Falling in love with guitar again.

Playing the "right" way for me.

I’m a lefty. Politically, and by handedness. I throw, kick, punch, eat, shoot, write, and do 80-90% of all activities with my left hand. Exceptions include throwing a frisbee, fly-fishing, and cutting with scissors.

I don’t think I’ve owned a pair of left-handed scissors since they looked like this.

Until quite recently one of those things I did exclusively right-handed was playing guitar. I was not any good at it, and I had long ago given away or pawned my guitars. A few years ago I decided to try playing guitar again, and this time to play left-handed. The magical thinking on my part was that I had never gotten very accomplished at playing guitar because I had originally learned right-handed. It wasn’t because I stopped taking lessons or practicing with anything like regularity or discipline after ninth grade. No, it was because I was meant to play left-handed. “Get a left-handed guitar, and you’ll be shit-hot in no time, Germy!” is what my internal monologue said. So, I bought a really nice little surf green Telecaster knockoff and proceeded to not play it at all for the next two-and-a-half years. It gathered dust until October of last year, when I started this newsletter. I played very diligently for a few months, took a couple off, and then tried again. But it was a damned slog the whole time. Chords that I had practiced over and over again still sounded like crap. I was really hating the process and making no progress. Finally, I just came to this conclusion:

I really don’t like playing guitar left-handed.

Last week Jennifer asked me if I thought that if we got a right-handed guitar to share, would I be interested?

Me:

So, we got a Cort acoustic/electric guitar.

This little beauty:

Ain’t they pretty?

I haven’t named the guitars yet—technically Jennifer and I, as co-owners of the new guitar would need to name her together. Also, maybe they’re not a she. Their true names will reveal themselves in time. Until then the guitar on the left is Righty, and the guitar on the right is Lefty. Yes, it’s confusing to me as well.

I have been playing Righty for a few days. I know you are wondering if I am enjoying playing right-handed again, and the answer is an enthusiastic:

I am really enjoying playing again. I look forward to practicing after I hit publish on this newsletter today.

I have the bug for guitar again.

I have not had this feeling about guitar since about Reagan was still in office. I suppose that I am kind of abandoning the progress I made on Lefty, but not really, because 90% of what I have learned left-handed has translated as muscle memory to my right-handed playing. Believe me, this has not been the case learning left-handed. I was truly tabula rasa as far as my hands were concerned.

Me trying to play anything left-handed.

I did have the rudiments of how to form chords and some very paltry music theory, but I still cannot play left-handed any of the little riffs and ditties I knew from over the years. In hindsight I wish that I had never picked up the left-handed guitar, but I was so certain that it was going to be the thing that made me awesome! But the only thing that is going to make me awesome or even passable is a lot of work and having that work be fun, and right now it is! And I am going to ride that wave as long as I can. I do have to take it easy with the guitar for a few days, because I have played past the point of pain since I started on Righty. Unless I want to end up like Bryan Adams in “Summer of ‘69” with bloody fingers that need a long time to heal, I need to be a bit more cautious and put the guitar down when it starts to hurt too much. But isn’t that a good problem to have? To be having so much fun doing something that I have to be careful not to hurt myself? I’ll take that over a joyless slog any day.

I hope that y’all enjoyed the last post and that you all checked out my friend Kyle’s music. He and I texted and messaged quite a bit about guitar, and one of the pieces of advice he gave me was to record myself playing. That I would be shitty at first, but that as I improved, I would be glad that I had a record of my progress. So, I made myself a rambly little video, linked below:

Bonus: sounds of my cat, Daniel loudly using his puzzle feeder that he had ignored all day until Daddy needed it to be quiet.

I’m also thinking about hosting a Zoom party next week for just the readers of this newsletter. Please don’t feel obligated to join in, but it might be a bit of fun to meet some of y’all. Even if only virtually. It may just be me noodling on my guitar for an hour if no one else shows up, and that would be fine as well.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Drop me a line: jeremydnichols@gmail.com

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