Made some progress on a number of fronts this past week:
2. Buy and learn how to play guitar with my daughter, the Bean - learn to play,
wait for it, Stairway to Heaven (remember the scene in Wayne's World?): The Bean and I continue to take lessons and learn together. I am amazed at how much easier playing comes for my daughter. I hope she sticks with it - she'll be a really competent player one day. Our instructor showed us how to do Stairway to Heaven. Let's just say I won't be playing it for a while. It sounds like such a simple melody, but is far from, except for the very first chord.
20. Read 10 of the unread books on my bookshelves: I finally put a nail in Jonathan Kellerman's With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. Just a beautiful book for anybody who is interested in the fine art of making guitars. The prose and photography are lush.
I have also finished a book called Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning that does a serviceable job in laying out the challenges the brain faces in learning how to play music, and how the brain changes as the instrument is learned.
37. Blog the A-Z Challenge: I have registered for this particular challenge and have tentatively come up with topics for each letter of the alphabet. More importantly, I have pre-written about nine or ten - the only way I'll be able to make my way through the daily grind of posting six days a week.
42. Learn how to download e-books from the Ottawa Public Library to my Kobo
E-Reader: Finally done. The instructions on the OPL website are as clear as mud but with a little perseverance, I was able to figure out how to download. I'm still not sure how the e-books get "returned", but I'll find out in a couple of weeks, I guess.
And that's the scoop on last week's progress.
Well, that was a lot more upbeat than the last Project 52 blog. I really think the only way to do this type of thing is to ensure your attitude is as positive as possible, otherwise it becomes a chore and adds itself to all the other chores in your life. I really appreciate that you set off the whole tone of this week's blog by describing your daughter's seeming aptitude for learning the guitar. I don't know if taking pride in her accomplishment's is necessarily factored into the the Challenge, but it certainly seems like icing on the cake. And maybe the flour for future progress.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if you knew anyone else that suffers from depression that has taken this challenge? It seems a "clinically" very interesting experience that I will be anxious to hear your thoughts on when you succeed.
I don't know of anyone else suffering from a significant depression who's doing it. From a therapy point of view, one of the approaches I try to adhere to is called "behaviour activation", which involves making sure you do something meaningful every day. So, this challenge provides the opportunity to do that - both in terms of writing the blog and working on the items on my list.
DeleteYou've made some good progress. I'm excited for the day you finally say, "I've mastered Stairway."
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