My family tolerates my guitar practice as well as they are able to. Using headphones helps a lot. But even with headphones, they can still hear the low vibrating hum of the strings on my electric guitar. A while back I developed a habit of always warming up by playing the same lick at the beginning of my practice — I tune up the strings, and then I play this:

The other day while I was playing this, I noticed my family faintly humming along with the tune as I warmed up the strings. That put a big smile on my face. I’ve played it so much that they know this warm up piece by heart. It’s a simple walk through of some chords with individual notes sprinkled throughout.

Where does this warm up tune come from?

Back in October 2019, my daughter and I were sitting downstairs while we waited for the rest of the family to finish getting ready before heading out the door together. While we waited, I grabbed my acoustic guitar and asked her if she’d help me write a quick song. I captured that moment using the voice recorder app on my phone:

That little “pop” that you hear at the end of the clip was her giving me a high five. I love this little recording. I listened to it over and over. And then it just became, “my warm up tune”.

Practice – even when it feels impossible

My guitar practice has been more difficult during the last two weeks. Honestly, almost everything has felt more difficult. On Jan 13, 2021, we lost my brother Aaron Lemmon. My oh my… there really aren’t words for this loss. Aaron was my biggest cheerleader in all of my endeavors, especially when it came to my need for creative expression. Today’s post is my first since his passing… and it feels like it’s taking a lot to push through a desire to stay quiet, and to stay hidden away. I know that if he were here now he would be laughing, asking me to stop my whining, and to get back to shipping my work. So that is what I will do, starting by going back to what is familiar; sharing the above: one of my everyday practice warm-up tunes. I’m back to it… let’s practice, even when it feels difficult.