A Good Feeling That Doesn’t Grow Old

When I started to play guitar, one main goal I had was to teach myself songs by ear. When a college friend would sit down with his guitar and play “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” by The Allman Brothers or “Driver 8” by R.E.M.—and many others—and then tell me, “I learned that from the record,” I thought it was the coolest thing ever. At first I couldn’t do it. I put on records by bands I liked at the time and couldn’t make heads or tails of what chords they were playing. But I stuck with it and got better. It was a good feeling to play along with a record and know I had taught myself the song by ear. The song was first in the groove of a record album and then it was in my guitar as well. What a high. 

And it feels just as good today as it did back then. Many people ask, “Why don’t you just look songs up online?”—and occasionally I do, and there are good resources online—but nothing beats the satisfaction of using my ear and alot of patience to find a chord that’s eluding me and placing it in a song I’m teaching myself and hearing the song click into place as I start to strum. It’s a good feeling that never grows old.