resolved

i'm a believer in new year's resolutions. i used to think the whole idea was hokey; after all, anything worth doing is worth doing year-round, not just after the new year's.

but then it occurred to me that being a better person generally requires some conscious effort, and it's easy to get distracted by the bs that goes along with just getting through each day. new year's can function as a reminder to set some goals for one's self, however modest.

in that spirit, i decided today (better late than never) that one of my resolutions of '06 is to learn a play one new song on the guitar each day. i was inspired in part by this post by friend and fellow blogger mikeOAT, wherein he runs down a list of all the cover songs that his band has attempted in practice at one time or another. it made me realize that it's a good skill for a musician to know a bunch of songs that you can whip out when the occassion calls for it. i also figured it might provide some impetus for me to play guitar more often, which my natural sense of laziness generally inhibits me from doing.

then i started to think more seriously about the numbers. 365 songs is a lot of songs to learn. i've already missed 34 days of the year, so right there that cuts it down to 331. then, there's the fact that i travel for work an average of 1 week per month. so, that's another 66 days this year (11 more months x 6 days on average that i'm gone) without access to a guitar, bringing me down to 265. i finally decided on 250 songs, 'cause it's a nice round number and it gives me a couple weeks' leeway.

and what will the first song be, you ask? "victoria", by the kinks. for no reason other than that it was one of the first songs that came up on my iPod when i went for a run today (in the interest of full disclosure, it was actually the version by the fall). coincidentally, that song is one of the ones in mikeOAT's list.

i'm going to keep a list of all the songs i learn, along with the chords, since learning 250 songs and remembering 250 songs are two entirely different things. by the time i'm done, i will be a one-man song-playing machine. available for weddings and bar mitzvahs.