De Do Do Do De Da Da Da

On my way to work the other day, I heard two different songs by The Police on two different radio stations. It occurred to me that I hadn't listened to The Police in a while, and that they were a really good band. They're all really good musicians, and Sting wrote some really good rock songs, before he went all adult-comtemporary and lame. I don't mind some of his solo stuff, but his work with The Police was orders of magnitude better. Spirits In The Material World, Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, De Do Do Do De Da Da Da (not the cleverest song title ever, but a great song), Don't Stand So Close To Me, King Of Pain, Can't Stand Losing You, Message in a Bottle, Roxanne, Every Breath You Take — they only released five albums, but they had so many great songs. It's too bad they broke up when they did (actually, I believe they never officially broke up, they just went on "hiatus", but after more than 20 years, I think it's safe to say they broke up).

I "restarted" my guitar lessons last Thursday. I've been taking lessons for a little over a year, and I've learned a lot, but I wanted to do more music theory than my teacher (John) can do. He suggested I switch over to the other guy (Terry) that teaches at the same place I go, since Terry knows music theory better and can teach it better. We started out going over basic stuff like the string names, major scales, and major chords (root, 3rd, and 5th), and by the end of the half-hour, we'd also talked about minor chords (root, flat 3rd, 5th), 7th chords (major or minor chord plus the 7th), and he mentioned diminished and augmented chords, though I don't know exactly how they're defined. I even have homework. I think the next few months are going to be challenging, and I probably won't get any better as a guitar player, but having the theory background will eventually make me a better player.