Help me become more musical
This post is mainly asking for advice, so just scroll down to below the cut if you don't want a huge amount of background waffle. On the other hand, if you'd like to hear me talk music (and isn't it interesting that I can get away with using those words despite the lack of sound involved), read on.
I feel like I've had a bit of a weird musical background. As far back as I can remember I've enjoyed singing - I was in the choir at primary school, and we had tapes of Joseph and Les Mis in the car that me and my sister sang along to. At primary school I started flute lessons, but they didn't last very long as playing the flute lead to my hands aching for a long time, so I stopped. Also, towards the end of primary school I wasn't really managing to sing in tune anymore.
It wasn't really until I was at high school, however, that I really started listening to music on the radio. I think I was in year 8 when I started to get into things, mostly Will Smith via the Men In Black theme, but even then I didn't really know much about it. I became a fan of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers via hearing 'By the Way' played at discos on a scout camp in '98, and remember singing Angels around then too. Oh, and some people got me to sing on the school bus once, which looking back was a mistake. Even so, I never really got into music in the same way it seems lots of people I know did. For example, when I did end up taking keyboard lessons at school for a while, I mostly wanted to learn to play the Star Wars theme rather than any particular pop song. Sadly the lessons stopped when the school changed how they were run, so I'd have been missing English lessons every week in the run up to my GCSEs, and I never managed to get back into them.
Towards the end of school, I got into Linkin Park and Evanescence from seeing their music videos on TV (ah, the early days of digital TV, before Freeview). Then at uni I was luckily introduced to Nightwish, and through people there I also got into a few other bands. Eventually it became easier to find music online and I started experimenting a bit, and through this and also partially due to the huge amount of time I spent at ceilidh dances I got into Bellowhead and a few other folk artists too. Also, I started going to bops, and rekindled my love of cheesy music, which looking back was apparent even in primary school, when at school discos I would end up happily dancing around to Cotton-Eye Joe. Dancing has really been the driving force behind quite a few of my music choices.
At uni I also started playing guitar. I learnt enough to bash out a few chords that allowed to play a very very limited repetoire of songs. I chose the guitar as I wanted a more social instrument - having when younger naively picked the keyboard as it had buttons on that made it sound like any instrument you could want, not quite realising how it wouldn't sound right. I also started going to the university ceilidh band practices, and this really helped my playing as it forced me to get used to quicker chord changes, although I really struggled with barre chords and so just skipped quite a few chords. While this meant I wasn't good enough to perform (except once at a friend's birthday party), I could still enjoy it.
Somewhere, however, guitar playing fell of my regular activities. Sure, I could excuse it by saying I was busy, but if I used that excuse all the time I'd never get anything done. I expect mostly it was laziness - learning to play is hard, especially when you can't really afford lessons, and I wasn't getting the feeling I was progressing particularly, so there wasn't much of an incentive, especially when I was surrounded by people who could play my guitar better than I could. But now I'm regretting having stopped, and wishing I could play the guitar, and write silly comedy songs, and get people to sing along with well-known songs at parties out on the meadows (which happened once) and all that jazz (note: I probably won't be playing jazz). I've had a few singing lessons recently also, even though I'm still a pretty terrible singer. Still, I'm better than I was and I'd like to combine that with reasonable guitar playing.
So for once I'm going to do something unusual for me, and make a New Year's Resolution. I want something that will lead me to actually practising, and improving and a vague "practise and improve my guitar playing" won't cut it. I need something that is realistic, easy to stick to, and will noticably have an effect quickly enough that I won't get bored or frustrated with it. So I'm asking for suggestions both as to the resolution I should make, and how to stick to it. And then after that, I'm hoping people will be interested enough in how I'm getting on to ask me about it and either make me feel guilty if I'm not sticking to it, so as to encourage me to get back into it, or make me feel that I'm actually managing to achieve something decent. If you could do that, that would be great - thank you.
I feel like I've had a bit of a weird musical background. As far back as I can remember I've enjoyed singing - I was in the choir at primary school, and we had tapes of Joseph and Les Mis in the car that me and my sister sang along to. At primary school I started flute lessons, but they didn't last very long as playing the flute lead to my hands aching for a long time, so I stopped. Also, towards the end of primary school I wasn't really managing to sing in tune anymore.
It wasn't really until I was at high school, however, that I really started listening to music on the radio. I think I was in year 8 when I started to get into things, mostly Will Smith via the Men In Black theme, but even then I didn't really know much about it. I became a fan of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers via hearing 'By the Way' played at discos on a scout camp in '98, and remember singing Angels around then too. Oh, and some people got me to sing on the school bus once, which looking back was a mistake. Even so, I never really got into music in the same way it seems lots of people I know did. For example, when I did end up taking keyboard lessons at school for a while, I mostly wanted to learn to play the Star Wars theme rather than any particular pop song. Sadly the lessons stopped when the school changed how they were run, so I'd have been missing English lessons every week in the run up to my GCSEs, and I never managed to get back into them.
Towards the end of school, I got into Linkin Park and Evanescence from seeing their music videos on TV (ah, the early days of digital TV, before Freeview). Then at uni I was luckily introduced to Nightwish, and through people there I also got into a few other bands. Eventually it became easier to find music online and I started experimenting a bit, and through this and also partially due to the huge amount of time I spent at ceilidh dances I got into Bellowhead and a few other folk artists too. Also, I started going to bops, and rekindled my love of cheesy music, which looking back was apparent even in primary school, when at school discos I would end up happily dancing around to Cotton-Eye Joe. Dancing has really been the driving force behind quite a few of my music choices.
At uni I also started playing guitar. I learnt enough to bash out a few chords that allowed to play a very very limited repetoire of songs. I chose the guitar as I wanted a more social instrument - having when younger naively picked the keyboard as it had buttons on that made it sound like any instrument you could want, not quite realising how it wouldn't sound right. I also started going to the university ceilidh band practices, and this really helped my playing as it forced me to get used to quicker chord changes, although I really struggled with barre chords and so just skipped quite a few chords. While this meant I wasn't good enough to perform (except once at a friend's birthday party), I could still enjoy it.
Somewhere, however, guitar playing fell of my regular activities. Sure, I could excuse it by saying I was busy, but if I used that excuse all the time I'd never get anything done. I expect mostly it was laziness - learning to play is hard, especially when you can't really afford lessons, and I wasn't getting the feeling I was progressing particularly, so there wasn't much of an incentive, especially when I was surrounded by people who could play my guitar better than I could. But now I'm regretting having stopped, and wishing I could play the guitar, and write silly comedy songs, and get people to sing along with well-known songs at parties out on the meadows (which happened once) and all that jazz (note: I probably won't be playing jazz). I've had a few singing lessons recently also, even though I'm still a pretty terrible singer. Still, I'm better than I was and I'd like to combine that with reasonable guitar playing.
So for once I'm going to do something unusual for me, and make a New Year's Resolution. I want something that will lead me to actually practising, and improving and a vague "practise and improve my guitar playing" won't cut it. I need something that is realistic, easy to stick to, and will noticably have an effect quickly enough that I won't get bored or frustrated with it. So I'm asking for suggestions both as to the resolution I should make, and how to stick to it. And then after that, I'm hoping people will be interested enough in how I'm getting on to ask me about it and either make me feel guilty if I'm not sticking to it, so as to encourage me to get back into it, or make me feel that I'm actually managing to achieve something decent. If you could do that, that would be great - thank you.