Asahikawa American English Conversation School
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My Guitars
杔偺僊僞乕
When I was about 8 years old, I discovered the Johnny Cash records at the Spokane Public Library. Johnny Cash was not a very good singer, but I fell in love with the twangy sound of the electric guitar as played by his backup band, the Tennessee Three. I decided right then and there that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, both acoustic and electric.
I wanted to learn how to play the guitar so much that I made a fake guitar out of two pieces of scrap plywood I had found in my father乫s basement. I cut one piece of wood into the shape of the neck of the guitar and the other into the main body and hooked them together. I used a common pink pencil eraser as a guitar pick and I pretended that I was playing the electric guitar while I listened to the records that I was constantly borrowing from the library. I say pretend to play because the fake guitar had no strings.
When I was about 12 years old, I was fortunate enough to go with my family on a trip to Mexico. I was able to persuade them to buy me a nylon stringed classical guitar that cost about $12 US. It was not a very good guitar but it was much better than no guitar at all. I also bought a book called 乬Easy Guitar Chords乭 and I practiced playing my new guitar every day. In fact, I played the guitar so much, that I never did any of my homework from school. This pattern of behavior continued all throughout junior high school and high school.
Eventually, I bought a second-hand electric guitar. It was a Gibson MelodyMaker. A very cheap but very well made basic electric guitar. If you have an electric guitar, you also need an amplifier. I was able to get a small used one very cheap. As you can imagine, an electric guitar can be quite loud, so my parents told me to go and play it out in the garage. I did but, then the neighbors started complaining too so I had to use headphones. Listening to an electric guitar through headphones is not very enjoyable. It sounds much better without them. Therefore, whenever my mother, father and sister were not at home, I would go down into the basement and play it loud.
After I had graduated from high school my grade point average was so bad, that I couldn乫t get into any college or university so, I joined the United States Coast Guard (USCG). While I was in the Coast Guard, I saved up enough money to buy a really good electric guitar and a much better amp. I bought a Gibson ES-347 hollow body. It is the same style of guitar that the famous blues musician B.B. King plays. Now that I had a professional guitar, I decided to join a rock and roll band.
I and four other members of the Coast Guard Air Station in Kodiak Alaska formed a band called 乬Mujum乭. We would practice almost every day after work and even played a few gigs on the Coast Guard base and at private parties in other peoples乫 homes. We played popular rock songs by bands such as Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles and so on.
Practicing together was hard work, but playing on stage was ecstasy. If you乫ve never played a musical instrument live on stage in front of a crowd of people, you don乫t know what you are missing. It is a feeling of exhilaration and power. Especially when I was playing a lead guitar solo, I could move the entire audience to the rhythm of the music, just by moving my ten little fingers. The power of music is truly awesome.
Unfortunately our band only lasted about one year.
After 5 years in the Coast Guard, I went to Washington State University. Unlike my high school days, I studied very hard and seldom played the guitar. But I always had the desire to play in another band again someday. While I was at the university, I bought a new acoustic and a new electric guitar. Both of them were Fender guitars. The electric guitar was a Stratocaster, perhaps the best selling electric guitar of all time. I really love the one piece solid maple neck. It is smooth and easy to play. It also makes a beautiful clear bell-like sound or a twangy country music sound depending upon the settings of the three pickups. It is a joy to play.
Nowadays, I seldom play the guitar, except when I go to one of the three kindergartens where I teach the children easy English. I乫m just too busy with my work teaching classes and writing textbooks. However, once in a while if I hear a new song that I like, I will go to the CD rental shop, and burn a copy for myself. Then when I乫m drinking beer on the weekends or holidays, I will once again pull out the old six string, plug in the amp and rock away. I feel sad that I never mastered the fingerboard and learned how to play the guitar really well but, at least I can have fun with it. It is good stress relief for me.
Recently, I also started playing the bass guitar. Why I never thought of doing this before, I don't know. I discovered that I really like the bass. Maybe even more than the six string. The bass is sort of like a combination of the drums and the guitar. It has a very satisfying sound. As you can imagine, I need to use headphones when playing the bass so the neighbors don't complain.
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