From Poser to Player

I spent the last few weeks practicing some Christmas carols for the guitar. I didn't get too fancy, but I did practice playing arpeggiated chords for "What Child is This?" and "Silent Night". I also could strum "The First Noel" and "Angels We Have Heard on High". I played these on Christmas Eve and it went pretty well, though I did stumble a bit with the fingerstyle pieces. I got really ambitious and brought the 6-string over to Bill and Tiffany's house on Christmas Day and we sang carols there too. At the request of the family we also did "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

It was fun actually playing for people. While it wasn't perfect, my playing was good enough to keep everything together and I enjoyed it. I also learned that playing for people gets the heart racing just a little bit. I wasn't exactly nervous, but I realized that I couldn't just stop in the middle and recollect myself if I had to. I had to just keep on going. It's one of those performance things where you realize that you can't take it back as you're doing it. But it was a lot of fun.

I felt good carrying my guitar back in from the car. In the past I would take my guitar somewhere, but I felt like it was kind of a joke. While I don't think that I'm going to have any professional musicians breaking down my door, I do feel like I can play well enough to strum and sing some carols or maybe some hymns around the campfire. It feels like I've accomplished something in the 3 years I've spent fooling around with the thing. And that feels good.