Andy Stefancik - Why I Enjoy Playing Guitar

JPM100 P2. I am sure that that assortment of letters and numbers means absolutely nothing to you, and they shouldn't. It's completely foreign to you, and that's fine. However, it isn't foreign to me. This phrase, JPM100 P2 represents something that means a lot to me. It provides me with entertainment and with a challenge and with joy. This phrase represents something that you probably wouldn't be thinking of; it is a guitar model. This phrase represents the Ibanez John Petrucci Signature model, and it is the guitar that I have. The guitar isn't actually mine, it's my dad's. He purchased it in 1997 and he used to use it a lot. But he doesn't have as much time on his hands now, so I use it a lot, and it is really fun.

Let me just get something straight first of all; I'm not really that good. If you asked me to play 99% of songs or riffs that existed, there is a pretty good chance that I couldn't. It could be because I don't have the sheer skill to play some of the most famous riffs, but it could also be an easy one and I just haven't learned it yet. The thing about the guitar is that it isn't that hard to learn how to read music in a tablature like I do. Really the tab just shows you the strings on the guitar, and then what fret to play on that string. So if I had the tab I could probably play it, but it does require a lot of memorization and muscle memory in your fingers. So other than being able to read tabs, I am really not too great. I only know 4 songs in total and a couple of riffs and solos.

But to be honest with you, I don't care. I may not be the best at playing guitar, but I still enjoy it. It is a way to relieve a lot of stress from everyday life.

When I get home from a long day of school, I am exhausted. One test, two quizzes, and finishing a project have me wiped out. And what else? I have two more tests tomorrow. I am inside of an endless loop. Studying, taking tests, doing projects, going home, and studying more. It goes around and around infinitely, never-ending.

Stress, exhaustion, overbooked. These are just some words that I think at one point or another all teenagers have felt during the school year. Which is why I believe everyone needs something that they can go to in order to feel immune to that loop. A place where they can go where all of the fears and worries and stresses of everyday life just vanish into thin air. And for me, that place, that thing that makes everything else go away, is the guitar.

When I go downstairs into the basement, and I turn on the amplifier and plug the cord into the glorious instrument that sits in my lap, I feel that sense of happiness. As soon as I begin to play the acoustic chord progression to I Remember You, everything just vanishes. It is just me and my guitar.

G:
I am teleported to another world. I enter the portal, and there lies a beautiful field. The sky is blue with not a cloud in the sky. Wildflowers grow as I continue into the song, sprouting up to the rhythm of the music. I walk up the hill covered in rich, long grass, which blows back and forth with the wind. I reach the top of the hill, and I overlook a beautiful valley that is pulled directly out of the Swiss Alps.

Cadd9:
On each side of that valley, there are towering snow-capped mountains. As I look out through the valley, it twists and turns as far as the eye can see. I look to the left side of the valley, and I see a glorious, rolling meadow with little specks in it which resemble sheep and cattle. On the towering wall behind it, I see a mighty waterfall, with crystal blue water. It empties into a river that flows to an Alpine Lake, which is on the right side of the valley. It has light blue water, clear as glass. And in the middle, I see a Village, warm and glowing and full of life.

D:
I hike down, with the sun setting at my back. I feel a cool breeze as I look at my elongated shadow. I finally make it to a cobblestone path outside of the Village. It has wooden fences on the left side in order to keep the sheep and cattle in the field, and on the right, it is just open meadow until the lake. I follow it past little stone houses outside of the town, and over a bridge into the center square. It isn't a very big place, it's extremely compact. I see a market down the street to my left, and to my right, I see tiny, almost connected houses. In front of me, right in the center of the Village, I see a soaring church steeple, reaching up as if to touch the hand of God.

Em:
The breeze is cool and soft. I am in a paradise that can only be accessed through something that you love. I run back outside the village into the meadow overlooking the lake, and lay down on the grass, staring up at the clouds. I don't have a worry in the world.

C:
I am not stressed. I am not tired. I am not enveloped in hours of work. I am not trying to be anything I am not. I am just happy. This is my paradise.


I go back.  I put down the guitar as I am called up for dinner, and I'm OK with that now. I've been taught that life will always be hard. There will always be challenges, setbacks, roadblocks on the path to happiness and success. But it will always be worth it. Because one way or another, there will always be light at the end of the tunnel. Hard work will allow us to reach that paradise, that serenity. And guitar has taught me that. I could learn all of the chords and the notes in existence, but that still wouldn't be as valuable as other lessons that I have learned from learning how to play. It represents something that we all have, that we all love, and that is more important than all of the work in the world.