Well ...

   If you were thinking it might actually be Rocket Science, it's not. It's not Brain Surgery either ... but it might as well be.

     While searching through the Community Educator a few weeks ago for a new class to take that was not on a Tuesday or Thursday night, I ran across a 4 part course in song writing. Hmmm ... story telling through a whole new medium might be really cool, right?

     I may not have even given it a second thought, had the first 8 weeks of the course not been titled "Beginner Guitar." It was the word beginner that caught my attention, suggesting the possibility that I might be able to actually keep up with the rest of the class.

     After all ... even though I am not a guitar player, I do own a guitar. (Ummm as of Wednesday night when I attended my first class, I was not even a beginner guitar player)so ... there is no doubt that this is going to be quite a challenge.

                               

     The chart above is a diagram of the notes found on the lower part of the guitar neck. Our assignment for the week is to play the notes of every string within the first 4 frets over, and over, and over again ... in smooth succession. Eeek ...

     I don't know how everyone else is doing but my pinkie finger is not cooperating very well and is not sure that it wants to play along with this new game.

     I'm sure the exercises are important, even though they're not a whole lot of fun. I'm going to do my best to resist the temptation to move forward to something a little more exciting in this book that my instructor Robert Blake (AKA Dr. Bob, the Music Doctor) wrote. If I intend to try to keep up at all, I best get the basics down, right?

     BTW ...if any of you happen to have an old guitar hanging around the house and want to play along ... I challenge you to pick up the instrument, practice this exercise every day this week and let me know how it goes.

     This is going to be fun.