The Guitar Lesson

3 on Thursday

A weekly newsletter sharing songs, stories, and other things I’m working on.

Last week I shared Chapter Two of what’s becoming a memoir, about quitting hockey for real. This week I’m sharing Chapter Three, about my first guitar lesson with my grandpa—and the first few chords that made me think I might actually be able to do this. If you missed Chapter Two, you can read it here →

November 1, 1996

Dear Daniel,

Since quitting hockey, I’ve mainly been sitting around at home after school. But today I waited for my dad to get home from work because he told me he’d drive me over to my grandparents’ house. They don’t live that far, and in the summers I just ride my bike, but it’s been very cold lately and we already have snow, so my dad’s going to drive me.

I asked my grandpa if he would show me some chords on the guitar and maybe let me borrow his for a little while. Guess what? He said yes!

Ever since I was little, I’ve noticed he keeps a guitar in the house near the sofa, but I’ve never been interested until now, and so it’s cool that my grandpa actually knows how to play. I wasn’t sure how good he is, though. I’d never actually heard him play. I think he did one time at church, but I wasn’t really paying attention and it was when I was a lot younger. But, hey, I knew whatever level he was at was way better than me, haha!

So my dad got home and he drove me over in our minivan, and we walked through the snow up the steps. Inside, we took off our shoes, and my grandpa had the guitar already taken out and it was lying on the kitchen table.

I’d never really realized before how pretty guitars are. All the different colors in the wood.

My grandpa put his knee on the yellow kitchen chair and showed me first how to hold the guitar. I guess I sort of knew from watching people, but didn’t really know that you have to snuggle it into your upper thigh and stomach and then reach your right arm way around so it rests on top toward the back. It felt really weird to hold, and at first I thought maybe I’m not going to be able to do this. But then he took the guitar back and showed me a few chords.

He had a yellow legal pad of paper and a pen and he drew four big rectangles with six vertical lines in each, and then he drew horizontal lines across them to make three boxes. He scribbled in some dots in different places. I had no idea what he was doing, but then he said he was drawing the “fretboard.” He numbered the dots and said each dot and number represented a finger on my left hand. One is my index, two my middle, and so on to my pinky. Nothing for my thumb. At the top of the first big rectangle he put a “G” and he said that was the name of the chord, and he pressed three of his fingers on the strings. Then he took his right hand and strummed with his thumb. This is going to sound stupid, but I could hardly keep from smiling. It was so cool!

He gave it to me to try and I pressed down on the strings where he showed me. The tips of my fingers started to really hurt, and when I strummed, some of the notes played but most of them didn’t. He said it was because I wasn’t pressing hard enough, and I thought, “My fingers are about to start bleeding!” But I didn’t say that. I just pressed harder, and I actually got the chord to play “cleanly” a few times. I was sweating. He showed me how to play the rest of the chords, which were C, D, and E minor, and then he played them all together, strumming down four times for each one and then going back to the G chord.

I know you know all this, because you’ve been playing guitar forever, but I got to tell you, it was beautiful. Watching the strings vibrate and watching his fingers switch positions so quickly so he didn’t lose the timing. All the chords coming together to form a pattern. I could almost hear it as a song.

He had me try the same thing and it was disastrous. It took so much concentration just to make one chord, let alone switch to another. But we laughed together at the table.

My dad stood beside us at the beginning for a while, then went over to the recliner and read the Grand Forks Herald.

Afterward, my grandpa gave me a hymn book and showed me which songs I could play just with the chords he taught me. For a minute I thought he was joking. But he showed me how to play “Amazing Grace” and a few other songs I know from church. I put everything carefully back into the guitar case and hugged my grandpa, then my dad and I drove back home.

I set the guitar up in the living room and have been working on playing the chords since after supper. Wow, do my fingers hurt! How did you do it? My grandpa said I will build up “calluses” eventually and it won’t hurt so much.

Anyway, it was just such a good day.

Love,
Aaron

Next week I’ll share Chapter Four, about singing in church, turning red in front of people, and why I wanted a room where no one could hear me practice.

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