The Duel :: English Literature Essays

The Duel Walking onto the stage, seeing my challenger; thought not much of him, then I glanced to my left; hundreds upon hundreds of people have come to see this. My nerves shot to hell, I picked it up, plugged it in, waiting for the challenger’s opening riff. â€Å"Just one more time, I’ll get it this time, for sure!† I was tutoring some twelve year old; his name, David Ellison Mai. I was trying to teach him how to play the guitar. I have been playing for so many years, I cannot even begin to think how it is like for a beginner, all those new chords, scales, getting your fingers used to the touch of cold steel; set adrift on memory bliss. The only reason I got into this type of music is because of my brother. He meant to pack up his guitar when he moved out to his student home, he did not have enough space for it, and so he left it a week, and said that his friend would drop it off. Of course, seeing it sitting there in my room, I couldn’t just leave it alone; the shiny black surface, shimmering the light, almost giving it a warm glow. Every day, I would just look at it, and I was just getting into the whole rock music scene, so I knew a lot of inspirational guitarists. I couldn’t just sit around anymore; I pic ked it up, and started to learn. I did not know what to do for the first week, it was only when my brother came back that I started making progress. My brother came back for a week, to tie up some loose ends before he moved out for three years, to get his degree. It wasn’t long before my parents were supporting me to learn, they were always buying me books, strings and anything I needed to progress. I can still remember my fingers getting to the point where they would bleed, due to me playing for so many hours on end. When I wasn’t playing, I would just sit down and imagine myself playing on a stage, with thousands of people cheering me on. That dream was very far off; I was still having trouble holding the thing. Many of the guitarists I knew of all taught themselves, and I could see how good they were. I wanted to be just like them, I vowed never to get a teacher.