The thing about playing guitar is if you don't keep playing a song you've learned, you tend to forget how to play it.
Such was the case with a song I once learned, "Pitseleh" by Elliott Smith.
The song itself isn't that hard. In fact, like many other Elliott Smith tunes, the most challenging part is the timing. Still, if you asked me to play "Pitseleh" today, I couldn't—I've forgotten.
But I'll never forget where I was when I learned how to play it.
I learned to play "Pitseleh" in a small bedroom I rented in an East Village apartment during the summer of 2007.
The apartment, which I shared with three other people, was in a four-floor walk-up on 2nd Avenue between East Fifth and Sixth Streets. The rent was super high, and the room was literally only big enough for a bed and a desk, but I had always wanted to live in Manhattan.
Of course, things are always rose-colored in hindsight, but I remember really enjoying myself that summer. I'd go to the West Village for dinner or to St. Mark's Place to check out the awesome second-hand shops there. Sometimes I'd just go up to Central Park for a walk or to Midtown for ShakeShack.
Despite all the places I'd go, though, I remember often thinking the same thing when I'd be on my way back home at night: "I can't believe I live in Manhattan!"
And it was in that little rented room of mine, that little postage stamp of a space, that I learned to play "Pitseleh."
I don't remember if I printed the tabs to the song or just read them off my laptop, but I know I would practice the piece over and over.
What really sticks out in my memory, though, when thinking back to learning "Pitseleh,” was just how unbearably hot my room was. The summer of 2007 in New York City was a scorcher, with a high of 96 degrees in July, and my room had no air-conditioner. I just remember sitting on the edge of my bed with my acoustic guitar, pouring sweat as I played. Eventually, I did convince one of the roommates to help me install an air-conditioner, but until then, man, was it blazing up there.
As for the song itself, learning "Pitseleh" was a rewarding experience. I say rewarding because the riff that Elliott Smith plays at the beginning is so resonant, distinct, and, frankly, easy that you immediately feel you've made great leaps forward once you learn it. Plus, the song is basically all acoustic guitar, so what you're strumming sounds exactly like what's heard on the album.
But, anyway, yeah, that room. I actually wound up moving out of it at the end of the summer. I had a full-time job when I moved in but decided to give it up to focus all my energies on journalism school, which was set to begin in September. I moved back to my mom’s apartment, which was where I lived until finishing graduate school. But that room, little as it was, really gave me a taste of a life I liked.
