Mountain Clams

Disturbing?

I like music, but I've never been what you might call good at making music. When I was a kid, I took piano lessons for a while at my mom's request. I played the baritone in the grade school band for all of a week. I tried the saxophone in high school, but my heart wasn't in it, so this, too, was given up.

So I suppose it might be surprising to find out that I bought myself an instrument this year: a lap dulcimer. (No hammers need apply.) I heard them this summer in Manitou Springs and was interested in learning more. I found one on eBay that was made by the place in Manitou that we visited several times. Unless PayPal is lying to me, I received it in early September.

Though I briefly messed with it shortly after I got it, due to various scheduling and motivational issues, I didn't do anything with it for a long time. Last night was the first time I brought it out of the case to play with on my own. I went through the first lesson in the little How To Play book, which covered tuning, note lengths and a couple really simple songs. All told, it took maybe 45 minutes. As you might expect, I seriously need practice.

When I was done, and had it put away, my son came upstairs from his room to tell me that he was hearing "really annoying guitar music" coming through the vents of his room and it was "disturbing" him. Hehe!

Labels: music

posted by Brett @ 11:23 AM