I remember being very young and wandering around at my grandparents’ house. One of those times I went in one of the storage rooms where I saw my grandfather playing his acoustic guitar. I had never seen him play it before, but I thought it was the coolest thing. Time passed by, and one day we got some really bad news. My grandfather had been diagnosed with cancer, and died when I was in fifth grade. It was hard on all of us. My grandmother moved out of the house and moved to a villa in Silvis, IL. I visited one day and did my snoopin’ around again, running into my grandfather’s old guitar again. I picked it up and started playing it, but not very well.

            Every time I went to visit my grandmother in Silvis, I would try playing the guitar; figuring out slowly how it worked. I tried sounding out some easy guitar melodies that I have heard from songs; the first being Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. All the while I was playing it left-handed. I didn’t find a problem with this until I had heard about tablature from a friend. Tablature is a different form of reading music involving numbers on different lines that represent which string that number is on. It was all backwards since I was playing left-handed. I made the difficult transition of switching to right-handed, but luckily I eventually got used to it.

            I had asked my grandmother whether or not I could take the guitar home with me, but she refused since it was an antique. After corn-detasseling season during the summer after eighth grade, I had decided it was time to buy my own guitar. I walked into the guitar store, and the first guitar I set my eyes on was the one I wanted. It’s cherry red wooden body and devil-horn body was just like Angus Young’s guitar, who was the guitarist for my favorite band at the time. I got everything I needed to play it, and walked out to some unhappy parents. I didn’t care though. They didn’t understand how much I loved playing these things. Now that I could play it every day, I had time to figure more things about it. I learned where all the notes were on it, how to do chords based on tablature, how to alternate pick, distort and change the sounds using different knobs and switches, and ultimately, a somewhat understanding of how to create melodies and what not.

            It’s been tough learning guitar without a teacher, but luckily I’ve had the internet with simple tips and various songs to learn using tablature. I’ve jammed with many of my friends in the past, whether it be a guitar duet, or playing guitar over drums. Improvement on technique has slowed up recently, but I plan on playing guitar for the rest of my life. I thank my grandfather very much for inspiring me to begin playing.