Music Before the Money

In my many years on this planet I’ve taken both piano and guitar lessons. However, most of this time was spent learning the two instruments in a variety of ways: listening to recordings, jamming with guys better than me and watching bands.

I learned piano from a teacher from an early age and then it slide in favor of the tenor banjo because the folk era was big. Although I never picked piano up again for more than 10 years what did stay with me was the technique: how to hold my hands.

Guitar, on the other hand, was mostly self-taught and I have a lot of bad habits as a result. Taking classical guitar lessons helped immensely and I restructured my hand positions. Later on I lost the left hand technique but I still have the “PIMA” positioning when I finger pick with the left hand.

And I watch pickers who could be a lot more effective if they weren’t resting their hands on the top of the guitar and turning their hands in a more sideways attitude. There are lots that do this and it cuts down on finger mobility.

Now-a-days you can learn rock guitar or jazz piano at specialized classes from the get-go. Gone are the Mel Bay books (although there were some good technique drills in those books) where you learned the notes playing The Old Gray Goose. In fact my kids all learned piano from professional teachers and have better technique than the old man.

And guess what? An old dog and a new trick - now that’s a stretch.

It all begins when the soul would have its way with you.
—Emerson

Begin at the beginning… and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
— Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll 1832-1898

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
- Fredrich Neitzche

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step
— Lao-tsu c. 604-c.531 BC

Look with favour upon a bold beginning
— Virgil 70-90 BC, Georgics I.L.30

The first beginnings of things cannot be distinguished by the eye.
— Lucretius 99-55 BC

Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art.
— Johannes Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Proverbs in Prose

When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they went skipping about and that was the beginning of fairies.
— Sir James Mathiew Barrie ( 1860-1937)

The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.
— Michel E. Montaigne (1533-1582),

The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882)

It is better to begin in the evening than not at all.
— English proverb

We will either find a way, or make one
— Hannibal

It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
- Howard Ruff

It is necessary; therefore, it is possible.
— Guiseppe Borghese

In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin; A grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.
— James Russell Lowell