Four guitars and counting....

Well, about that guitar counting! Of course I jest. Four guitars is more than enough for me...two 12 strings and two 6 strings...who needs more, one would ask? Ever hear of GAS?  
GAS is a malady guitarists seem to suffer from though. Guitar acquisition syndrome. Always wanting that next beautiful guitar with the amazing sound, hanging there on the wall of your local music store. 
No, I don't have it...

My acquisition came about more by happenstance than anything else but I won't get into that again here. Somewhere in the cobwebbed reaches of this blog, there is a post already talking about my guitars and how I came by them all.

What I would like to do here is more of an update because when I got my Martin D18 Christmas morning of 2008, I was just starting my relearning exercise - relearning to play. And not just playing but back to playing a 6 string after decades of playing a 12 string.
I had the wherewithal in my head, the chords were all there, but still had motor skill issues from the hole blown in my brain and I needed to learn how to make my hand work.

I'd like to say I never had any doubts. In the past, if I needed to learn something...I just did! But with a changed playing field now, I was no longer sure. And even if I did, would I be as good as before? I had no answers. The only way to find out was by doing.
So with a lot of determination, confidence in myself which I didn't always feel, and lots and lots of music and concerts, they provided the catalyst I needed to make this hand work! These hands work!

I played around with a flat picking tune that began as a practice piece and turned into a full tune and I dedicated it to my three kitties who died. They'd sat through all the mistakes and the grumbling and swearing when I almost got it right, then muffed it. That became their song in my tribute to them.

I then tried another still unnamed but I made a video of that one so I could hear it from someone else's perspective. I wasn't completely happy with it, is any musician ever? But I didn't delete it so I wasn't that unhappy with it either.

Finally, I wanted to do a song that needed to be sung, but not being a singer...never being more than a backup singer, I was nervous about attempting that. So I decided on a John Prine song, but only did it acoustically, no singing.
So here is that...My Life With Guitars, Cats and Cameras...

 

 I thought it would be a good opportunity to show off my kitty family, my photography prowess as well as how far I'd come on guitar. Sadly, my strings on the Martin are over 2 years old and there is a distinctive buzz heard in this tune. But since I'm just a 'play for fun' person, I can live with that buzz.
 

Well, that tune kind of primed my pump a little. Why not try a song? I mean singing! Singing!

Should I dare? I don't have to post it to YouTube. I don't have to let anyone hear it other than those I send to for that matter, and since nobody reads my blog *sad me* I could post them here and no one would be the wiser...

The reason I really did these songs though, was for my brother. He used to like me to play and yes, even sing! I wanted to burn these songs onto a disk for him because you see he's dying right now of lung cancer. We're not sure of how long he has but since he's refused treatment, time is of the essence. These two songs are his all time favorite songs and I had to do them for him. I love you John.