Missed my graduation discussion

...but no one called me out on it. I'll assume you were just mesmerized by my Muscovy duck pictures.

I was going to write about my guitar class graduation!! Yes we have a graduation class....sort of. We practice our one song and after 45 minutes, we were going to get up in front of ALL OF THE CLASSES on Monday night and perform it on a stage. Yowza. The worst part was that we were going to follow the Flamenco dancers. Great. At least we didn't have to follow the belly dancing class. That would have been death.

Now I need to tell you that the guitar classes on Monday run the gamut: guitar one, one rep, two, two rep, three, three rep (I think) and four. Plus a traditional musical class or two. The auditorium was packed.

So we get up there after the Flamenco dancers get a huge applause. Our song was Walk The Line, by Johnny Cash. We had about 15 people in my class up on stage and had a nice arrangement set up with the song where in one stanza, instead of strumming four beats per measure, we only strummed once for dramatic effect. It was pretty cool actually. Not only did we have to play the song though, we had to sing as well! Fortunately, there are some nice deep parts to the song that I could really belt out (and the teacher expected me too after I made the mistake of sitting next to her during rehearsal).

So we took the stage, were introduced and started into it. We played and sang pretty well and got a huge ovation. It was pretty awesome. Everyone in the auditorium really did remember what it was like to only have played for two months before having to perform. I think it helped that we played a song that everyone knew as well.

Playing a song that I knew personally really helped in playing and practicing. It sort of makes sense that you could play a song a little bit better if you know what it's supposed to sound like. The last few weeks has led me to sign up for Guitar One Rep, the next level of classes. Hopefully I'll be able to practice enough to keep up.