Dreaming in G Major

Is It Too Late To Learn To Play Guitar?

Photo by Chris Bair on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve been dreaming about guitars. A lot.

I wake up trying to remember sheet music I’ve never seen before. Sometimes I’m strumming a classical guitar like Charo. Other times I’m tearing through an electric solo like Eddie Van Halen.

Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s the universe tuning me toward something new. Or maybe it’s just another bout of GAS, that familiar Gear Acquisition Syndrome that hits when inspiration flirts with temptation.

When I was a kid, I tried to follow in my dad’s footsteps. He was teaching himself to play guitar, one chord at a time. He had a beautiful acoustic and a shiny electric. I wanted to play too, so he bought me a kid-sized guitar and signed me up for lessons. But no matter how much I practiced, my fingers stayed soft, my chords buzzed, and my patience wore thin.

Eventually, I gave up the guitar for the piano. It felt kinder somehow. No callouses, no pain, just keys that let me glide. My dad was happy I was playing an instrument. Even if it wasn’t “his” instrument.

For a few years, I could sight-read pretty well and was able to improvise enough to earn a spot in my high school’s jazz band.

But like so many childhood hobbies, school and life happened. Lessons stopped. Practice faded. My fat fingers eventually forgot what they once knew.

Now, at 53, I find myself wondering if it’s too late to try again. Can I still learn the guitar? And relearn the digital piano I already own? Or is this just another creative daydream pretending to be destiny?

Part of me wants to rush out and buy a guitar right now, something simple and sleek, just to see what my hands might remember. But the practical side of me knows this tune all too well: What feels like a calling one day can turn into clutter the next.

Maybe it’s just a passing tune. Maybe it’s a whisper of something deeper, waiting to be heard. So for now, I will let the idea play softly in the background and see if the melody still calls to me when I get back from the cruise.

And who knows? Maybe one day soon I’ll finally pick up a guitar and make a little night music worth dreaming about.

Keep calm and strum on…
Clint 🌈✌️

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ICYMI = IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

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FYC = FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

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• Freedom Shouldn’t Cost $99 (Pesos & Pixels)

• PalCinema Review: The History of Sound (Dan Pal)

• Your Success Will Never Look Like Someone Else’s (Karl Dunn)

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ON THIS DAY = OCTOBER 30

BIRTHDAYS

• 1839 = Alfred Sisley = French-English painter

• 1853 = Louise Abbéma = French artist 🌈

• 1885 = Ezra Pound = American poet and critic

• 1892 = Charles Atlas = Italian-American bodybuilder

• 1896 = Ruth Gordon = American actor and screenwriter

• 1930 = Timothy Findley = Canadian novelist and playwright 🌈

• 1932 = Louis Malle = French filmmaker

• 1939 = Grace Slick = American singer-songwriter and model

• 1945 = Henry Winkler = American actor, comedian, director, and producer

• 1951 = Harry Hamlin = American actor

• 1954 = Mario Testino = Peruvian-English photographer 🌈

• 1957 = Kevin Pollak = American actor, game show host, and producer

• 1961 = Larry Wilmore = American comedian and tv host

• 1963 = Michael Beach = American actor and producer

• 1965 = Gavin Rossdale = English singer-songwriter and actor

• 1968 = Jack Plotnick = American actor and filmmaker 🌈

• 1969 = Snow = Canadian singer-songwriter

• 1970 = Nia Long = American actor

• 1978 = Matthew Morrison = American singer-songwriter and actor

EVENTS

• 1938 = Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States.

• 1945 = Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the baseball color line.

• 1971 = Dolly Parton releases “Coat Of Many Colors” as a single.

• 1995 = Oasis releases “Wonderwall” as a single.

• 1998 = American History X is released in theaters.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• LGBTQ History Month (October 1-31) 🌈🧐📚

• National Candy Corn Day

• National Publicist Day

• National WICKED Day

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PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

EZRA POUND

“Either move or be moved.”
Ezra Pound