Slowhand Bob

I did something kind of cool today: I had my first guitar lesson.

Given that I have three award-winning musicians for children, you might be surprised to know that I don't play an instrument (except for the velvet tornado that is my voice). In fact, I never even learned to read music.

But then I saw an old Partridge Family episode, and it just seemed like it would great fun to have a family band. Painting an old school bus groovy colors. Playing wacky pranks on our uptight band manager. Traveling around the country, singing songs with the wife and kids.

Seriously, about a year ago, I decided that it would be kind of cool to learn an instrument, and after some discussion with the children (who nixed anything involving heavy breathing or excessive banging, and settled on bass, since there are only four strings to deal with, or tambourine, because they're so darn funny), we settled on guitar. My plan was start lessons in the fall, when I had hoped to be on sabbatical, but that wasn't to be. Lately, I've been King of Things-Aren't-Really-Going-As-Planned, so I decided I'd start in the summer. Today was the day.

I'm taking lessons at the music school where the kids take piano. The owner of the school teaches piano to Catherine (and, for the summer, John), and also teaches guitar and drums. For my first 30 minute lesson, I learned proper hand positioning and the basic scale, and focused on the high E string. I have lots to practice before we meet again next Wednesday.

She said I did an excellent job, and she can tell where my children get their musical talent from.

(And yes, I recognize that she's hoping, in this economy, that I'll come back next week. I'm OK with that. As long as she keeps up with the flattery.)

Now, I think this is special because it's probably the first new thing I've tried to learn in 10 or 15 years. I've learned things in that time -- it's kind of a requirement of the whole professor gig to keep learning things -- but this is the first new thing I've learned in a long time. Learning, say, MS PowerPoint isn't really new if you're already really good at MS Word. For me, guitar is almost completely new, right down to having to learn which little dots and lines means which notes on the paper thingy.

So that's kind of exciting. When I learned in December that I wasn't going to get my sabbatical for the fall, I starting thinking I wouldn't bother with the guitar lessons. Two weeks later, I got the NHL diagnosis. Priorities change. Different things start to matter.

So to celebrate my awesomeness, I invite you to check out Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitar songs of all time. Each song listed has an audio clip and video. Feel free to debate in the comments.