High Strung
I have attempted several times at learning
to play the guitar with the vain hope of looking cool (because, you see, with a
guitar, you could at least take the instrument anywhere you want, unlike the
piano which is virtually impossible to fit in a bag and carry it by your
shoulders). But unfortunately, the
instrument does not like me.
When I was in fifth grade, our school
opened its doors, for the first time in my recollection, to the musical world
by offering two options when it came to band-playing. The first one being the Lyre Band and the second
one would be the Rondalla, which obviously, I signed up for.
The Lyre Band had a more prestigious
disposition since its inception because it had a flamboyant instructor and the
group’s ultimate goal was to showcase their talents at playing, uhm, the
xylophone. They were literally the
school’s marching band- complete with drummers and cute baton twirlers who we
called The Majorettes. The group made
waves and won awards all over the region because I think they were the first of
its kind in our province and they were probably the trailblazers when it came
to band-playing in the elementary division.
Now in stark contrast, the rondalla group
was more low key. Our ultimate goal was
to play a Christmas Carol in front of a crowd in our humble town plaza, because
personally for me, that was how far we could learn our instruments.
Rondalla, according to the ever trusty
Google search engine, is an ensemble of stringed instruments played with the
plectrum or pick and generally known as plectrum instruments. In simpler terms,
these are group of instruments similar to the guitar. All the other non-guitar instruments sounded
almost the same but with different pitch and sound.
Our rondalla group consisted of the bandurria
(which was the equivalent of a soprano), octavina (the alto), and gitara
(which is the guitar, and incidentally did not sound anything that resembled
the human voice but used as an accompaniment for first two instruments
mentioned, both of which are the melodies and harmonies), and a singular bajo
(bass, played by our instructor).
Like what I said, I signed up for the
rondalla together with my sister because the instructor’s wife was friends with
my mother. Back then, after realizing
how popular the Lyre Band had become, I wanted to unjoin the guitar playing
group and sign up to play the xylophone or the drums or whatever so that I
could experience that fleeting fame that childhood dreams were made of. Another reason for this was to get away with
a lot of school stuff that we were supposed to accomplish since the band
travelled a lot for competition and exhibition, so they ended up being excused
from a lot of class activities. In
contrast, our group was stuck at my instructor’s patio while cringing at the
sound of his expletives during our lessons and practice sessions.
I can honestly say that our band instructor
was mean. He was probably educated in
the old school of guitar playing because fear was his mantra, and scaring his
students was the only way to get things done, including learning. I was the opposite when it comes to studying. The more someone screams at me, the more
stupid I get. It’s like my eardrums
would just plug up with wax and block new ideas to enter my brain cells. That’s why I had a difficult time learning to
divide complex numbers when I was a kid because I was screamed at multiple
times until I was trembling with fear or my eardrums started bleeding due to reverberating sounds of screams (whichever
came first). I only learned to divide
after the some divine intervention came to my assistance to teach me the basic
operation. It was short of a miracle. And this was also the reason why I despised
ROTC because I would pass out in an instant if somebody just shouted various curses
or “interesting words” in front of me and showered me with their spit.
Anyway, our rondalla instructor was a
terror teacher. Even the students that
he considered his favorites did not like him.
I think, they only pretended to like him because they were scared. I could probably say that only three people
learned their instruments to heart. The
rest of us cowered in fear. I swear that
I did not learn anything at all from that class, hence there was no carry-over
of the skill into my adulthood. And I did
not learn to play a new instrument for a long time after attending guitar
lessons. Real musicians typically could
play multiple instruments after they master one. I did not, not until after I learned to play
the chords with the keyboards.
I remember that I have tricked everyone in
that group multiple times in playing the guitar when we were performing in
public. I would just strum the air and
not make contact with the strings for fear of making an incorrect tune. Most of the time, I did not know the song at
all and I did not have any idea what the hell I was doing and literally, I was
faking the chords throughout the song.
I may have been exhibiting my rebellion
against my instructor by not trying to learn anything from him because the
moment he picked on one of my classmates during one of our lessons, I told
myself, “OK, I’m done here.” I showed up
to the class because I was only obligated to be there. Otherwise, my soul had already checked
out.
After a so-so performance during a
Christmas show in the town plaza, the rondalla disbanded. Students stopped showing up after the
Christmas break. Only a few attended the
lessons and it was becoming more and more difficult to “lipsynch” my guitar
playing. And since the members were so
few and far in between, we might have collectively stopped showing up for the
class because in our hearts, we felt that he would probably just snap at any
given time, since my classmate who he typically picked on decided for himself
that it was not worth the humiliation just to learn the guitar. He was called “stupid” to his face. I could never forget that. It stayed in my system. If my teacher would call one stupid, he
probably could call the rest of us that way.
I felt bad for my teacher in a way because
this was his way of filling up his time during his retirement. He used to be a school teacher. But then again, once he started cursing, I
would always take my pity back.
Twelve years later, I ended picking up the
guitar back again because the acoustic craze became a thing. Thanks to Wave 89.1 and Paolo Santos, who I
think, single-handedly revived the guitar cover craze and made mush out of
everybody. The mantra in everyone’s mind
was “You had me at Hello”. In fact,
there was even an album of the same title.
Friday morning rituals became like a church habit, except that everyone
flocked to the radio to listen to more mush and cheese to Joe D’Mango and his Love
Notes, followed by the most sappy soundtrack to someone’s love story. Yes, I was one of them. I had a phase, until somebody advised me that
Love Notes was bad feng shui and should just quit it cold turkey. I heeded that advise otherwise I would still
be trapped in a romantic comedy world where reality was sprinkled with
chocolate and glitter, and everyone’s appearance was either in sepia tone or decorated
with puppy ears and a heart filter.
I did learn to play songs with my guitar
with the help from my EMO-loving high-school students (I taught choir, by the
way) and the weekly published Songhits,
which was horrible at providing song lyrics.
Since my tutors are in their EMO phase, I learned EMO songs. The one that I have memorized (but played
miserably) was Hoobastank’s The Reason.
I could channel my goth angst every time I played that song which
totally did not fit my personality. But
I really felt it.
I never really got into the phase of
playing ‘Wag na Lang Kaya, which was a song that could have been a
measure of greatness if you were a legit guitar player because it was
complicated and involved tapping of the instrument (in addition to plucking the
damn strings). I refused to join the
craze. I guess that would be the reason
why the string gods did not grant me the ability to play guitar.
Fast forward again into ten years. I surrendered to the fact that I could not
learn guitar so a friend of mine convinced me to study the violin instead. I did not veer away from the string family. I doubted myself that I could learn a new
instrument in my thirties but I enrolled anyway. There were seven of us in the class. Slowly, the class dwindled into less people
until my friend decided that he was also done with it, which I anticipated in a
way because it was very typical of him.
Anyway, I did manage to play Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star and O Come All Ye
Faithful, until I broke out in hives.
Literally. Not that I was allergic
to Christmas music and Nursery Rhyme songs, I was allergic to rosin, which was
the piece of resin made from pine that one would use to improve friction
between the bow and the string of the violin.
In a way, I am also allergic to Christmas because resin/colophony is
made from pine tree, which is an aroma I like to smell during the
holidays.
Basically, the musical gods are telling me
to quit any stringed instrument. Or are
they telling me just to quit music altogether?
I can play the piano at a mediocre level, and the keyboards at a
passable state but I am never stellar at music.
I did try my best though, but like the Taylor Swift song said, I had
teardrops in my guitar (and violin).
Sometimes, literally.
October
7, 2020
Copyright December 2021
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