FA 100 - Creative Acts Part Two

This week, in my search for creative acts, I thjought I would stray into the field of music.

Back in High School, I had a passing interest in the guitar. I brought it back this Christmas with the intention of learning to play it, but I had never gotten around to it (such as the story tends to go). And shortly after I got back, I heard a familiar tune.

"I saw Three Ships" it was called. A Christmas Carol. The song brought back a nostalgic feeling in me, and I was taken by the desire to play it. Initially, I searched for tabulature on the internet, but my search turned up nothing.

That was when I remembered the old friend that gave me that interest in the guitar three years ago. He was a talented musician, and one of the things he could do was figure something out by ear. He could listen to it, determine a note on the guitar that sounded like it, and eventually figure out the song that way.

I decided that, for kicks, I would try to do that myself. It was painstaking, but I stuck with it. I relied on the singing training I received in my last year of high school as I was going into a bit of musical theater. I would sing the first note of "I saw Three ships", holding that note untill I found a note on the guitar that sounded similar enough. Then I would progress to the next note, and the next note, untill eventually I had something that sounded very much like "I saw Three Ships".

If I were to consider this seriously, I would probably say that I subconsciously had an audience in my roommate. He was the one from which I heard the song from as he was playing it on his flute. Perhaps I had a little bit of competition in my head?

Socially, politically, this did not mean much. It was a development of a neat skill, and I was impressed with myself. Like most of the times that I create, this was based more or less on a whim.

In this and similar scenarios, one of the dominant thoughts in my head was always "Why not?".