Acoustic Six-String
I taught myself how to play the guitar when I was fifteen. It was shortly after meeting my cousin Mike for the first time. We were of an age, and convinced we were exactly alike although we’d been apart most of our lives. We spent most of the summer together, he at my house first, then I at his, and it was while watching him strum away on his 12-string guitar that I determined to figure out how to play.
I lived with my father and his live-in, fiancée, common-law girlfriend. She had an acoustic guitar that she hardly played and once I returned from Mike’s house I co-opted it. She had a pile of papers with song lyrics written out on them, often with chord letters above each line indicating where chord changes ought to take place. More importantly she had a few sheets of paper that had upon them the complicated finger patterns that would produce the sounds I was after.
By the time the school year started, Grade 10 (as we said in Ontario) and all its angstious glory, I was proficient at about four chords. I picked up a few more as the year went on, and eventually I could play most of “Stairway to Heaven”, “Tears in Heaven”, and an easy version of Led Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song.” I joined a band, founded by three of my friends, only one of whom could actually play a high school garage band instrument. He was good, and during basement jam sessions I learned more and more quickly, and sometimes, often, I would go home and literally play until my fingers bled, just a little.
My friends, and other musicians I started to get to know (see how I said “other musicians”, as though I had any right to call myself one when I could barely play the intro to “Under the Bridge” successfully? I’m serious, we recorded that one once and did about twenty-five takes. I was bad.) liked distortion and overdrive effects when they played. They liked speed, or intricate blues solos.
I liked James Taylor. I liked Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and Pink Floyd’s “Is There Anybody Out There?” and Clapton’s “Tears In Heaven”. I liked “The Boxer” and “American Pie”. I liked slow songs that mostly involved finger-picking on an acoustic guitar (my version of American Pie is done without strumming). I liked ballads, and not the Monster Rock songs that tended to pass for ballads at the time. Stan Roger’s “Forty-Five Years” calmed me down.
I would have been That Guy in high school, the one who was always sitting by his locker during breaks playing the guitar, dragging it outside to the smoking area to gather a circle around while I led some big group sing-a-long. I may have been aware, even then, that That Guy was hilarious, and that playing the guitar in school was kind of a trick to get attention from girls that, in a way, wasn’t deserved though I have no idea what kind of attention from girls is deserved. (I still don’t.) On those occasions when I did play a guitar in school I think I basked in that kind of attention, but it was rare. Preventing me from doing it more often was the fact that I didn’t have my own acoustic guitar to drag around (when I played with the band I used an electric guitar that had been gifted to me by a drug addict client of my father’s who had Hodgkins and who tended to give stuff away. Especially when, I suspect, he couldn’t pay his legal fees.). Further, the guitar I used at home didn’t have a case. We lived on an island, and I took a school bus and a ferry into town to go to school, and that’s a lot of awkward distance and transportation to maneuver a caseless guitar around.
That’s a long way of saying that whatever was drawing me to these slow songs, the melodic finger-picking ballads that I spent so much time learning, it wasn’t the fact that it drew attention from girls. And it certainly wasn’t because I won so much respect from my peers for knowing those songs, because no one else cared about them.
It’s only now that I can see the reason for spending so much time learning how to play The Beatles’ “Blackbird”. Songs like that, played on my acoustic guitar (I finally bought one of my own, but I still don’t have a case for it), picked slowly using only my fingertips, are lullabies.
They are songs for the early evening, for when my daughter is drifting off. They are for playing, and singing, at a bedside while eyelids grow heavy and breathing slows. Learning those songs, then, was an investment in my fatherhood to come, and I’m beginning to see dividends.
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Sweet…
Shade and Sweetwater,
K (who never could manage a guitar, so she simply sings)(and is currently recording a lullaby CD, because she’s not planning on having any more kids, and doesn’t that make sense??)
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but can you play Wheatkings?!
I bet you can. Canadiana ftw!
cool post. thanks for sharing ;)
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Never heard of Wheatkings! Now I’ll have to look them up.
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I have a guy with a guitar in my basement, my 21 year old stepson, Evan. He plays a lot of slow, melodic songs. I will not tell him that he is practicing lullabies, but I am happy that he may be for the kids he has a long time from now.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Now you jinxed him. He’s having kids next year :}
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So sweet.
P.S. I’m going to have “American Pie” in my head all day.
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I’ve always loved “Blackbird”, it makes the perfect lullaby. I’ve always sang it when putting little ones down (I’ve done a LOT of babysitting in my time).
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
How much do you charge?
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Reading your post gives me a bit of a push to drag my guitar out of the closet, dust it off, and learn Blackbird. It is the perfect falling asleep song.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
It’s surprisingly simple to play. Fingers arched!
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A beautiful story, thank you for sharing it with us. (and for making me look up Stan Rogers. I have new music to listen to)
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Stan is the man. Listen to Northwest Passage.
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Being able to play an instrument is a fabulous gift. Both of your children will be so much richer in their perception having watched and listened to you play. I’m jealous. I wish I could play something.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Can you whistle? That’s something.
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just started lessons at the age of 40 , cant wait to be able to play stairway. Cool story.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Never too late.
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Okay – Mr. Trendsetter. Now I have to learn Blackbird. I have been wanting to for a while, but now I might actually do it.
I grew up with a musician father, and let me tell you – MereCat is right that your perception of music is so much deeper having grown up around it like that. I love music down to my very core and I want my children to feel the same way.
What kind of guitar do you play on? I’ve got a Gibson Backpacker (tee hee) but I am wanting to get a full bodied classical acoustic soon.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
I have a Yamaha Fender Stratocaster rip-off and a cheap acoustic.
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Learning to play guitar IS a way of impressing girls. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out which girls you want to impress.
(says the woman who swoons when her husband plays Blackbird for their daughters)
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
It’s these ones.
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Where’s that “like” button?
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I don’t know. You’d think WordPress would have something.
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Awww, sweet. I can see “Blackbird” as a fantastic lullabye song. :D
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
it’s pretty good.
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Hahaha i *just* blogged about that guy – that sensitive guitar guy in high school – a few entries back. and i totally made fun of that guy.
whoops.
sorry, guy.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 6th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I would like it noted that I wasn’t the sensitive guitar guy. Because I didn’t have a guitar case.
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Damn you and your excellent writing and musical talents!
I can only do funny voices for my baby, and let me tell you, they aren’t nearly as good at putting him to sleep as a nicely plucked guitar would be.
But, his face sure does light up when he sees me in the morning… So there’s that.
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 8th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I think that’s enough.
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That’s how the past and future collide. Lovely. I failed miserably at piano. Try lugging that to school ;-)
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Backpacking Dad Reply:
August 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I have a piano that I can’t play. Hopefully Erin will be better at it than I am.
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