Dinner and Mandolin

We were at a friend's house having dinner, and just after eating he whipped out his mandolin and started playing. We had all worked hard all day, and he needed dinner, a musical interlude, and a shower before going back to work.

So before you grab that donut, remember, music can be refreshing too. Especially live music. Even if you are just noodling around. I should play my mandolin today. I'm sure it is lonely hanging up there on the wall.

Guitar Pratice Another 20 min.

Today I got to play guitar for my grandson who came for a surprise visit.  He seemed to like it. Then again he's only 8 months old. So I think that gets me to the 1 hour mark. Only 999 hours to go.

Guitar Day 2

Today I managed to play for 25 minutes before my fingers were screaming at me. I found a book of children's songs on my bookshelf so I can learn some songs to play to my grand-kids. I worked on making my fingers stronger for barre chords. I practiced scales. I'm annoyed that I can't read a music book anymore without glasses. That's inconvenient. But all the more reason to memorize the song.

Guitar Practice

My new goal is to practice my guitar for 1000 hours. So I just did maybe 15 minutes until my finger pads got too sore to play. I need to find a widget that keeps track of my goal.

I found the widget, which you can see to the right. My 15 minutes barely shows up on it! 1000 hours equals 60,000 minutes. I also made a treasure page to inspire me which is here. These are the singers and musicians that I would be if I could be. Somehow I thought I'd have lives like theirs. But somewhere along the way I either ran out of talent or motivation or moral support. But I'm no quitter, so here I go again.

Black Kilt Clan

If this doesn't wake you up, you may already be dead.

Four Shillings Short

This is the duo we heard on Sunday at a ranch near Springville, CA. They played many instruments including a sitar, a hammered dulcimer, a bohdran, a dumbek, some flutes and recorders, a psaltery and a banjo. Fascinating. I don't know how they get it all into one van.

Guitar Tuner

My electronic tuner has some issues but this handy website helped me tune my guitar in no time: http://www.guitarforbeginners.com/onlinetuner.html

I promised myself I'd practice guitar today and it was way out of tune. I also had to prune my finger nails so I could push down the strings. And once again all my calluses are gone from infrequent playing. It's always like starting from scratch for me in spite of my best intentions.

At some of the archery gatherings people sit around and play guitar. And I want to join them, I really do, but up to now I've never been good enough. But I'm too stubborn to quit.