Hello from Cardiff!
I’m Gareth, a very typical Welsh name, turned 51 exactly a week ago, so starting to fray at the edges now. I originally started playing guitar when I was in my late teens/early twenties, learnt a lot of Metallica, Pink Floyd, Ugly Kid Joe and so on. I can’t remember why I stopped playing, it may be that I felt I wasn’t progressing, that I’d hit a wall and the solo’s I could play up to, I could never actually play. Not sure! It was the time before websites like this, so I was learning what I could from tab books and whatever else I could find.
More than 20 years later, I’ve picked up a new guitar and instead of focusing on playing songs, I’m learning how to play the instrument. I’ve progressed through Justin’s lessons and am starting to make my way through Beginner Grade 3, though I’ve jumped ahead a bit as I’ve been learning all the Pentatonic Scales, just memorised the last shape of the Major Scale, and the CAGED system to string them all together.
Since I bought the new guitar I’ve been playing for about 10 months, just an hour or two a day usually, but my speed with the scales has increased, and one of the old Metallica solo’s I’ve finally managed to get through - usually with some hiccups, I certainly wouldn’t be able to play it live!
I’ve been learning a lot of other music though, I have the entire of Cavatina memorised and can ‘mostly’ play it, a few places are annoying and a pain to perfect. Learnt some Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Stereophonics, etc, though don’t ask me to play a whole song as I tend to only like the ‘fun’ parts.
So that’s me! Slowly working my way through the site while trying to perfect what I’ve learnt.
