I am John from UK. I currently live in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China where I work in the local university as a professor. Right now (Sunday afternoon) I’m in another terminably long and boring meeting where nobody mentions a word in English, and my Chinese (although better than it was) is really not up to following the heated discussions. So I though I’d explore the community here…
As a child I spent every Thursday evening for around 5 years attempting to learn the flute. It really didn’t appeal to me and I think that put me off the idea of learning any musical instrucment for the next 30 years.
The whole of last year, the woman who lives in the flat upstairs (the wife of a colleague) ruined my quiet time with her learning the piano. She always managed to find tunes that I knew and even liked, and then slaughtered them - killing them not so softly - with her fingers. Of course, I had to put on my own music, or listen to the radio loud. It started out quite funny, but she had capacity to practice for hours at a time. I can’t think that she ever went out to work, and I was driven from my flat on plenty of occassions.
Sometime at the end of last year, I thought about learning guitar. I worked in a lab in Paris about 20 years ago where the PI played Manu Chao after lab meetings and it was great fun when everyone joined in and sang along. It made a lasting impression on me. The other part was having time on my hands in my evenings and wekeends. At the beginning of May 2024 I took the plunge and bought a guitar (online from Tao Bao - for those of you who know the Chinese ecommerce system). It arrived a week later and the next phase of my journey began.
Unlike my first experience with the flute, I’ve found learning guitar great fun. I can turn up the volume on my favourite songs and strum and sing along. If I loosen my inhibitions, so much the better, louder and rythmic!
I’d like to think that the woman upstairs is enjoying me learning guitar. Sadly, the piano has fallen silent since I started. What does that mean do you think?
Fair play to her- Sounds a lot like me-
I’ve even been known to murder Manu Chao
Hope you continue to enjoy your guitar journey as well as this community
Hi John,
That’s the best introduction I’ve read. I really did LOL to your commentary.
I hope your journey goes well with your new found desire to play the guitar.
Be sure to turn up your amp so the lady upstairs can enjoy your music as much as you appear to have enjoyed her piano playing…
There are few things worse than a college faculty meeting (my second career was as a professor.) Everybody figures they’re the smartest person in the room, and therefore must pontificate on every topic on the agenda.
Hi John, That’s a great introduction story thanks for the post and welcome to the community. I hope you stick with the guitar learning I know it’s tough at the beginning but if you keep plugging away you’ll get great joy.
I started messing about on guitar when I worked away and it was something different for me to focus on, and that is so totally important. So keep going and have Fun.
Cheers
Welcome to the forum John, During my time I found most management meetings conducted in English terminably boring, even when “un-heated”. I wished they were in a foreign language on occasion too ! Sadly I never made the time to learn a musical instrument back in the day.
Good for you though, and I hope you enjoy ‘entertaining’ the neighbours as you learn to play guitar.
The Chinese make some fine stringed instruments, eg. Eastman
Hi John from UK. Pleased to meet you and welcome to the community!
My name is Roy and I live in UT USA but I was born and raised in Kunming Yunnan China! I’m 24 and just picked up guitar about 6 months ago. It’s a very strange feeling, I’m curious about your thoughts on a lot of things.
I hope this comment find you well and wish we could have a discussion sometime! About life, music, experiences.
welcome to the group john, always nice to have new people join.
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. Thanks for putting a smile on my face 
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