The Acoustic Guitar Forum - On the Occasion of Post #1000

Here's a story that my fellow guitar enthusiasts on the AGF will enjoy. I hope ya'll had a great year and hope you enjoy this website as much as I do.

I take a lot of time off from my day job during the month of December to work on seasonal music that I play in a trio/quartet. I have been at my job for 35 years so I have vacation that has to be taken or it is lost.

My standard routine is to get up at normal time and do about an hour of work with the metronome take a break and then a couple more hours of work on new tunes or repertoire stuff.

I wish that I would have discovered the benefit of working with a metronome about 30 years ago but I didn't. As most of you know it is a great tool. I find that starting slowly and gradually increasing the tempo is a great exercise for warming up/ loosening up my right hand fingers. Hopefully that will also help prevent injuries.

My wife works in an Elementary school and for the last 10 years I have used one of my days off to go to her school and do a music demonstration of various stringed instruments that we have around the house. I know enough to play some chords on just about anything with strings and frets so it's easy to work out a few songs to introduce the kids to instruments that they probably have never seen.Unfortunately the consistent favorite is the banjo, go figure.

This year, the day after we did our program a 5th grader came in to my wife's office carrying a guitar. He told her he wanted to give it to her because he never learned and he wasn't interested. Jayne called the boy's parents and verified that they knew about this. Jayne brought the guitar home, it was a Strat copy. It played in tune and when I plugged it in everything worked. I suggested we find a student from a needy family to give it to.

Jayne sent an email to her fellow school counselors and we got a reply. There was a 3rd grader at another school that played acoustic guitar and he really wanted an electric. I added a little practice amp and a cord to the package and made arrangements to deliver the guitar.

I got to the school at the end of the day. The bus riders had just left and the kids that were in the after school program were all in the gym. The counselor told me that the boy was in the gym and asked if I wanted to give him the guitar then.

The look of sheer joy on this kids face when he opened the gig bag and strapped on the guitar was priceless. He hollered to his buddies and held it up so they could see. I asked him to show me some chords and he knew all the basics including F.

It was the highlight of the Christmas season for me.