My Musical Adventure

October 21, 2021

So I've pretty much mastered "Jingle Bells" by now. I don't get to practice very often, but when I do it's like I've been playing this song my whole life. I couldn't tell you how to play it now and if I tried I'd mess it up like I don't know what I'm talking about, but the moment I look at my guitar it rushes back like "I got this!". Kinda like math. At least I hope I can still remember math when I actually have to use it.

I decided to start another song, and settled on "Let it Snow". I chose the simplest version I could find, although the version I settled on does have a few chords. At first I was confused, I was like "why is there a regular one string note here in the exact same spot as the chord? Which one am I supposed to play, the note or the chord?" Well, I still have no idea. But I decided to play the chords.

So I pulled out my guitar book (which I've stopped reading when I started playing and still need to finish), and found the chords needed in this song and wrote down how to play each one in tabs. But I couldn't find two of the chords, so I pulled out my book of chords. I found one of the chords that I need, but there are so many unnecessary symbols that I don't understand. And the chords are not even the same as the ones in my other book. I'm about ready to pull my hair out!

I still don't understand this crap. It's like when I first got my guitar and looked at that stupid book for the first time. I'm so frustrated! It's like it's written in a foreign language, even after I've learned so much, even after I can play an entire song.

I guess I'm going to have to look online to learn these chords. I'm going to look for the ones I already have first just to make sure I'm on the same page, then hopefully I'll get somewhere.

I gotta admit, I really envy the famous guitarists who can just play like it's nothing. Like don't you guys even know what the sounds you're making look like written down?! Songs nowadays are written in standard notation, which makes absolutely no sense because knowing how to play each note is pointless if you don't even know what notes to play. And chord diagrams were obviously written by aliens.

As of right now, only tabs makes sense to me and it's the only guitar language I can read and actually understand. I really hope I can understand everything else one day. But first I really need to finish reading my first book all the way through, and then read my book of chords cover to cover. Or at least most of it, enough to learn this language anyway.