Learning never goes waste

Very often we think that some learning that we do are useless. I often think so about a lot of things I have done before. I used to make 3D models and have worked on endless 3D software in the first decade of 2000. I don’t even know how to use them now. But yesterday I used something I had tried my hands on, many years ago.

I was at a house church meeting/fellowship and they had a left-handed guitar. The person who was supposed to lead didn’t have a clue to use this ’cause he is a right-handed like I am. When I reached, he immediately asked me if I know how to play a left-handed guitar. I said I had tried long ago and I could remember playing the D chord and I quickly tried. I took the guitar and tried few other chords that I recalled like G, A and C. Then I asked him to sing songs in these chords, may be I will be able to do it.

So we sang three songs in the key of G and I struggled to play few chords. As I started playing I remembered few other chords as well. It didn’t sound bad at all and I realised what I learnt long ago came handy when it was needed the most. So never stop learning and remember, it will come to use someday.

Ear you go!

A boy walked up to me, handed his guitar and told me that it’s out of tune and requested me to tune it. He also said he doesn’t have a tuner. I asked him how come he knew that it’s out of tune and he said, by listening.

We ‘can only tune’ using the digital tuner but can know that it’s off tune just by listening. I told the boy you should use your ear to tune the guitar just as you use it to know it’s off tune. Music is an aural art and our ears must be tuned to know.

Our dependency on digital products are making us weak and lazy. We are not willing to even calculate 4+4 in our head. I have been playing the guitar for over 30 years now and in the first 15 years of playing I never saw a tuner. But we still made music back then, we still tuned our guitars, we still relied on our intrinsic hearing ability. Even if we tuned using a piano or keyboard, it was by listening and not by matching colours.

Friends, musicians and countrymen, lend me your ear!

Action reaction

Newton’s third law states that For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. This is used in human interaction too. I think that’s stretching physics a little too much. Equal and opposite reaction doesn’t always fetch good result, especially in human interaction.

I was practicing for the Saturday mass with my choir and a boy walks up to me, looking very scared, and says, “I broke a guitar string while playing and I will certainly replace it tomorrow.” To this I said it’s ok if it’s broken, just find one in the guitar case and replace. He looked very relieved. My colleague was surprised that I didn’t react as per the boy’s expectation and said that’s a good thing I did. Just yesterday I heard a friend advising someone on the phone not to react to everything.

This brings us to the fact that responding, rather than reacting, helps. Sometimes it’s even better to just ignore, otherwise a trivial thing gets too much importance. I guess Newton’s 3rd law doesn’t apply to human interaction. Sometimes the best way to react is to act, and act wisely.

Outdoor Guitar Class

When it rain, things look so beautiful. I am one of those who really love the rain and I am game to go out and have a hot cup of roadside ‘chai.’ I tried something different as well today when it rained. The cool breeze, not so biting, was good enough to lure me out into the ‘world.’ Top it all I had the guitar with me.

I took my guitar and gave a guitar lesson to a new student, who picked up pretty well, being a first-timer. I realised that in winter or when the weather is nice it’s good to have guitar class outdoor. It’s so much fun to play and sing as you teach. It’s also a way to attract new students because when you play outside people come and see. Some of them might be interested to take a lesson.

Guitar, chai and rain work wonders. Rain always inspires me to do fun things, to be creative, to explore, even if it’s just going out for a walk.