If memory serves me correctly I started off playing guitar in grade 5 @ St. Pius X elementary school in Brantford. I was 9 years old.
My teacher was, believe it or not, Mrs. Lord, yes that is correct! What a name for a Catholic school teacher. She was a guitar player who played for us in our music class. She played a classical guitar and at the time I thought she was GREAT! She played and we sang songs for the radio, which was in the early 70’s and they sounded perfect. Songs like ” Seasons in the Sun”, ” Starry starry nights”, ” Alone again, Naturally”, which is a song that I still play today and is a long time fav of mine, and I think she also played ” Natures way” as well.
We all started off learning the basic like how to hold the guitar and the pick. This I found odd because she didn’t use one, she said that she felt more comfortable playing like that. I thought nothing about playing without a pick for many years to come. She then taught us the strings that we would be playing.
Now she started out with chords! They were very basic.
She broke the class into 5 groups of 4 or 5 students. Each group had their own guitar and we each got a chance to practice on it. I can’t remember how civilized we were about sharing it, but I do recall that it was a blast.
The one thing that I do know was that, it was as easy as walking is to most people in the world. I remember having my fellow students look at me like I was cheating or something like that. I can see in my mind, a buddy who was having so much trouble in trying to play it that I went over and told him to relax then I broke it down to show him and then he finally got it. To my amazement I recall everyone looking at me and then they followed what I was saying! It got to a point where I was the top of the class in something!!! Mrs. Lord seemed to be so impressed that she eventually let me play guitar with her at our school masses that we had in the gym.
I don’t know if I told you this but, I, supposedly, was a LITTLE BASTARD as a kid! I found out through a cousin of mine that my grandfather, on my mother’s side, use to say Oh no, here comes that LITTLE BASTARD again~!@#$%^&*()_+!!! So, I was a little hyper-active kid. I’m man enough to admit it now! I guess as the old saying goes, we are the people that our parents warned us about. I was a very athletic kid at the time but not always the brightest light on the tree!
Keep on Jammin’
[…] fortunate enough to be blessed with a natural ability to both play and picking up songs by ear at an early stage in my development as a guitarist. I was also blessed with having FABULOUS parents, who both supported my love of guitar, that gave […]