Educational Narrative Final Draft

During the past ten years of my life I have learned a great deal about myself, through experiences, self-reflection, and a lot of patience. One of the most useful things that I have learned about myself is that I learn most things relatively quickly.

Almost six years ago I was given a guitar for my birthday. A reddish-black sun-burst Johnson in a black hard sturdy case; lined with a plush black lining soft enough that any guitar would be proud to call it a home. It’s not the most expensive guitar, not the most elaborate, nor is it the prettiest. Honestly, its mediocre, an excellent beginner’s guitar. But the silk steel strings that line its neck emit a soft rich tone full of feeling that mimic those of the owners; strong yet often times soft spoken.

A good portion of the reason why I was given this guitar was because of a promise a good friend of mine, Brian, made to me several years prior. One of the last things Brian said to me before I moved to the big city was, “Get a guitar. Call me when you do and I will give you free lessons.”

Several years later I received my guitar and I could not have been happier. It had been a while since I spoke to Brian but I called him up nonetheless and said, “I got that guitar, you ready to give me lessons?!”

Back tracking just a tad here to offer up some history, I sort of grew up playing music. As a child I played violin for two years, clarinet for three years, choir for a year or so, and a year plus of piano. My idea of “fun” growing up was not playing Barbie’s with my younger sister or playing games with our friends, it was sitting for hours and practicing whatever instrument I was playing at the time, often times playing the same piece of music over and over again until it was mastered and burned into memory so I could play it without reading the music.  Needless to say my little sister did not find this amusing or fun and it caused many a fight between us, the fact that I was more interested in music than her; moving on.

                My band teacher in Middle School, Mr. Knatt, taught us the importance of listening to one another, being able to hear the tones in our music to the point of being able to tell by ear if players were sharp or flat. He would even go so far as to stopping our 90 person band to go through whatever section, be it clarinet, oboe  flute, or drums, making each person play to find out who the culprit was. This, this was horrifying. The stress, anxiety, and dread were not only unbearable but were also painful. Often this amount of stress would cause one to tremble and shake so badly as to cause them to mess up. Girls often left his class in tears, (though I was never one of them) he was so serious and brutal about the tone and quality of the music we put out as a class.

I attribute my ability to hear those fine details in any music I listen to now, to Mr. Knatt. Without him teaching me those skills, I would not be playing my guitar, nor would my passion for music be as great as it is now.  Music is a big corner stone of my life, and it always will be.

Now back to the guitar. So I make contact with my friend Brian and say, “Hey I got my guitar are you ready to teach me?” “I’d love too!” he replied.

I show up at his house which is about 20 minutes away from mine. It was sometime in November and it was cold and raining out. I proudly show him my guitar, play him the half a song I taught myself to play; only for him to correct me and show me how I had taught myself wrong since he already knew how to play that song. Then I started learning.

We talked for a while about the different ways he could teach me. I told him that I was a very quick learner and that I had a good ear. It was shortly thereafter that we reached the conclusion that he would not teach me how to read music, but that he would teach me so that I could play on my own if I wished or with a group of people. To this day I still do not know how to read music for guitar.

We could, more like I could, not decide on what sort of music I wanted to learn to play. Instead I insisted that he teach me everything he knew. All I wanted to do was play my guitar, it did not matter to me what sort of music it was, because all that mattered to me was getting the music that was stuck inside of me out. The first song that he taught me was the one I had tried to teach myself before my first lesson with him. Except this time I learned it the proper way. It was Lyin’ Eye’s by The Eagles. He sat down across from me and just started playing. Ten minutes later I was playing the entire song chord for chord, strum for strum like I had been playing it my entire life, minus a chord or two here and there (that darn B and F chord get me still to this day!).

Now that we had figured out a good way for me to learn, the songs came rolling through. During my peak playing I was learning to play a song a lesson and I became better and better at picking up songs by just watching Brian play them a few times through. Playing my sweet Johnson is so much fun, so rewarding, relaxing, therapeutic and fulfilling to me.

Aside from learning how to play my wonderful guitar I also learned the amount of diligence it takes to truly become good at something. Yes I have a “knack” for learning and retaining information and experiences quickly but just having this ability is not enough to make one great. Practice, hard work, dedication, and motivation are also needed.  My passion for music also grew during this period of learning. Music is a tremendously huge part of my life. Lastly, my desire for learning this instrument aside, I could not have done it without a good friend teaching me everything he knew.