Guitar musings
Feb. 24th, 2003 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyblossomI've been playing my guitar a lot more recently, which is getting fun because I'm starting to remember things I thought I'd forgotten for good. The other day I tried to play one song and ended up playing something completely different, something I'd forgotten I even knew how to play. And I figured out how to play a few things I didn't think I'd ever figure out. So that's kind of cool. Just don't think about it and you can play anything.
The downside is that right now my fingertips are peeling.
Ever wanted to play the guitar? Let me tell you something: it hurts. Granted, I have no pain tolerance (as well as no alcohol tolerance, yes, I'm just a barrel of laughs), but still. Picture it: your delicate little fingertips, not from the knuckle up, just the very very top in front of your fingernail, pressed against thin strips of STEEL. Really HARD.
Well, it only hurts for the first little bit, and if I didn't stop playing for years at a time I wouldn't have this problem. Eventually it doesn't hurt at all, but of course you have to sacrifice all sensation in the fingertips of your left hand. Or, if you're Michael Rosenbaum, your right hand.
I'm still completely boggled by the concept of upside down and backwards guitar-playing. There was some question when I was 16 about getting me a left-handed guitar. Meaning, a guitar that is strung backwards and has a reversed pickguard. It's true that I am ridiculously left handed, left-legged, left-footed, you name it. Back in the day when I was a competitive figure skater (waaaaaaay back in the day when I hit puberty) I couldn't even manage to do a loop (which is, for the unCanadian, a kind of figure skating jump wherein your edge for the jump is the opposite of your dominant edge and you land on your non-dominant foot). Me doing a loop: *push, wobble wobble, half-hearted leap, crash* Good times.
I'm not entirely sure why anyone plays the guitar left-handed, though. The left hand does all the really tricky stuff anyway, I think. The really precise stuff. You can waffle on the right hand, but not on the left. And those bar chords! But the reason I didn't get a left handed guitar was because I wanted to be able to play other people's guitars, and have other people play mine, because I was a camp counsellor and all that. Communal evironment, you know how it goes. Having a weirdly-strung guitar would just be a handicap.
See, what I discovered a couple of weeks back, when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bonibaru announced that I was getting obsessive, was that Michael Rosenbaum does not play a left-handed guitar. He just plays a right-handed guitar backwards and upside down.
Just the idea of just learning to play this way makes my head hurt. I mean, no one would ever be able to help you, no one ever. You couldn't look at chord charts without mentally flipping them around and upside down. You wouldn't be able to look at people playing to confirm what chord you're hearing. Well, without bending your brain inside out. I play almost entirely by ear, but when something stumps me I look it up. And back in the day I learned to play from the tiny chord chart at the back of a Girl Guide song book (The Our Chalet Songbook, in case you're curious) and someone showed me which fingers I was supposed to use for G, C, and D. (Which are really all the chords you need for The Our Chalet Songbook.) And then I worked the rest out on my own.
But I mean, if you were playing upside down and backwards...meh. Those chord charts would make no sense. You wouldn't even have a basic guide for how to form chords. You'd have to invent them all for yourself. Or just echew chords altogether. As a guitar player, it baffles me. I would like to see someone do it, anyone. I've never seen it done, though granted I don't know a lot of guitar players, and most people would not think to do this. It's like finding out that someone uses their feet to type, leaving their hands free to, er, gesture wildly. I mean, you can't really imagine someone trying it as it looks so uncomfortable, but you'd love to see it in action.
And in completely unrelated other news: please keep in mind that it's spelled masturbate, not masterbate. I care about you and your spelling.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com
The downside is that right now my fingertips are peeling.
Ever wanted to play the guitar? Let me tell you something: it hurts. Granted, I have no pain tolerance (as well as no alcohol tolerance, yes, I'm just a barrel of laughs), but still. Picture it: your delicate little fingertips, not from the knuckle up, just the very very top in front of your fingernail, pressed against thin strips of STEEL. Really HARD.
Well, it only hurts for the first little bit, and if I didn't stop playing for years at a time I wouldn't have this problem. Eventually it doesn't hurt at all, but of course you have to sacrifice all sensation in the fingertips of your left hand. Or, if you're Michael Rosenbaum, your right hand.
I'm still completely boggled by the concept of upside down and backwards guitar-playing. There was some question when I was 16 about getting me a left-handed guitar. Meaning, a guitar that is strung backwards and has a reversed pickguard. It's true that I am ridiculously left handed, left-legged, left-footed, you name it. Back in the day when I was a competitive figure skater (waaaaaaay back in the day when I hit puberty) I couldn't even manage to do a loop (which is, for the unCanadian, a kind of figure skating jump wherein your edge for the jump is the opposite of your dominant edge and you land on your non-dominant foot). Me doing a loop: *push, wobble wobble, half-hearted leap, crash* Good times.
I'm not entirely sure why anyone plays the guitar left-handed, though. The left hand does all the really tricky stuff anyway, I think. The really precise stuff. You can waffle on the right hand, but not on the left. And those bar chords! But the reason I didn't get a left handed guitar was because I wanted to be able to play other people's guitars, and have other people play mine, because I was a camp counsellor and all that. Communal evironment, you know how it goes. Having a weirdly-strung guitar would just be a handicap.
See, what I discovered a couple of weeks back, when
bonibaru announced that I was getting obsessive, was that Michael Rosenbaum does not play a left-handed guitar. He just plays a right-handed guitar backwards and upside down.Just the idea of just learning to play this way makes my head hurt. I mean, no one would ever be able to help you, no one ever. You couldn't look at chord charts without mentally flipping them around and upside down. You wouldn't be able to look at people playing to confirm what chord you're hearing. Well, without bending your brain inside out. I play almost entirely by ear, but when something stumps me I look it up. And back in the day I learned to play from the tiny chord chart at the back of a Girl Guide song book (The Our Chalet Songbook, in case you're curious) and someone showed me which fingers I was supposed to use for G, C, and D. (Which are really all the chords you need for The Our Chalet Songbook.) And then I worked the rest out on my own.
But I mean, if you were playing upside down and backwards...meh. Those chord charts would make no sense. You wouldn't even have a basic guide for how to form chords. You'd have to invent them all for yourself. Or just echew chords altogether. As a guitar player, it baffles me. I would like to see someone do it, anyone. I've never seen it done, though granted I don't know a lot of guitar players, and most people would not think to do this. It's like finding out that someone uses their feet to type, leaving their hands free to, er, gesture wildly. I mean, you can't really imagine someone trying it as it looks so uncomfortable, but you'd love to see it in action.
And in completely unrelated other news: please keep in mind that it's spelled masturbate, not masterbate. I care about you and your spelling.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com
no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 12:03 pm (UTC)I've never been to Our Chalet, no. :) I wish I had gone, though.