weekly lessons as of this week, and have only really committed to practicing daily after I had my second lesson when he encouraged me to practice even for a few minutes here and there to improve my finger dexterity.
During my first lesson, we worked on strumming patterns, building off what he had taught me in mid-August. Unfortunately, I did not practice at all while I was adjusting to an entirely new schedule between graduate school, clinical internship, hypnotherapy business, volunteer work, and federal work study. During my second lesson, I identified a Jewel song I wanted to learn, and he helped me make some finger adjustments to make the transition between Am and C a bit smoother. I practiced the song initially without the vocals to focus on my strumming. After my third lesson at the beginning of the week, I started practicing strumming and vocals at the same time.
Not too bad for a beginner, if I do say so myself. The best part about this creative journey I’ve embarked on is the lack of attachment to an outcome, only a dream, or vision, of being able put music to my own words and perform my own original songs at an open-mic night. Songwriting has been a hobby of mine since I was 10 years old. I learned how to sing, but I never did have the patience to learn how to play a musical instrument–that is until recently. This is the part of myself that has been missing all these years, and it feels so personally fulfilling to reconnect to this lost part of myself while embracing creativity.
