Claire F., Northmont Middle School
Essay
Can you expect to be able to play Bohemian Rhapsody on the guitar as well as Brian May if you've been playing for 7 months and he's been playing about half his life? That's almost impossible…unless you had extra help. Maybe a tutor, or extra lessons, or maybe even prior experience. The point is, some people have a good foundation laid out for them, and some have to work harder to achieve that good foundation. Some people's guitars aren't tuned at first, and some people's guitars come tuned.
As of right now, my guitar is about halfway tuned. It hasn't always been that way though. My guitar used to be perfectly tuned, until 6th grade. 6th grade was the worst year of my life. Mental and physical health are like guitar strings. 6th grade is when my strings went so out of tune it was like they snapped in half. I was not confident with myself, I was insecure, and I was barely making an effort to keep my strings in tune at all.
The first step to keeping your strings in tune is to know what being out of tune looks and sounds like. At the time, I had a false vision of what mental instability looked like. I always thought it was like the movies, seeing things that aren't there, being scared of everything, having weird obsessions with the most random things, etc. Once I learned what it looked like, I was still scared to speak up. If you want to learn how to tune your guitar but don't know how to, you have to ask. You also can't have your strings too tight or too loose. You can't be too tightly wound to the point you break. You also can’t be too loose to where you have no purpose in life and no discipline. Then you have no sound coming from your strings.
Steps I've taken to keep my mental and physical strings in tune vary in difficulty. Some issues were easy to fix or to get back in tune. However, some strings were harder to tune. I either tuned too high or too low. A way I've found to see if your strings are tuned or not is to compare yourself to the last time your strings were in perfect tune. If it looks like you need to retune your strings, some outside influences may assist you in that way. Surround yourself with people whose strings are in tune and know what it looks like for strings to be in tune. Surround yourself with people who will help tune your guitar, not keep it out of tune.
Taking these steps and others that weren't included can greatly help you in life having a positive attitude and good mental health. Having a nicely tuned guitar makes it sound better in general. People will think more highly of you if they know you keep your guitar nicely in tune rather than keeping it untuned and sounding messy.
