An Instrument of Bluegrass

One of my favorite styles of music has grown to be Bluegrass. Five instruments, Southern vocals, and an always joyful, upbeat sound! One of my favorite instruments to “zone in on” when I’m listening is the fiddle.

Fun fact for today: The violin is called a “violin” when playing classical music and it’s called a “fiddle” when playing folk, bluegrass, or country music. There is no difference in the appearance of the instrument.

Because I loved the sound so much, I began to have a desire to learn the fiddle. I soon found out that my great aunt owned one. We had already planned a trip to go visit my mom’s side of the family down in Louisiana when she said that we could borrow it for a while. We brought it home, and I started learning some simple tunes and notes through music books and lessons on YouTube. I heard several times that this was a tough instrument to learn and took years of practice to get good at, but that made me want to tackle it even more.  It was a challenge that I was determined to accomplish within the year.  I continued to practice and I soon found out that this was probably the hardest instrument I set out to learn. But I learned enough to play violin instead of guitar for one certain song in church during that Christmas. 

I enjoyed playing the violin, but did not feel like I was very good at it. I continued practicing after that Christmas, but then began to feel stuck and discouraged that I wasn’t getting any better. I’m a person who wants to see fast results when I start learning a new instrument (or in anything for that matter), and I quickly found out that the violin was not an instrument that I would get a fast response out of. I was able to do basic bowing techniques and learned mostly by ear, but I think the main thing that made it difficult to learn was having my fingers and hand in a position higher than what they normally are when playing guitar or piano. I accepted that the violin was not the instrument for me, but I continue to love the instrument!

A Guitarist Journey

The desire for learning the guitar began when one of my best friends growing up learned how to play. The more I heard her play, the more I wanted to learn. One Christmas, I received a guitar from my parents and immediately asked my friend to show me a couple chords. Soon, I switched from taking piano lessons to beginner guitar lessons from my teacher. A couple months later, she told me she had taught me everything she knew on guitar. She gave me a good base to build off of, and I started teaching myself different songs and learning what I needed to know as I played.

A year or so later, the man who had been the guitarist at our church got deployed to Iraq for over a year. This opened up an opportunity for me to take his place, so before he left I started learning songs and the chords needed to play them. I’ve continued to play in church for five years now and I enjoy every second of it! Being able to praise God with my instrument is something I will continue to do for the rest of my life!   

I continued to teach myself, but then an opportunity came up to take lessons again from a friend of the family who is an excellent, experienced guitarist. I learned SO much from this man; he taught me many different techniques, chording patterns, different styles of playing, and introduced me to flat-picking and how to read it (which is just plucking one string at a time to make a melody instead of strumming all the strings at once).

I not only learned from teachers, but also learned a lot from YouTube videos. All I had to do is search for what specific thing I wanted to learn and I easily entered a world of personal lessons. This new found resource has been the main supply of material for me to learn all of my instruments. There are series of lessons that will take you from being a beginner all the way to an advanced player.

There is still a lot more that I would like to learn, but I’ve come a long way since that first day I strummed a chord. I would like to learn more scales, become better at flat-picking and build strength in my fingers to be able to play more bar chords. I will still continue watching videos of instrumentals and teach myself the chords and fingering until I can recreate it. This is more often than not what you will find me doing for fun in my free time!

If you have ever thought about learning the guitar give it a shot! Take a few lessons and soon you’ll be strumming your favorite song or writing your own music!

Why I chose music...

        Why? A question I expect many people to ask. Out of all the topics I could blog about, why music? In short, music is very special to me.  It has the ability to pick me up when I’m down and express my feelings and thoughts for something that I cannot put into words.

How did this love for music start? I’ll start at the beginning.

My family loves music and is very gifted in that area; this love for music has continued down to me. At a young age, I started taking piano lessons. This began a journey that led to learning many other instruments and serving others with my new found skills. I began falling in love with the sound of black notes against white pages and the satisfying feeling of creating melody through my fingers.

At first, I didn’t have a strong interest in music in any way, but when I started taking piano lessons I quickly learned that I had an opinion on the music and instruments I liked and didn’t like. As the months went on I struggled more and more with reading music. Having to tell which dot on five lines was the “C” sparked no interest or enjoyment inside of me at all. But my parents said I had to finish at least one more year of music theory before I could move on to something else—little did I know that I would use that knowledge for years to come. 

Instead of continuing on with piano, I made a request to finish my “one year of theory” not on the piano, but on the recorder. Yes, the recorder. The instrument that everyone had as a child, but no one ever seemed to actually learn. There was a class at a homeschool co-op I attended, and through that class I fulfilled my year of theory. Then I retired down my recorder, but I did not stop playing music.

The next adventure in my musical experience was hidden away in my basement. Mom pulled out her flute she played in band when she was in high school, and I began thinking it would be fun to learn. A friend of mine had taken flute lessons and had been involved in a homeschool band. I thought that sounded fun, took a few flute lessons, and signed up for beginner band. I loved band so much I continued playing for three more years and skipped right into advanced band with several friends. As much fun as band was I really had a desire to learn how to play the guitar. After completing a handful of lessons I continued teaching myself how to play. Having stuck with playing guitar to this day, it’s become a true passion of mine. I haven’t found another instrument quite like it.

I realized as the years continued that I loved music and it was something I could pick up easily. I learned and played a lot by ear, which has been a gift and a difficulty, but I’ve grown to embrace this talent and enjoy it in different ways.