25. Re-String My Guitar And See If I Can Still Play It

I learned to play the guitar when I was a student. I'm not very musical so I was never going to be a really good player, but by the time I was in my mid twenties I was competent enough to play for worship meetings and other informal gatherings. Then I developed hyperacusis and I had to stop playing because I couldn't cope with the volume (tests I had done later showed that I hear sounds up to 20 times louder than they really are). I haven't played for nearly 20 years.



Lately my hyperacusis has lessened slightly so I thought I would see if I could still play. I bought some new strings and took out my guitar, wondering not only whether I'd be able to cope with the sound but also whether the guitar itself would still be playable, as it's been carted around from house to house over the years in a soft case and I expected the strings to have tarnished and the guitar itself to be looking rather the worse for wear.



Amazingly, not only was the guitar in near-perfect condition, so were the strings - some of them were even still in tune! I didn't have to re-string it after all.

So, can I still play? Well, the good news is that I can now cope with the sound, which is brilliant. I'm not sure I could cope if I used a plectrum, and I certainly couldn't cope if I were mic'd up, but just strumming with my fingers is perfectly fine, not too loud at all.

The bad news is that I have forgotten nearly everything I used to know about playing the guitar. I can remember about three chords - so unless I can find any songs which use only D, G, and E minor, it's going to be a while before I can play anything. My fingers have, obviously, also softened up so that it will be a while before I can hold down the strings for more than a few minutes at a time. It looks as though I'll be starting again from scratch ...

12. Learn To Play The Keyboard

A few years ago R's Mum & Stepdad moved to a new house, and decided they didn't really need four pianos between the two of them*, so they gave us a Clavinova. For a while it sat in the garage, because we didn't have enough space for it in the house. Then we moved here and were able to set it up in the lounge.



It seems silly to have it and not use it, so I am learning to play. Obviously I'm not going to do this in one year, so perhaps the title of this post should be "start to learn to play the keyboard". I now know how to find C (and D, E, F, and so on, together with the relevant sharps and flats), and how to play a scale. I'm ridiculously pleased about this, though I suspect it will be quite some time before I am able to play anything resembling a tune.



There are other issues: I have hyperacusis, which means that everything sounds louder to me than it really is, so for the moment I'm playing without sound. At some point, when I'm having a good day, I'll try playing with sound and see if I can cope! And I'm never going to make a pianist as my hands are far too small to stretch as far as they should across the keys.



But I can have fun trying, all the same.


* In case anyone is wondering, R's Mum used to be a piano teacher.