Webster Art

Me playing my guitar in 1979

After a 3 year dry spell, I’ve picked up the guitar again. I go through periods…long periods, where it just gathers dust. I have no idea why it suddenly occured to me that playing guitar again would be fun. There were a couple campfires where my climbing friends were playing guitars, and I envied their talent, and the beautiful music they created.

So maybe that’s it. It’s Spring, I am feeling creative, and guitar is my way to express that creativity. I have a box full of sheet music dating back to the seventies when I first started playing. I’ve boiled that down to a 3 inch binder, but really, I only play about 12 songs, and focus on about 3: Yesterday, Stairway to heaven, and an original composition I wrote 10 years ago.

I prefer instrumental guitar, primarily because Sue has to leave the room when I try to sing….yes, I’m that bad.

I love to work complicated progressions, and I’m slowly transitioning away from flat picking to finger picking. It’s very cool to nail a long progression. There is a beauty in a perfectly played melody…it’s almost a zen thing.

Playing the guitar is a nice break from computer work. I’ve been teaching myself some new programming languages for a freelance project. When I get tired of making things pretty on the computer, I switch to my wooden guitar, and make things pretty there…it’s a nice mix.