Chicken? Who, Me?

I have been quite the little pain in the ass lately when it comes to guitar lessons. I'm not intentionally trying to be a pain in the ass, it just seems to come naturally to me. And it's not that I don't like the guitar lessons, because I do. In fact, the more convoluted, ridiculous questions I ask, it seems the more excited my teacher is to teach me. I guess an eager student makes you want to help them learn more.

Anyways, the reason I have been such a pain is because after a few months of learning some basic stuff...I got scared. Scared of what I'm not entirely sure - but I was scared nonetheless. And terrified might actually be a better word for it.

It seems that once I actually had to prove that I was practicing and learning stuff, I became shy. I know...you're thinking - this loudmouth? Shy? Does she have split personalities? Well of course I'm not shy, and as far as I know, myself and Mistress Evil-Pants are the only two around here ;)

But once I didn't have an excuse for going "Uh, what? How do I do that again? What's a fret?" I became nervous. So much so that I actually refused to play a couple times.

After one of those particular lessons I confessed to my teacher that if my dad knew that I had chickened out during a lesson he would have kicked my whiny, crazy, chicken-shit butt all the way into next week. So what happened at my next lesson? My teacher actually picked up the phone and called my dad. Of course, once I realized that's what he was doing I begged him to hang up the phone and forced myself to play. (Funny how a threatened phone call to be scolded by my dad can still freak me out at 27 years old.)

Since then I've been getting a tiny bit better each lesson.

About a month ago we decided to learn Christmas songs - just to break it up and give me the chance to try something new. That went over very well. I love Christmas and all the songs that go along with it, plus I love to sing, so I've been having a ball at home, playing Ramona and singing away.

But yesterday, oooooh, yesterday I got to start learning What Child Is This? But I was learning tabs, and I got to play without a pick, using just my fingers.

It.Is.Awesome.

Seriously, to me music sounds so much more beautiful when it's softer, and a Christmas song is the perfect time to practice that. Last night I spent about 2 hours practicing, then got up this morning and practiced for another half hour before work. I'm already excited about going home tonight and pulling Ramona onto my lap again.

Yay for guitars!
Yay for Ramona!
Yay for patient teachers!
And Yay for me!