Plucking up interest in learning the guitar

As appeared in Hobbies
The Brunei Times - May 4, 2007

GUITARS are the stuff of romance. So it seems, from movies with guys serenading their love interests with their trustee classical guitars to books featuring women swooning at the plucking of strings that also pluck at their hearts. No, really.

I suppose that's why in a survey by Men's Health magazine, two in three men said they had taken music lessons once in their lives and the instrument they typically "abused" was the guitar.

And that's why wandering along the streets of Amsterdam, I gravitated to a group of youths with guitars music transcends languages, especially if you don't know the words.

Guitars are also the basic instrument in almost any kind of music, and solos, especially those riffs on a fabulous Fender Strat in the arms of a rock band member, can raise your heartbeat and drive groupies to distraction.

The guitar also has the appeal of being quite an easy instrument to learn to play. You can even learn by going through books or surfing sites on the Internet, says Pat Nicodmus Goh, a draughtsman who has been playing the guitar since a young age.

"I started out just plucking at the strings and later picked up some pointers from books," he says. When easy access to the Internet came around, he made use of the world wide web to troll for free lessons.

And they are aplenty. A look at about.com will give you a link to "hobbies and games" and a section dedicated to guitars, with articles from "guitar buying 101" and "guitar lessons by email" to "beginner guitar lessons" by resident expert Dan Cross.

Recent 'A' Level graduate Viviana Metussin, who has been utilising her spare time learning the guitar at www.ultimate-guitar.com, says such sites offer simple and clear instructions with the added bonus of popular songs with their accompanying chords, making learning an instantly gratifying process.

"The drawback, though," Viviana says, "is that you may lose interest." She adds that taking up classes in the basic stages may speed up progress as an expert is on hand to track your performance and correct mistakes.

However, businessman Del Goh thinks otherwise, saying it could be better for beginners to learn from the Net if they are unsure whether they are really serious about the hobby.

And cost is certainly a factor. Contessa Music Centre in Gadong offers guitar lessons, from beginner to advanced levels, including the "rocker" mode, at $60 a month for a 30-minute class once a week. Onnie Perez of Contessa says the centre has had about 30 students of all ages in the past six months, though he admits not all came back for lessons after a while.

The dropout rate may not just be about expenses, though, as Viviana explains, "I would love to go for classes if I had the time for them."

But cost is still a factor, and not just regarding lessons. A good guitar can set you back a few hundred dollars and a hand-crafted one can be in the thousands, though you can purchase a starter for $80 at Contessa. Perez says he often advises beginners to start with an inexpensive model and work their way up to the better ones if they really love the hobby.

And as we speak in the shop, which has a number of classical, folk, acoustic and electric guitars, a businessman comes in to buy one for his daughter. A quick discussion and he pays for an inexpensive acoustic guitar, which he says is a requirement since his daughter's school started offering guitar lessons.

"It's not too bad," he says of having to buy an instrument that his daughter may or may not like, especially when she is already learning to play the piano. "It keeps them from being too wrapped up in computer games."