2021 is here, and that comes with the idea of a New Year’s resolution. Usually these goals (at least for me) always end up falling through after the first few weeks of the new year, so this year I wanted to try to change things up a bit. Instead of a year long goal, I’ve decided to try and find one small goal to work towards each month, in order to make things a bit more achievable.

Starting off with January, my goal this last month was to start my journey in learning guitar. I’ve always had an interest in guitar from a young age, though when I first tried learning (~10 years old), I was quite intimidated by the difficulty and ultimately stepped away from trying. Since I don’t have any musical instrument skills, I decided this would be a fun skill to pick up.

Guitars

I started learning with my girlfriend Christine’s acoustic Guitar (left), and also picked up a new electric guitar (right). I also tried to restore the original guitar I got when I was younger, but due to age and warping, the repair guys said it was a lost cause.

I’ve been taking lessons on the mobile app, Yousician, and have been having a blast. The app teaches guitar concepts and tabbing in a fun, bite sized method, making it easy to fit in a lesson whether you have 10 or 30+ minutes to dive in. Also, they have a pretty big selection of modern and classic rock songs, which makes it easy to try to learn to play some of my faves.

Yousician

So far, I’ve learned basic music/guitar theory and tabbing techniques. I’ve only just begun learning the various chords that are possible, starting with the Cowboy chords.

Overall, dabbling in guitar this month was a nice change of pace. Since most of my hobbies (coding, graphic design, gaming) are all done at the computer, it was nice to have a hobby that let me step away from my desk and get lost in playing a physical instrument.