Day 7: Guitar

That was the hugely popular Gangnam Style song that's been floating around the internet for a while. The important difference between this one and the hundreds of other remixes and parodies is that they used an acoustic guitar. Actually, I just checked and there are a bunch of acoustic covers of the song but most are from guys who need to be punched in the face. There's a weird split between skilled guitarists where it's either sincere players or smirking douchebags. I say that as a guitarist because I'm not really skilled. I played in middle school and part of high school for a total of about five years but before that, I truly loved the sound of the instrument. It can turn anything better.

That was an ICP song that gained popularity for it's ridiculous lyrics and silly presentation. Yet, when you add a few earnest vocalists and a guitar, it really becomes a wonderful song. Yes, I guess that's kind of cheating since that guy is actually playing a ukulele but that's pretty much just a tiny guitar. Okay, well that does detract from my point but I don't really know what my point is. The acoustic guitar is a beautiful instrument. I can play it, too, and I guess I wanted to drop that fact in here somewhere. Continuing with this video heavy blog, I'm just going to post one of the first songs I ever learned to play and one of the only songs I can still play just from muscle memory.

This video gets bonus points because he looks like the first guitar teacher I ever had. The second one looked like Ned Flanders without the glasses and my very last one looked like the hippy from the elephant show(Sharon, Lois and Bram's Elephant Show, I had to look it up and now I have the song stuck in my head but I will not post that video. If you want to have an 80's children show theme song stuck in your head, I'm not going to be an enabler!).

I think it's important for everyone to have at least a basic understanding of music. I think everyone should be able to play at least one song on something for the same reason that I think people should have to work in retail and fast food service. Once I understood how something is done, not only were my criticisms more valid but my ability to discern between bad music and music I don't like became much better.

I can't end this blog about guitars without saying that Desperado was a huge part in making me actually pick up the instrument. I love the sound and I love the feeling of playing it but the idea that just because I happened to be carrying a guitar case made me similar to Antonio Banderas in any way was a big selling point. It's probably the same reason that some Firefly nerds like to wear brown coats, comic book nerds wear shirts with their favorite character's logo or LARPers wear capes. I used to carry my guitar case and pretend it was a rocket launcher or a machine gun and occasionally, I'd imagine it could also function as some sort of hovering motorcycle because I'm still a Star Wars nerd above all else.