Guitar ^^

One aspect of my life that's become pretty important to me is my guitar. I haven't really said a lot about it, so I figured I'd start now. I got my guitar for my birthday in February, but sadly, I didn't really start playing it a lot until the summer. I started by learning some of the scales and stuff, and then I kinda got impatient (as usual haha), and wanted to learn how to play actual songs that I love. So, I started looking up tabs, one of the first being "About a Girl" by Nirvana and a few Fall Out Boy songs. I never completely learned how to play the first, and by the end of the summer, I didn't really learn a whole lot lol. I was starting to forget the scales and the basic stuff that I had learned earlier.

Then came college. I moved up to Cedar Falls without my guitar because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to play it in the dorms without disturbing people. About a month in, my parents came up for a visit and brought my guitar with them. Needless to say, I was pretty darn excited. As soon as I got it again, I started where I left off. I found out how simple Fall Out Boy songs were (mostly just power chords), so I picked those up first. Then was around the time that I learned how to tune my guitar according to the song I was playing. A few songs were in drop D tuning and I had no idea what that was at first, but I learned along the way.

I worked my way through some of my favorites, then I was kinda at a standstill. I had no clue where to go next with what I was doing. Then, randomly, I decided that I needed to start going back to my roots in classic rock and learn more about the bands of the 60s through the 80s. So naturally, Queen and the Beatles were first on my list. "Killer Queen" and "Day Tripper" were two of the firsts that I looked up. Then, I re-discovered Guns N' Roses, which is up there on my list of greatest bands of all time. Of course, my playing wasn't up to Slash-standards, so I put that on the back burner. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and a whole bunch of others when onto my playlists on YouTube. Not only did I start listening/trying to play the music of these bands, I learned about their history, the band members.

Then, I found the band that beats the others. Now, I might get a lot of crap for this, but I put Queen, The Beatles, AC/DC, and and bunch of other classic, epic bands on a whole other pedestal. These are the greatest and should remain unparalleled in greatness for all time. BUT, my favorite band right now is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I never really listened to them before, but I remember back when Stadium Arcadium came out. I LOVED Dani California, but I never got to know more about them. The cool thing about them is that each member shines. When I listen to most rock music, the bass especially is almost inaudible, which is a shame because I love the way the bass can sound. However, with RHCP, Flea's playing is clearly heard, along with everyone else. Anthony's lyrics and singing are genius and Chad's drums are epic. John Frusciante is my favorite guitarist ever. Again, I'll probably get crap for that, but Brian May, Slash, Jimi Hendrix, etc. still are on that pedestal of awesome. But once I started finding out that a bunch of my favorite songs were written and played by RHCP, I fell in love with John's playing. I started looking up vids of him playing, and to my surprise, I was able to pick up on some things by watching him. And what I love the most about him is the fact that he was able to come back better than ever after nearly dying in the 90s from drug abuse. The band welcomed him back and they have a sort of brotherhood that is amazing. Too bad that John left earlier this year :( Of course, the second I find out how awesome they are, the lineup changes. Go figure. I'll still listen with the new guitarist though, but I'll definitely keep an eye open for John's solo work.

Here's the song that I'm learning right now, "Under the Bridge". John's actually teaching this one!

I rambled, but I really love music a lot. I couldn't live without it and I keep learning new things everyday. next semester, I'll hopefully be taking a guitar class for credit, so I'll have some structure to my learning. I'm really trying to learn more of the theory so I can have a better understanding of what I'm doing and how to do it. I'm pretty excited, and I can't wait to see how far I'll be able to take my playing :)