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About a month ago, I had dinner with some family friends. The gentleman wearing the gold jacket met my father in elementary school, and the two scraped by together throughout their young adult lives until my dad "ran away to become a doctor". His family was really nice, and the baby knew how to entertain a crowd.
I met their son once before when we were on a family trip to Nova Scotia. Being the only Korean person on the island, he quickly learned how to make kimchi and impress the locals with the bulgolgi marinade. He's a pretty talented guitarist, and so he was known as "that asian dude who plays the guitar." He now works for a guitar manufacturer, and so this past weekend he surprised me with an electric guitar.
It's pretty awesome. While he realized that an acoustic guitar might be more practical, he told me that, "men like loud things, so men should play electric." Fair enough! While I was taking this picture Joon came in and requested that I include his present in the shot. Thanks to Joon for the sweet Tony the Tiger basket.
I've never played the guitar so the first day was a lot of looking at it and holding it in front of a mirror. I recently finished downloading some manuals and dvds, and have been asking friends for their advice on how to quickly pick up some songs. If you have any tips, please feel free to share.
For all those guitar nerds, all I can tell you is that its manufactured by JamMate and is the UG-1 model. I think it's a German brand. Since the only guitars I ever fooled around with before were acoustic, I'm not sure if it's heavier or lighter than the average electric guitar. I will tell you this, it's very red and comes with a whammy bar.
Ok, so I did some more research and discovered that JamMate's deal is computer connectivity. As you can see in the photo, there's a USB port at the end where you can plug the guitar into your computer. Since I don't play and have no music editing software I haven't tried to see what it's like, but when I get back to the States you're welcome to fool around with it.
My dad's friend's son included this other cool little machine. Rather than lug around a loud and heavy amp, I can use the Hipster (that's right, that's what it's called). I simply connect the guitar to the Hipster, which is then connected to the headphones. And there you have it, I can practice all night, anywhere. While I do have a lot of time and am very keen, for this first week I'm going to have to wait for the calluses to build up on my fingers. My friend Itty told me that when you practice guitar, it's better to set goals and focus on learning certain songs. That said, my goal is to learn and play a White Stripes song with Joon before I leave Korea. I'll make sure to fill you in on the progress.
I think goal setting is important in life in general. We all do it, in that we all think about what we want to do or who we want to be in life. Once we've found our goals, it's that much easier to make them happen.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of music, songs were always a driving force for me, but they might not be for you. Definitely think about what you want to accomplish as a guitarist and work towards that. Fretboard Logic is a pretty cool system if you can master it.