Guitars! How Many Strings? It Doesn't Matter!

I grew up when the guitar was transforming music (yeah, I'm sort of an old geezer...). The Beatles were knocking the records off the charts and the likes of Buddy Holly, Ray Orbison, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, were also competing on the airwaves for "ear-time". We lived in New Mexico--and this was where I discovered guitar music up-close-and-personal: We frequently traveled to El Paso, Texas, and across the border to Mexico's Cuidad Juarez, where we were treated to mariachi musicians serranading us with their guitars and other instruments during delightful lunches and dinners at the various plazas and restaurants.

My first exposure to being able to pick up a guitar and try to pick out a tune (and I had no idea what I was doing) was during a summer visit to see our cousins in Pennsylvania. My cousins had some guitars and they'd mess around with them in their basements or garage during the long and otherwise boring summer days. I was fascinated with the noise and sometimes melodies these instruments could help create.

I learned to enjoy their sound, even though I had been playing trumpet since elementary school 3rd grade and I had also been subjected to piano lessons (briefly before I bugged out of there... I'm still very good at playing "chopsticks"). And I fussed with my folks that I'd love to have a guitar... and each year, I still was stuck playing trumpet and fooling around with our upright piano.

Then we moved to the island of Guam... and no piano (but yes, the trumpet followed me through 9th grade on Guam). That Christmas, I finally was surprised and found a new Yamaha guitar under the Christmas tree.

Well, I could read music (sort of), but the three keys on a trumpet are way different than the 6-strings and multiple frets on a guitar. So, during one weekend excursion into town, I found and bought a "Do-It-Yourself" paperback book for playing guitar. I read that thing cover-to-cover and learned how to tune a guitar and how to make basic chords. With three chords, you can do an amazing number of songs ... well, you can at least strum and provide "background" music for singers who can hit all the notes in between.

I've since learned how to do more and better guitar techniques--I fell in love with flamenco and folk style guitar music--such as that done by Ottmar Liebert, The Gypsy Kings, and the guitar bands of South America and the Andes. I also learned to play melodies made famous by John Denver, Simon & Garfunkle, Cat Stevens, Styxx, America, Deep Purple, Chicago, Santana, Arlo Guthrie, Captain & Tenille, The Carpenters, Freddie Fender, and others.

This Squidoo lens will give you some of my memories and experiences with guitars with the hopes that you'll get a better appreciation of the great music and moods you can get from these interesting instruments.