Starting with Fingerplucking

Two weeks ago, my younger brother gave me a book he got from his recent trip to Singapore as a pasalubong. It was a compilation of music sheets with fingerplucking tablatures for some easy guitar pieces. The book was labelled as "For intermediate" players. He even lent me one of his guitars so I can test it out.

It was a mischievous trick on me by my brother.

Firstly, I hated the guitar the most among the musical instruments that's at our Baclaran house. In order of preference, I would pick the flute, clarinet, piano, violin and lastly, the guitar. Secondly, he knew that I've the tendency to get frustrated whenever I strike the guitar strings and produce a buzzing sound (indicating that I'm not pressing on the frets properly). Lastly, I'm not familiar with guitar tablature. What made him think that I knew how to read fingerplucking tabs?

So last night, I opened the book for the first time and read through the first few pages.

There was little instructional detail in the book. It took me an hour to figure out what the numbers meant in the tabs, and another half-hour to convince myself that I have the fingers assigned logically for each string and fret.

Greatly frustrating.

Patience, Stip. Music in all its forms has its rewards. Patience, patience, patience.