Bede is a good guy. Bede is a great husband. I stayed up late last night writing, got up early this morning to write, and then slept in from 8-10 am while Bede hung out with Lucia. Then, Bede went out for his morning coffee, and came back with a 3/4 sized steel-string guitar he found at a yard sale. He paid $10.00 USD. I've been struggling to
tune it, but ultimately will have to wait for Ulric's assistance. Perhaps by the time I
take lessons in October, I'll have progressed beyond "Smoke on the Water" (played on one string!) and other Forbidden Guitar Shop Tunes™. I have ambitions. Perhaps I'll never rock 'n' roll, but before you know it, I will be Alkelda of the Key of G. As soon as I get it together, I will compose a song and sing his praises. In the meantime, I need to work on a story involving the word "toast," as per ABCGirl's request.
Update: I came home from running errands to find a box on the front porch. Although it was addressed to Bede, it was for me. Behold my new ocarina:
I then called my father to play it for him over the phone. My father said he himself had been planning to go to a music store to find a larger-sized ocarina for me.
Now, I need to make some choices for the rest of the day:
1) scrub out the fridge or play my ocarina
2) vaccuum and do laundry or work on a story
3) mow the lawn or strum my guitar
I am grateful for my life.
Addendum: the guitar neck was warped, and I gave it away to someone else's toddler to wail on while his father's guitar remained safe from harm.
2 comments:
what wonderful choices! hmmm.... i think i know what i'd pick. a little "lick and a promise" (as my mom would say--in reference to very speedy surface cleaning) to assuage my guilt and then a little homage to the gods of creativity!
your new ocarina is a lovely color! the finger holes seem a bit bigger than i pictured them (i think i was thinking of a recorder). is it hard to cover them? or, indeed, is that the goal?
ABCGirl--
My sopranito ocarina has tiny holes-- the larges one is about the size of a recorder hole. These holes are indeed larger, but the ones pictured are the two larger holes in the set of four. It is not hard to cover them, but I've noticed that the way they are arranged means I have to hold my arms close to my chest. Maybe that's intentional! Right now, my challenge (in addition to learning to play the thing) is finding that a lot of the songs I like are in D minor, and therefore I can't reach the top notes (the high D). I want to play "I Bind My Heart This Tide," but unless I figure out how to transpose it to another key (no easy feat for someone who would have flunked music theory had she actually been graded upon it), I'll have to stick to songs that don't go above high C. Maybe I need a five hole ocarina. Maybe I need a double-chamber ocarina. Maybe I just need to learn to play what I've got and stop hankering after what I don't have!
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