The Learning Process

I am a perfectionist.  I think it's one of the things that adds to my charm and personality, but it can also be one of my downfalls.  I like to be able to do things well, right away.  I have a very bad habit of starting something, becoming either frustrated or bored, then not following through with it.  I am working to change this, mainly because I see it abundantly present in my oldest son and it frustrates me.  There are certain traits of his that pose absolutely no question as to where they come from! 

He has told me, for probably about 4 years now, that he wants to be a drummer.  He inherited a 3-piece set from a friend, and got a drum pad for Christmas so he could practice quietly.  He's played a little on both, trying to learn the basics of keeping time.  And he's done pretty well so far.  Unfortunately, he gets easily bored and "practicing" just seems like too much work sometimes when he would rather be playing Wii or X-Box.

The kids got me a guitar for me for Christmas.  I've never played guitar before, but I thought it would be cool to learn.  Now that I have the guitar, I am mentally forcing myself to learn it.  The internet is a wonderful thing, when one is trying to learn something new.  I looked up basic chord structure, and tried strumming a few.  It took me a bit to get my brain wrapped around reading guitar chords and figuring out which fingers went on which strings on which frets.  It was frustrating.  And it hurt my fingers!  I had tried it just a few times since Christmas, but only for a few minutes at a time.  I tried G, C and D chords, 3 of the easiest to play I was told.  I finally managed to get the right finger on the right string on the right fret and could make a decent sound on each of these 3 chords.  But I was starting to get bored.  I know it's not good musicianship, but the rudiments of chord structure and scales have never been exciting to me.  In fact, for most of my musical life I have either avoided or skipped learning them.  Thus, most likely why I needed a friend to hold my hand and lead me through basic music theory in college.  But I don't want to give up.  I really want to learn guitar.  So I decided to pick a song to learn.  I chose "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas, and quickly found a simple version of online "sheet music" that I could follow.

The lyrics (most of which I already have memorized) were written out with the corresponding chord name written above.  When I hovered the cursor over the chord name, the fingering appeared, telling me how to play it.  There are 4 basic chords in this song- A, E, B minor, and D.  I strummed each one slowly, focusing on the placement of each finger and the vibration of each string.  I followed the on-screen music and strummed each chord in progression for the first verse and chorus.  Because my brain is wired the way it is, I couldn't play the song without singing it.  So I slowly played through the first verse and chorus a couple of times, singing along.  It was painfully slow (as is any piece of music the first time you learn it), but I was excited to be able to play it.  I found myself having the patience to do it again and again, slowly.  After about 30 minutes I was able to play each chord without checking the fingering.  And I was beginning to remember the progression of the 4 chords in the song.  As I sang, I could hear what was going to come next.  My excitement was building.

Such a simple thing to get so excited about, but once I was able to make it through the entire song and keep a steady (albeit very slow) beat, I threw my hands up in the air and cheered very loudly for myself.  From the Janga website, I played the song and tried to keep up by strumming along.  I could get about halfway through the song (although it was quite sloppy) before losing it.  But I didn't even care.  Ms. Perfectionist was beginning to accept that it was going to take a lot of effort in order to get it right.  I played for about an hour.  The same 4 chords, the same song, over and over again.  I was better at this than I thought I would be, and my exhilaration was through the roof!

I finally decided to stop when the pain in my left fingertips was so bad it made me want to cry.  I could no longer strum a decent sounding chord, because I couldn't push my fingers on the strings hard enough.  I put the guitar away, and called my kids, who are with their dad tonight.  Out of habit, I picked up the phone with my right hand and dialed with my left.  Ow-ow-ow...ow-ow-ow-ow.  I almost didn't care that my fingers hurt so badly.  I was so excited to tell my son that I had practiced and made it through a song!  I promised him that when they return home on Saturday, I would play it for him.

Deep down, I'm hoping that if he sees his perfectionist mom taking the time to learn something new, it will rub off on him and he'll be more likely to play his drums.  I know he will have traits and quirks that are not "perfect," as everyone does and I will always love him no matter how much of a perfectionist he is.  I want him to see that effort pays off, and sometimes learning new things is easier, and sometimes harder, than you might originally think.  And that it's ok to not be very good at something for a while, but you have the power the change that.  I'm hoping all my kids will learn these lessons, but most of all, I just want to be able to play the guitar and sing a song for them.