Anyone can play guitar and they won't be a nothing anymore.
Radiohead

It's not like I hadn't tried before. I bought a used electric guitar (and old amp) back in the early 90s. I even got a chord book to go with it. The only thing I could do, however, was make whale sound feedback. It was pretty cool sounding...for about a minute.

So a year ago, my younger brother asked me if I wanted 1) $100 of booze, 2) $100 of drum equipment or 3) an acoustic guitar. I had talked about getting an acoustic for a month or so. It seemed like I was ready to actually learn how to play another instrument. Something musical, as drumming is mostly about rhythm.

On my birthday last year, we drove around to pawn shops and music stores. The pawn shops, by the way, charge way too much for used guitars. I found one for $70 at a music store, got another chord book and a tuner harp. Buying the stuff didn't mean I knew anything about playing, though.

It took me awhile just to figure out how to start learning. Picking random (or easy looking) chords to learn (with no structure) wasn't very motivating, so I started searching the Internet for easy songs with just a few chords. And I got a Johnny Cash chord book.

I do know a few guitarists. I was in a band (one of my guitarists was originally a drummer like me), which facilitates meeting guitarists and songwriters and the sort. One musical friend was working on the house across the street from mine and would take breaks to say hi and play a song or two on guitar. I'd watch his fingers. The other guitarist in my band came over a few times and would whip out scales and tell me about how the guitar is a perfect instrument in the way it is designed. Everyone who played my guitar would do the same thing when they picked it up: retune it.

I couldn't tune the thing with the tuner harp. I couldn't hear the notes. I knew something was off, but didn't know how to fix it. Eventually I bought an electric tuner that you clip on to the guitar. This fixed my problem. And the songs I was trying to figure out started sounding like the actual songs.

It took a few months, but eventually I could play and sing one song: "Laugh and a Half" by the biggest Danish rock band in the world, D.A.D. This stands for Disneyland After Dark, but they aren't allowed to use the name because of, y'know, Disney.

As I went along, there were more and more breakthroughs. Hard to explain other than to say I'd figure something out and suddenly everything was easier. Each epiphany led to more and more, made it easier to figure out songs, and the learning made me feel like I was doing something productive. Even with the breakthroughs, though, it took months to sound like I kind of knew what I was doing.

But it did fell good to be able to pick up the guitar and instantly be able to do something with it that sounded like music.

I've even played for other people (not counting my brother). My first live guitar performance came just a couple of months into the experiment (when I couldn't really play much of anything). I played rhythm (two notes and feedback) for one song at a local cover night with my band. And then occasionally I'd play a song (usually the D.A.D. one because I know it best of all) for people who'd come over to the house. At one party, I started drunkenly playing a song, which was mercifully cut off in the middle with laughter and slight applause. I'm not a great guitarist, and the drink doesn't make me better. My left hand gets amnesia.

A year in and I can play and sing seven songs, with four more almost ready to dip into my wheelhouse (all covers, I haven't moved to the "songwriter" category yet, but I have started to figure out how this alchemy takes place). They are all whole chord songs (I don't really understand power chords and don't know scales or single notes at all), so, at best, I'm a rhythm guitarist. Which makes sense to me.

At a rock show on Friday night, I found myself looking at the guitarists' left hands. And somewhat marveling at the ease they had playing their music. One of them told me about a band that needs a drummer, and I confessed I hadn't played drums in any meaningful way since July when the band broke up.

So I'm not a guitarist yet. And I'm not sure where this is leading (am I going to join a band, hang out at open mike nights or just play drunkenly around the campfire?), but it's been a nice journey. I've figured out a style (I rearrange songs for my own purposes and don't use picks) and an eclectic assortment of covers. I can be entertaining for a half hour, unless I play them really fast.

It ain't gonna make me famous or a lot of money, but this wasn't the point anyway. I'm learning because it makes me happy to do so. Possibly down the line I can entertain others as well.

So I think I made the right choice a year ago, because that hundred bucks of liquor would be long gone by now.

Matt Worley did not try to learn guitar by playing Guitar Hero.