New Music Idea

So I was in a shitty mood. I'd just finished with all the stress of finals, which isn't good for my disorder; I was having relationship frustrations; I was menstruating and moody (my meds stop working on my period); I wasn't happy with any of my writing projects.

And then me and my sister decided to watch Begin Again with Kiera Knightley and Mark Ruffalo to cheer ourselves up, and we got to talking about music.

And we just randomly decided: we have two guitars. We're going to learn music together.

See, I took guitar lessons for about a year during my Ultimate Low Period talked about in my very first post. (See the top of my memories list.) It was a way to vent, pass time, not stare at the walls and feel depressed. But my teacher kind of sucked. He was obviously only in it because he couldn't make any money in a band. That's not to say he was a bad guitar player, it's just to say he wasn't a very good teacher. And I had no one to practice with, and I felt like I was learning little, and it was very frustrating. Guitar fell by the wayside.

But my sister revealed tonight that she's always wanted to learn music, so I gave her one of my two guitars. I taught her how to tune up, and it was just so rewarding, doing music back and forth with someone. The buzz when you get it all just right!

We have everything all set up. I have an online tuner and guitar chord-book bookmarked, as well as books I've bought on the guitar. I even have a capo, and several different kinds of picks. I'm all set to go because I was doing this a year and a half ago. We will practice guitar, and diaphragmatic breathing for singing (I took choir for a few years) until summer hits, and then we will take lessons -- with a GOOD teacher -- over the summer. Even if we have to get jobs to pay for them.

I'm hoping some of my sister's frankly incredible work ethic will rub off on me. I'm also hoping being in a partnership will help with songwriting, which we've already discussed as a possibility.

You never know. Maybe nothing will come of it, and it'll just be a fun thing we do together as a hobby. But you never know where life will take you, and I would love to be in a band. Even one that never went anywhere -- although of course going somewhere would be even better. I would be willing to put the time in, I think, not only because I would have something to fall back on (college), but because I genuinely love music. I do. I love music like I love breathing, or water.

And I don't know. I just feel so much BETTER. I'm riding this wave of enthusiasm. I've always loved music in this really intense and incredible way, and to be able to play it with someone else who I know also loves music -- that would just be the most incredible thing for me.

Maybe the enthusiasm will fade in the morning. But maybe it won't. Maybe all our plans to learn every chord in the online chord-book will actually come to something, and we'll start practicing together tomorrow. Maybe this is just the beginning of something great.

Music has always been my solace. Perhaps playing music can also be my solace. It seems I always turn back to playing music when I'm feeling really down.