I am 54 years old. I love listening to music. I am tone deaf. I have never played a musical instrument.
I have small hands and short, stubby fingers which I presumed, for many years, would preclude me from ever being able to play the guitar.
A few weeks ago, I attended a party with a band playing. I had a few drinks. I watched the guitarist intently as he effortlessly rattled through some rock classics.
Inspired, I impetuously bought a cheap electric guitar and watched YouTube videos about how to make a noise.
The first step was to tune the instrument. Initially I used a tuning gadget included with the starter kit but subsequently found it much easier to use an Android app (Guitar Tuna).
I devoured a load of YouTube videos on how to play electric guitar. My favourite was JustinGuitar.
I quickly got bored of 'formal tuition' and cranked out the classic 'Smoke on The Water' on one string like any teenager given a guitar would do. The very fact I could make a noise - through an amplifier - that was so satisfying. In fact, it was so satisfying it almost justified the cost of the starter kit.
However, looking at Justin's frowning face, I felt an obligation to, at least, try to learn some proper chords and advance to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.
So I constricted and contorted my fingers to produce a 'D' chord. I strummed the chord which sounded weird. Then I picked each string individually. This was very useful and informative as it showed me where my fingers were correctly positioned and where they weren't.
Then I tried and rapidly gave up on the 'A' chord (three fingers in close proximity on the same fret - tricky) so advanced rapidly to the 'E' chord which was slightly easier.
Then I was tuning up and stupidly over tightened the little 'E' string instead of the the big 'E' string and it snapped. Jesus. Now I have to re-string the flipping guitar.
Time for more YouTube videos and thanks to RockJam for providing spare strings in their superb starter kit. It was slightly tricky but finally I was back to a 6 string guitar.
To be honest, I wasn't practising much - it worked better for me when I was in the mood and quite often I simply wasn't in the mood. I didn't stick to any regime of 10 minutes a day or hire a professional teacher who would endlessly nag me to practice my fingering technique. I just played when I felt like playing. Which wasn't that often.
I thought it would be better to master the 'D' chord before moving on and I simply couldn't master the 'D' chord so I analyzed why not. It struck me that playing guitar wasn't necessarily an arty, creative activity, there was some science here as to why when you plucked as string, it didn't make the required noise.
My main problem was my fingers being too 'flat' so my fingers placed to play a chord on the third string would accidentally mute the second string. I tried to fix this by raising my fingers higher so the tips touched the string more vertically at 90' rather than obliquely. This helped slightly but then I found that my palm was touching the neck of the guitar and the first string - so although three strings sounded fine, irritatingly, the final string was buzzing, muted or just sounding naff.
Then I watched a load of videos about the myth of 'Small hands can't play guitar' and tried to move my re-position my hand so the thumb was behind the neck in the middle giving the fingers more room. This was better but felt slightly uncomfortable.
Practice makes perfect I guess and I'm toying with getting some proper lessons from a human being before I get into any more bad habits but the prospect of even changing from 'D' to 'A' to 'E' (within 10 minutes) seems a long way off.
However, the wife now knows the words to the opening of both 'Smoke On The Water' and 'Seven Nation Army'. Which is nice.
