Guitars Are A Ton Of Fun

It\'s time to change the strings on one of my guitars. It is not something I like to do. Changing guitar strings is a tedious task. But it needs to be done.

If you don\'t change your strings fairly often, the notes you play will thud instead of ring. That\'s not good. You want to hear clearly each individual note that is played.

A great guitarist can make a solo sing like Emmylou Harris, growl the blues like John Lee Hooker or sneer like Mick Jagger. But not even the best can do any of those things with dead strings.

Rock stars probably have people who change guitar strings for them. That must be nice, but I don\'t know what it\'s like to be a rock star. I play in a bar band. It\'s a very good bar band, but it\'s still a bar band. Nobody is going to get famous here.

I\'ve been playing in bar bands since I was 15 years old, back in the days when a punk kid could be in a bar if he had a guitar slung over his shoulder. The more often you play, the more often you need to change your guitar strings. And my current bar band has been very busy lately.

Bar bands often perform for people who are loud, rowdy and liquored up. This is particularly true during Mardi Gras season. Two recent gigs come to mind. My band played at a bar the evening of parade day and then played at another the night of Fat Tuesday. The revelers were out in force late into both evenings

There\'s nothing quite like trying to execute a difficult guitar part, while also trying to sing something dead-on, and have some chick stumble on stage and drape Mardi Gras beads around your neck. She almost knocked over my microphone stand on her way off the stage.

But it\'s all part of the deal. You just do your best to keep the song going.

I had a well-deserved break the weekend after Mardi Gras. So I decided to take in a different type of performance, something less crazy. I attended a school play, two of them, in fact. I went to a middle school performance on a Saturday and a high school production on a Sunday.

The middle school production was \"Seussical Jr.\" It was based on the writings of Dr. Seuss. The high school production was \"Oklahoma!\" Both shows were outstanding.

There\'s something pure about going to see a school musical. It\'s nice to see young, talented kids who have worked hard perform in front of an appreciative audience. The audience usually includes proud parents who have children in the production.

I was among those proud parents at both shows I attended. Emmy, my youngest daughter, performed in the middle school production. Kate, my oldest daughter, was part of the cast of \"Oklahoma!\"

My girls are musically talented. Both started taking private piano lessons when they were very young. (Sue Slivka, if you\'re reading this, I thank you.) Kate plays piano, violin and guitar. Emmy plays piano, violin and cello. Both also receive private voice lessons.

I love watching my daughters perform. I\'ve attended quite a few concerts, recitals and school plays. An interesting aside: Tickets to \"Oklahoma!\" cost $10 each. If you came to see my bar band perform on Fat Tuesday, you paid a $5 cover charge to get in the door. That means people paid more to see Kate than they did to see me.