Learning Guitar Badly and Why I Keep Going

"He lost interest. I didn't."

Learning Guitar Badly and Why I Keep Going

I started learning guitar during COVID because my son wanted to learn.

He lost interest quickly. I didn't.

This is probably a personality trait at this point. I pick things up because someone else is interested and then they leave and I stay. The guitar sat in the corner after he moved on and I kept picking it up whenever I had a spare moment, figuring out chords, playing badly, playing slightly less badly, playing badly again.

I can play most chords now. Barre chords remain a work in progress. Picking is somewhere between aspirational and humbling. What I can do is sit down with a guitar and make something that sounds recognizably like music, which is more than I could say almost 6 years ago.

I've played in Paris a few times. Mostly I just sing when friends goad me on but every once in a while they will convince me to play too. This requires a completely different kind of courage than playing in my bedroom. These are people who know what good playing sounds like. The thing that makes it easier is the encouragement. Instead of a quick you’re horrible I always get a form of guidance. A “try this it will be easier” or a general “don’t give up you’re getting better”.

What I've noticed is that being genuinely bad at something is useful when most of your life is spent doing things you're competent at. The guitar humbles me in a way that most things don't anymore.

There's something valuable in sitting with a skill that won't come quickly, in being a beginner again. Not being able to shortcut your way to competence because your hands simply haven't learned yet and no amount of understanding the theory changes that.

I paint the way I wish I could play guitar. Loosely, intuitively, from feeling rather than formula. The guitar is teaching me what that actually costs in hours. Which makes me appreciate what the painting has cost even more.

I'll get the barre chords eventually. Or I won't. Either way I'll keep picking it up.

Jackie