A New Adventure...Playn' the Blues

I believe I've shared here before that I was a music major in college...for one semester.  I had pretty good success in high school with saxophone playing and all.  And since I picked up a couple other instruments and did all right, I thought I could do anything.  Well, my voice teacher and my piano teacher disagreed.  It was suggested I might be happier in another field of study. 

Anyway, music has always been a passion.  All kinds.  If you've read here in the past you know that I like everything from blues to hip-hop to good old rock n roll, and everything in between (mostly Christian, of course).  In fact, my last post had something about diverse musical tastes, didn't it?

But one thing I've always wanted to do was play guitar.  I've tried a couple times.  Got to where I could play three or four chords to sing Amazing Grace, and that was about it.  My youngest daughter has been playing for a couple years now, and she's doing great.  Makes me want to try again.  

I've also grown fond of the more bluesy genres in recent years.  I especially enjoy Glenn Kaiser from Resurrection Band (another oldie, kids, look it up).  In recent years he's done a number of blues oriented projects, both as a solo act and with the Glenn Kaiser Band.  Good stuff. 

So when I saw that Mr. Kaiser was introducing a line of simple cigar box guitars, I thought I finally found my answer.  So I went online with some gift money and ordered me a Glenn Kaiser Signature Cigar Box Guitar.  It's Kaiser's own design and comes with a signed slide and a homemade carrying bag.

And now the adventure begins.  Of course, I had this image in my mind that I would sit down and just start playing, right?  How hard can it be with just three strings and a slide.  Well, harder than I thought.  I tuned it wrong to begin with, but now that I've got that figured out, it's still not the magic trick I was hoping for.  But I'm going to keep at it.  All things come with practice, and so I'm going to keep going until I can play at least a few recognizable tunes.

My first goal is a simple one, at least in theory.  One of the first little riffs on this Cigar Box Guitar for Dummies video I'm watching is a simple three chord progression that is common to many songs.  Most rock n rollers think of the old Bad to the Bone thing.  But I'm hoping to change it a bit and end up withe the old Allies song: Christian Man.  This is my goal.  Check back with me in a few months and we'll see how it's going!

Here's the song I'm working on.  With just one guitar.  And no drums.  And not all the fancy other stuff.  Just the chords.  Anyway...