My first foray

After a $3 investment into a new E string, my husband's guitar was ready to play.  I don't mean to give the impression that he knows how to play.  He played with it for a little while before we met and it's been collecting dust since.  Along with the guitar came a book and CD on learning to play so I'm feeling pretty set.  We had gone over tuning last week along with some you tube videos so I spent 30 mins on Saturday doing a lesson out of the book, which was about all I could stand.  Then later in the day I found a website with easy songs to play and began teaching myself to play Bob Marley's Three Little Birds, which has only three chords.  I'm still slow at the chord shift and my extensors in my left hand started cramping a little bit, but this was way more fun than the lesson in the book.

Right now playing the guitar has very little meaning to me.  When I pulled it out to play though, my kids swarmed and started strumming it.  I grew up without music in my house and I've often envied those that had music and singing in their homes.  Not in the forced piano practice way but in the impromptu let's join together around this lovely sound way.  I think if I were to get there with my practice and with the occupation, yes it would hold deep meaning for me.  But right now, if Reker and Wong's proposition holds true, then I'm at the side that's yielding more meaning from societal expectations.

I set myself up to practice my occupation for one hour yesterday.  This took calculative thinking.  I got everything out, including a timer and the book.  But as I mentioned above my kids essentially attacked me and the guitar.  My initial response was to tell them to get away from me so I could do my **** work.  But as I paused and thought for a moment, I was reminded that part of the reason I want to learn to play was for them.  That turning them away would actually inhibit the meaning I hope to derive from the activity.  And that their curiosity and exposure to music and sound is something I want to cultivate.  So I let them strum away for a few minutes, which eventually they got bored of anyway.  I think this might be the difference between calculative and meditative thinking?  The calculative is sticking to the plan and the meditative is looking at the larger picture of the meaning of the action.  Could the difference between calculative and meditative thinking be the difference of a pause and reflection of the greater purpose?

I expect the proportion of calculative and meditative thinking to change as (if) I become more proficient with the instrument; more calculative now thinking about how to do the occupation and more meditative later as the process becomes streamlined and my mind can move elsewhere.

Here's a video of Camas... She wasn't as rough on the guitar as Henry.

Let me know if the video works for you... I can't see it on my Mac or iPhone but I'm wondering if it works for those on PC.  Thanks!