New beginnings? 
It’ll be nearly 5 years since picking up a guitar in a couple of months but I’m embarking on a new approach.
I started off so enthusiastically with Justin’s lessons and made reasonable progress, getting to grips with open chords, simple strumming and basic theory. Then along came the old forum and I became increasingly ‘distracted’- fascinated and enthused about how much I could squeeze out of so little, shooting the breeze and sharing my (dis?)abilities with a bunch of weird guitar enthusiasts who had no qualms about egging me on 
I drifted further and further away from the lessons and spent more time hanging out on the forum. Learning to play basic A & E-shaped barre chords opened up a whole new horizon, basically allowing me to look up the chords to any obscure song I wanted to learn, simplify the chords and strum away, wailing along into my cheap camcorder or phone.
I had a ball.
And I improved 
However, my main improvement has been to become better at identifying chords/song structures and learning the phrasing of the vocals, so what used to take weeks I can now do in a day or two. That’s great but is no longer enough. Over the last couple of months I’ve been thinking I should work on improving my technique. I sort of started that in this month’s AVOYP thread, by posting a basic fingerstyle piece, as well as taking a couple of pointers from one of Justin’s lessons on The Weight. It feels good to be pushed out of my comfort zone again, fingers and hands not doing what my head wants them to, knowing that if I stick with it long enough, at some stage I’ll look back and marvel again at improvements.
Validation of my thought processes arrived yesterday via straight-talking Dutch commentary and an impressive bit of strumming by a Scottish septuagenarian.
Thanks guys
Well, what are the implications?
For starters, I plan to spend less time on hacking away at my keyboard talking about music and guitars, practicing and learning instead. (I was a bit taken aback when I had a look at the Community stats section and saw how much time I was spending here! 
)
I am typing with a pick in the corner of my mouth, which I plan on learning to use as my default (on electric).
I need to learn the theory and practice of some of those alternate chords and voicings (sus, add etc)
I am going to search the site for lessons on strumming and perhaps invest in one of the courses.
I want to learn the notes of the fretboard better and how the different scale patterns link together
I want…
Well I’m going to stop right there, because I’m also aware of my epicurean butterfly tendencies and how this ‘plan’ is likely to go up in smoke when I stumble across a really cool song that simply needs to be shared.
But as Joey famously shouted: “Hey ho, let’s go!”
