Jen is not particularly musically inclined. But when the opportunity to learn the guitar was presented to me, I thought of the times men played the guitar at me. It was time for the roles to be reversed. “Wonderwall” by Oasis couldn’t be that difficult, right?
Taylor Friedman ‘26, a member of the student band “geek,” was my guitar teacher. She had been playing the guitar since the age of 11, but she told me it was never too late to start learning.
“It’s such a great outlet,” Taylor said. “It’s just really fun, especially to hear a song on the radio and be like, ‘Oh my God, I want to play this,’ and then you can play pretty much any song on guitar or make it work.”
This was my dream. I want to be able to play my favorite songs for my friends. We only had an hour, so I had a lot of work to do.
We started with some basics: the different parts of the guitar, how to hold the guitar, strum and a simple G chord. At first, I felt awkward, then I gained some confidence, and I felt like I was ready to learn an actual song.
I wanted to learn “Banana Pancakes” by Jack Johnson, my favorite song. Little did I know that Jack Johnson is a level one million guitar master. I was only able to learn the intro. But the intro is really catchy, so I’m not upset.
Then, it was time to learn THE classic guitar song, “Wonderwall” by Oasis. There are only four chords in the whole song. After a few minutes and some rough transitions from chord to chord, I was able to play something that vaguely sounded like the song.
Taylor was happy with my progress. She kept saying, “You’re a natural, I’m so impressed.”
She called her housemates down, so I had an audience to show off my new talent. I played “Wonderwall,” and I was proud of how much I learned in just an hour.
“10 out of 10,” roommate Bella Crapanzano ‘26 exclaimed. “I’m so impressed. You should keep up, like, you should take lessons for real.”
Maybe I will! I had so much fun, and Taylor was a great teacher. I hope that one day I can advance past just playing “Wonderwall” to playing all of “Banana Pancakes.”
