Friday, March 11, 2016

acoustic /əˈko͞ostik/

The first time I picked up a guitar and tried to strum D and G chords with some manner of competence, I could not believe I’d ever get the hang of it. Like so many early students I would have given up and put it aside, but a force drove me on. I had to do this! Humans create! That’s what humans do because we are each a new day rising!

I persisted. I learned. Some chords became easy. Muscle memory I guess. It became instinctive and so did the composing habit.

The odd time I would allow the guitar to linger for a couple days I would start to feel uneasy; out of sorts, and then realize why. The instrument and the process had become an integral extension of my mind.

I wrote simple folky songs that were not spectacular but worked, and almost accommodated the wafer-thin range of my singing voice.

Though that urge still whispers to me now and then, the imperative has faded and the calluses have become a mere tingle.

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