o tempora, o mores!

Yesterday, I was scheduled to make up a guitar lesson that I missed. We park in the lot at the ‘bottom’ of downtown and I walk the four blocks up to Pickers, the little guitar shop I take my lessons at. Upon checking in with the receptionist, Jeffrey [whom I had called twice beforehand to ensure that doing this would be alright], I am told that I couldn’t make up my lesson and that I would just have to resume with the next one. I told him that was fine…and to schedule my final two lessons as well.

I’m not renown for my patience.

My teacher, while a very nice guy, is slow and repetitive. His teaching style is geared toward younger children and doesn’t benefit me. I’ve tried to explain this to him, but to no avail. The atmosphere is just awkward and there isn’t a good sense of communication there. I don’t feel as if I’m going to benefit from these lessons without being able to explain what I feel that I need to work on or to ask questions.

My lessons have had that tone typical of academic pursuits…I hate that. To me, music shouldn’t have that classroom feel…things should be far more lax. So, the environment has completely put me off. It’s just made me disinterested and dispirited…and I hate that.
Upon discussing this with my friend, Kelsey–who bought a guitar around the same time I did but can play less than I–we decided that we would probably be better off learning from someone closer to our age–my teacher is probably around fifty?–and that trying this together would be easier and more fun than alone. We have a handful of friends who play, so we just need to figure out who would be the best teacher and then accost them to teach us at some point in time.