Tangled Web

I got sucked into spending the evening on the net again! I never know what I'm going to encounter when I click the mouse. Tonight it was an email with a link to a Youtube video of Free Hugs in Italy. The video was interesting but more interesting to me was the background music: 'Hallelujah' written by Leonard Cohen and sung by k.d. lang. I had to play the video twice just to listen to the song. I have heard her sing it before but something about the song caught me, so I went surfing. I found a couple of videos of k.d. doing it and then a couple of Cohen doing it.

That brought back memories of the first time I heard a Leonard Cohen record. I was in a drawing class at university and one of the guys brought in a Leonard Cohen album. I don't remember the name of the album but it had 'Suzanne' on it and it had a picture of a woman, scantily clad of course, emerging from flames. Those many years ago there was something about the gravelly voice and the lyrics, I didn't quite understand, that demanded my attention. I bought the record.

Back to the present. After listening to Cohen and lang, I left the computer and went to the living room to tune up my guitar. I don't play it much nowadays. Classical guitar and piano are mutually exclusive activities since for guitar you need long nails and for piano you need short ones. I tuned it up and started trying to figure out the chords to 'Hallelujah.' I got most of them. Then I thought of my old guitar, the one I bought when I was about 15. I still have it and it's still in the case that I decorated with decals, all the rage in the '70's. I got it, dusted off the case and opened it up only to discover that the 'A' string was broken. I must have been thinking ahead because there was a new set of strings in the case. Remove old string, install new string and then try to tune it. I did get it tuned and played the chords I'd been fooling with earlier. Somehow the guitar's sound wasn't as resonant as I remembered it.

I wondered if it might be time to get rid of at least one of the guitars I own and get a better one. Back to the computer to look on the net to see if the old Harmony is worth anything. Apparently it isn't. Cheap entry-level guitar. In my search I found that Harmony, the maker of my old folk guitar, also made Stella guitars. A Stella was the first guitar I owned. I think I gave it to a kid down the street when I bought my Harmony.

There was something familiar and comforting in strumming that old guitar. It grew up with me, came with me when I moved out, came with me again when I moved back home to go back to university and it came to school with me sometimes when I started teaching. One time a friend and I did an English lesson in which we played and sang folk songs.

While I was drifting back I had an 'ah ha' moment. I don't have to play classical guitar. I enjoyed it while I did it but I enjoyed playing chords and singing even more. I can go back to that, dust off the chord sheets and strum away for my own amusement. Back to the computer to look up the chords for Hallelujah. Music is so easy now with the net and mp3 files. I found the chords although not in the key I was playing.

I may start looking for a home for at least one of my guitars. I'll keep my good classical and I'm not quite ready to let the old Harmony go just yet. I think when I want a break from learning piano and practicing my singing, I may just haul out the old guitar and fiddle with a few chords. It would be handy to get the callouses back on my fingers again. Playing classical guitar is solitary; playing chords invites others to sing. I'm wondering how I got so far away for so long from what I loved as a kid. I guess that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I now have time to sift and appreciate the experiences I've had and, when I want to, I can pick up where I left off.