Girl Guitar Austin + Three Chord Songs + A Shameless Request For Free Voice Lessons

After Ladies Rock Camp, I signed up for guitar lessons with Girl Guitar Austin, per the advice of my co-worker, Julie.  Girl Guitar is run by Mandy Rowden, who is the ideal example of a woman who has taken the thing she is most passionate about and made it her life in a positive way - and the benefactors of this, in addition to people who go to her shows - are girls like me who get to go to guitar class, play with other ladies, and drink wine, all at the same time!  If you've ever been inside a rehearsal space at one of the Music Lab locations, then you're probably picturing a black room with lots of equipment, cords, and amplifiers strewn about in a hazardous-to-your-health-and-spinal-cord sort of way.  Mandy has managed to make her space look like an apartment - complete with refrigerator, framed photos, fabric wall paper, lamps, mirrors, wine cabinet, and chairs with squishy pads for comfortable playing. 

 
I've only been to one lesson so far, and our first song was "Get Right With God," by Lucinda Williams.  It must be fated for me to be in this class, because Lucinda Williams is partly an Arkansas girl.  Her father is one of my favorite poets, Miller Williams, who was a creaive writing professor at the University of Arkansas - which just so happened to be my major, and my alma mater.  Go hogs.

Moving along, the above video is proof that I have, indeed, been trying to practice, unlike every other time I've started guitar lessons.  I even got a little over-zealous this weekend....




Above is my attempt at St. Augustine by Band of Horses.  I remind myself of a little kid plunking on the piano to find the right notes.  My poor room mates; it's lucky they are heavy sleepers.  Also, while I may be documenting my labored progress at learning the guitar, if anyone wants to take pity on me and offer up a lesson on how to sing, I'd gladly document that progress, too!  Turning my vocals into something that actually sounds like singing would be a huge feat for any teacher - so please, use me as your before and after selling point!  I've already got the "before" part recorded - see above. 

I'd also like to add, as a foot note, that while I may be wearing a Save the Wild Things t-shirt and playing a Band of Horses song, I am not the pretentious hipster that this video makes me out to be...  Or is the first act of being a hipster denying that one is a hipster?  Crap.  I bought that shirt in Baton Rouge in fall of 2008, pre-release of any movie trailor, and I discovered Band of Horses in the second worst way possible, (according to hipster theology, the first worst being to hear it on the radio), it was suggested to me by Amazon.com while downloading mp3s. For shame!  I was also baking chocolate cupcakes in between songs - if you promise to forget this post I'll give you one.  Although, I did make the frosting from tofu.