I’m very sorry if this post gets very lengthy. I just wanted to get into my history with music performance.
Hi, everybody. My name is Amy and I’m a relatively new guitar player. My musical journey started 13 years ago as a singer performing in school talent shows and in choir. I loved to sing, but I always felt like that wasn’t enough for me and I wanted to play a musical instrument. Five years ago on December 28th, I picked up the harmonica as my first musical instrument and is my most developed interest. Here’s an example of me playing.
I was mostly self-taught, but I decided to get a teacher last year. My harmonica teacher is a relatively well-known figure in harp circles whose name is Todd Parrott. He is super sweet and knows a lot about the player I want to emulate the most, Terry McMillan, in which his understanding of this interest of mine has helped me a lot playing like my idol. We also developed a cool friendship along the way and we often message each other on Facebook (yes, I am one of those under 40-year-olds whom still uses Facebook and it’s the only way I can connect with other people). Here’s a more recent example of my teacher playing (not to overhype his playing, but he is in my top two all time favorite harmonica players).
Now back to me. I wanted to play the guitar for a long time but I was unable to because all I had access to was a pink small size acoustic that was very difficult to play and since I had no guidence for it, I eventually gave up. There were two moments that made me want to pick it up again. The first one was hearing Jimmy Page’s solo on the Led Zeppelin track, “Heartbreaker”. My jaw dropped to the floor because of how a solo could sound so complex and extremely effective at the same time. It left an impression on me to say the least.
The next one literally made me ask my dad if I could use his acoustic so I could learn guitar again. It was watching the first episode of the cartoon, Bocchi The Rock (hence my pfp is one of the characters, Ryo). If you don’t know what it’s about, I’ll go into detail without getting into spoilers as the show is still fresh. There’s a girl named Hitori, later nicknamed “Bocchi” who decided to learn guitar after watching a band interview on TV. She originally wanted to form a band and play for her middle school’s culture festival, but it didn’t happen. Now in high school, a drummer named Nijika asked Hitori to join her band as a guitarist and she accepts. What follows suit is a great tale following Hitori and her band, plus all the misadventures they get up to and the colorful characters they meet along the way. It’s a really cool show if you haven’t checked it out already.
Literally after watching the first episode of the show, I asked my dad if I could borrow his Epiphone acoustic for a bit. I was trying to play chords and when I first heard a chord that wasn’t dead, I felt like I unlocked the secret to the universe. What I wanted to learn was rock, blues, and country, especially when I found out about slide guitar and dobro. I knew I wanted an electric, so the first step was getting the guitar itself. I went to a local pawn shop and got myself a Silvertone Revolver Double Cut in blue that I have since nicknamed “Stitch”. Playing on Stitch was a lot easier than playing on the acoustics and it didn’t take long for chords to sound decent. I hope to get far in this new musical adventure.
welcome to the community. Enjoyed your playing there and see that you’re already very musical, looking forward to hearing about your progress on the new instrument. Have fun 