Hello all!
I’ve been lurking here a bit and thought I’d throw up this introduction post. I will apologize in advance because this got way longer than I had anticipated.
TLDR: I’ve had a long running on-again/off-again relationship with the guitar. We’re currently going at it pretty good and I’m hoping to keep the spark alive.
I’m in my 50s and other than a few years living in California, have spent most of my life in North Dakota. I started out playing a bit of guitar when I was a kid, picking around on my dad’s old acoustic even before I was big enough to hold it properly and had to lay it on the floor and just pick at the strings. I didn’t play it consistently enough to get very good at it, though, and around the 5th grade I was introduced to the viola. I played that all through high school and didn’t touch the guitar much again until much later.
Sometime around 2008 I found myself playing a lot of Guitar Hero and Rock Band with my wife on the Wii. When I started to find myself sitting down to practice to some of the more complicated songs, I began to realize that I could probably pick up a cheap electric guitar and just learn to play those songs for real. I got a Fender Squier kit with a Strat and Frontman 15g for just a bit over $100. I had a lot of fun with that, but my practice routine was pretty sporadic so I can’t say I got very good at it. I did start to learn to read guitar tab, and got the basics down of some songs like Sweet Home Alabama.
In late 2011 I learned about a game called Rocksmith that had just been released. It was basically Guitar Hero with a real guitar. I picked that up for the XBox and had a blast. I was playing it an hour or more probably 5-6 times a week. I learned a lot from that and immediately grabbed Rocksmith 2014 when it came out. I participated a bit in the Rocksmith forums at Ubisoft and I finally felt like I was getting somewhat decent at playing guitar.
Eventually, the Rocksmith playing become a bit more sporadic as other things got in the way. I was hoping Rocksmith+ would re-invigorate that feeling, but it no longer had a lot of my favorite songs from Rocksmith 2014 and I was having trouble finding things I had as much fun playing. I loved some of the new features like an actual tab view, but I couldn’t really justify spending money on a subscription for it.
About a year ago, I decided to start being a bit more intentional about practicing and set a goal to practice at least 10min/day for at least 4 days/week. I set it up in an app you can use to track streaks and am currently on a 52-week streak. Most of the time my practice sessions go more like 20-30 min, and it’s usually more like 5-6 days a week. I have been focusing more on learning things from tab so I don’t feel as constrained to playing things available in Rocksmith. I found an app that let me dump the Rocksmith 2014 songs into tab form, so that when I could play some of my favorite songs from that. I also started focusing on trying to memorize a few songs so that I have something in my repertoire to play when someone asks me to play something.
I’ve started playing around with DAWs like Reaper to create some simple backing tracks with drums and rhythm. I also have only recently gotten a few pedals and a couple of amps with built in effects, so that has been a fun new journey. There are also a ton of virtual guitar amps and effects to play with.
For probably the last decade or more, I’ve watched individual lessons from Justin’s YouTube channel and really enjoyed his teaching style. This last year I started going through the lessons from the beginning and am currently into around Grade 2 module 9. Even though I had a good understanding of some of the topics covered in the early lessons, I wanted to start from the beginning because I knew I’d probably pick up tips and tricks. I was not wrong as I have learned a lot from those lessons. I also started through the Practical Music Theory Course and am at probably about a third of the way through Module 3. Some of that has mostly been review as it also applies to what I learned playing viola, but there’s always something new to learn. The viola doesn’t really do chords well, so I’m looking forward to getting into those lessons more.
The last few days I’ve been spending some time in the community section. I watched a couple of the first Open Mic events. It looks like everyone had a lot of fun playing those. It’s part of what inspired me to write this introduction and try to participate a bit more. It’s great to see all of the talent and also to see people pushing themselves out of their comfort zone to perform for others. I mostly play for myself, but have always enjoyed the couple opportunities I’ve had to play for others and hope to maybe have more of those opportunities here.
