I've been hungry for learning songs on the guitar - I've discovered that I don't much like singing and playing since I'm really self-conscious about singing, and that I am not overly enthralled with classical guitar yet because all the pieces are too high on the difficulty/frustration curve with not enough "that is cool!" payoff for me to tackle them right now.

However, I love fingerstyle. Love love love fingerstyle. The first two songs I learned ("Blackbird" and "Diamonds and Rust") were not fingerstyle, but I found some guitar books at the library on Saturday, and lo, they turned out to be fingerstyle guitar books. I'm now mostly able to stumble through "In My Life" (that's someone else's video; I'll take a first version of mine when I find where I put that camera) and having fun with "The Girl From Ipanema" (which I can't actually play at anything approximating full speed yet; I've only managed to crawl through sightreading it twice, and want to get better at "In My Life" first).

In the queue to figure out are two of my favorite songs to listen to when I'm feeling like a little quiet introversion might do me good - they've been favorites of mine since high school. "Up on the Roof" by James Taylor (but with more accurate chords than this video) and "Wish You Were Here" - the Pink Floyd version (this is a nice arrangement, and the fellow was nice enough to write out the tabs; I think my hands can do that).

On the roof, that's the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go
Up on the roof
*musical interlude!*
And at night the stars they put on a show for free
And darling you can share it all with me...

The rooftop in my East Boston apartment really did look like this song feels - beautiful skyline view at night that most Bostonians never see (it's the reverse view of what you get when you look at Boston from across the Charles River). The nearby park gives a fair approximation of that vista. Next time I pick someone up from the airport when it's dark, and there's some time to spare, I might ask if they'd mind popping over and having a look; it's the sort of view that's far better when shared with friends viewing it for the first time. I haven't done that since Chris and I moved out of that apartment, but it was a popular view with guests while we were there.

One thing that's amused me for years is that all the songs I play when I want to be alone usually have lyrics that go something along the lines of "it would be so nice if other people would come over and keep me company in this potentially wonderful place" - but I can't understand lyrics when I listen to music, so I go by the feeling created by the chords and the melody. And that unresolved tension of pleasing loneliness is where I want to sit and stay when I'm in an introverted mood; I don't actually want anyone to come up and go "yay! I came up on the roof to join you!" and if someone did, I would likely smile and nod politely and move to the basement. Or another roof. (Though if they brought a bass...)

Then again. Also in the queue is Bon Jovi, so it's not like that's all I'm going to learn to play.