I’ve decided to document my journey as a guitar player. I’ve been putting up videos on YouTube for a few months now, but there are times when I want to document something, but don’t want to take the time to create a video. That’s where this will come in.
I’ll give a quick overview of my guitar playing history. I got my first guitar when I was 15-ish (give or take a year). I remember my motivation. I was introduced to a guy who had only been playing a few months and he was awesome. Seriously. He was. I thought if he could do it, so could I. I didn’t take any formal lessons and this was in the dial up internet era, so there were no internet instructional videos. I think I lasted all of two or three weeks before I got frustrated because I wasn’t shredding it up like that other guy. Looking back, it’s possible that they were pulling the wool over my eyes, and it’s also possible that he merely learned to play power chords and used a lot of distortion and my memory is fuzzy…
I didn’t pick the guitar up again until over ten years later. This was a few years ago. I had been playing the Guitar Hero games for a while and was decent (most songs on Hard I could beat and a few on Expert). My desire to learn to play was rekindled and I bought a cheapo starter kit. I don’t think I lasted three weeks that time. I seriously overestimated the amount of time I had available. I was dating my soon-to-be-wife at the time and she lived over two hours away from me. That, combined with work, didn’t leave too much time to practice and it was a pain to pack up the guitar to take with me when I went to visit her. So I shelved the guitar until I had more time available.
Fast forward a few years. We’re now married and I have time (I work at home). We moved to North Carolina and we started attending a church down here. After years of living in rebellion of God, I gave my life back to Christ and I started getting the desire to learn to play so I could worship in that way. After much deliberation, I decided the best way to keep myself motivated was to purchase a nice guitar instead of using the cheapo I had. That motivation works, too. When I get frustrated and don’t feel like playing, I think of all the money I have invested and I pick it up anyway!
I also decided that lessons were in order this time. Instead of trying to teach myself, which didn’t work the first two times, I wanted someone to teach me. I found a local instructor and at the time of this writing, I am still taking lessons once a week. It’s really helped. He’s able to correct any bad habits I start before they get too ingrained and he’s able to give me new material based on my current skill level. It also gives me motivation to practice as often as I can, so that I can show some progress in my next lesson.
Okay, so that wasn’t such a quick overview, but there you have it.