The D-major chord. It’s the first chord shown on this page. Doesn’t look to bad, does it? Let me tell you, that’s not much space to fit three fingers in cleanly without the third finger (the one on the third fret) touching any other strings. Grr. A clean strike of that chord has eluded me in the nine days since I’ve started playing. I have a handful of other basic chords down and can even switch between many of them fairly cleanly and quickly (relatively), but that damn D chord… KHAAAAAN! Ahem, sorry. In other news, I’m getting better used to the sound of strumming. I’m not doing much with…

I decided a few days ago that I would finally make good use of my guitar. Call it a New Year’s Resolution, since the decision happened to fall on New Year’s. I have a wonderfully cheap little Fender that I got probably my freshman year of high school. I tried half-heartedly to learn at the time, but had trouble forming calluses due to excessive contact with water. Combine that with the fact that the book I had was a folk-song-oriented guide full of songs I’d never heard and using complicated-ass finger picking techniques in lieu of strumming, I gave up pretty quickly. I haven’t done much serious with it since,…

Alright: Mother Goose Rocks. Go to the CDs page, notice the names of the artists of the songs. Visit. Now. Play. Laughter for days. WO and I are buying each other CDs from this site for Chrimmus. (The front page has Flash music videos, too!)

I’ve never been much of a fan of Bjork. Her music has always tended to sound like someone took a sweet, friendly, normally quiet cat and strung it up with dental floss by the pads of its paws in a chimney while the fire below it built to a nice and roasty heat. Tonight, though, a DJ on Dublab (Chicken George) mixed a track that I immediately knew to be Bjork (I mean, honestly, the woman is very distinctive) that has made me eat my words. It’s a track called “I Miss You”, and although she still makes her characteristic odd sounds, the song is amazing, with a nice little…