Learning to Play

[Curatorial Note]: Discussing finally learning to play guitar with free time due to COVID 19 quarantine.

May 23, 2020

Stephanie Berry

Stephanie Berry

HST580

Arizona State University

Text

English Emotion

English Music

English Home & Family Life

English Education--Universities

guitar

flute

opera

musical instrument

05/23/2020

06/03/2020

10/14/2020

02/17/2021

08/02/2022

10/18/2024

5/23/2020

When I was a little girl, I would listen to my father play the bass and the guitar. He was an incredibly talented musician. Over the years, I’ve collected stories of the famous musicians he supposedly played with, but with my family, you can never be sure how tall the tale is. I remember asking if he would teach me to play; I was no more than three years old. I loved the way the guitar sounded, and I wanted to learn. He told me no because I’m left-handed. He said unless I wanted to learn to play up-side down like Jimi (Hendricks), I’d never be able to play. Music has been a part of my life since I can remember. I grew up on AC/DC, the Doors, the Beatles, and Louis Armstrong, to name a few. I eventually learned to read music, play the flute, and was trained to sing opera. But I never learned to play the guitar. In high school, my mother bought me a Yamaha acoustic starter set, but it always sat in the art studio, collecting dust. I have always had something else to do. Some other projects or tasks that needed to be addressed. Learning to play the guitar was too hard; I had no teacher, no natural talent. Listening to music is easy, you hit play, and your world is filled with playful notes or melancholy melody. Learning to play the flute was simple; I went to band class where an instructor taught me to play along with 50 other students. Singing opera was natural, which is why I was trained in opera and not rock or folk like I wanted. There was always a reason not to learn, somewhere to go or something to do. Until March 2020, when the pandemic forced my work to send me home, and my health conditions meant I was not leaving the house any time soon. Even with work and school responsibilities, I’d run out of excuses to ignore the 3-year-old me. Around April, my mother told me Fender was offering three months of lessons free. I pulled my dusty acoustic out of the studio and cleaned it up. One month later, my fingers are sore, and I can play two lines from Down by the Riverside on one string; slowly, clumsily. It’s never too late, but it’s never too early to do something you love.

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