I have watched several of Justin’s videos on Youtube over the years and I have found a lot of valuable information and instruction about guitar. I hope you are doing well.
a bit about me. I have been what I call a “Bar Professional” going on 23 years now doing about 170 shows a year as a solo artist an if it’s one thing I know you can always learn and I am not Youngster.
I joined Justins site just a couple of days ago and also sent the link to my Grandson. I hope his dad lets him join.
I have already started on some of the lessons in the intermediate level “Practicing Sales” and have already found things I can work on to improve. I look foward to learning everything I can from your site. Thank you
Dave
Hey Dave, that’s cool, great to hear from you and welcome to the community. We are traveling around Australia in our RV and were at a campground recently, when I started playing a couple of boys in the campsite next door came out to join in, they’d only recently got their guitars. I told them about Justin Guitar and the next day the oldest one said he’s been on it a fair bit that morning and was enjoying it.
Welcome to the Community, Dave. Hope you’ll be able to share some recordings of you performing. Most of us are very much novice, beginner to intermediate levels, and love the inspiration from enjoying players with more experience.
Hi Skinnyt,
Pretty Competent, thank you, I am totally self taught and even though I have been professional for the last 23 years I do have some bad habits i need to correct which can be very hard to correct. We can all improve regardless of our current level.
I don’t know what the “AVoYP” is so you will have to explain that one to me. I do have some videos on youtube that someone else put up. seach Dave Sherman at Fager’s Island (they are about 10 years old.
Thanks for relpying and have a great guitar day.
Best
Dave
DavidP,
Thanks for the welcome. Unfortunatley I am not a great Teacher, LOL that’s why I am here attemping to undo all the bad habits I have developed over the years. I did record a CD back in 2004 with some orginals no Videos but Just joining the site I do not know how to upload them.
With the likes of Justin’s and Tomo Fujita’s web sites I think I’ve finally found the two sites online I want to concentrate on.
Have a Great Day!
Dave
Welcome to the community. I’m glad to see there are journeyman guitarists here as well. You sound like you are at the level we all hope to achieve. I would love to hear how you started and what steps you took in the early days to play in time and master the basics. What is the trick to playing and singing using complex strumming patterns? I can do the basics going on about 4 months of playing and singing, but hope to get to the next level. Also would love to hear a sampling of your band. I’ve been to Maryland just once. Gaithersburg was a nice area.
Jeff,
I started right after seeing the Beatles on the ED Sullivan show in Feb1964. That Christmas I got my first Guitar from Montgomery Wards, I think it was an Airline. With no formal training it took me a whole year to learn my first song “All MY Lovin” by the Beatles.
Just me an my friends learning chords and Tryng to figure out songs. Played in teen center bands until I went into the service, hardly played at all at that time. On discharge I join a friends band and we wound up on the road for 14 months performing Disco and Top 40, Mid 70s. I wasn’t very good but could cover the gigs even with no music theory.
Stop playing all together in '77 and didn’t play again until 17 years later. Hated my day job and mention to my wife that I would like to move to the Beach and play music fulltime, her support was overwhelming. So from '94 I started practicing again with the only guitar I had left. Took me 6 years to get most of it back learning songs. Singing and playing came natually for me especially after you have the chords totally memorized ( second Nature) Playing along with recordings to get the beat and try to copy the strumming patterns. ( I never really try and play exactly like the record, I stay true to the song but make it my own)
Guitar opened up for me when I started learning a bit of music theory, you know scales and the chords that go with those scales. Songs started to get eaiser to figure out with that bit of knowledge. Also playing with musicians who had more knowlege than I did helped.
I got a bit long here, but metromone use is important once you have something down pat at no Tempo like a scale or Chord progression and start slow and work it up to speed.
I don’t have a band all of my shows are solo. in my off season I go to open mics and jam with friends.
Hope this helps.
Best
Dave
Thanks very much for sharing your story. It was very inspirational to know of someone giving up the day job and doing what you love instead. I talk about that too sometimes, one day giving it all up and just performing. Besides, you can’t go wrong playing the classics from the Beatles! I play a lot of ballads and rock music from the 70s-90s like Poison, Bon Jovi, Kiss, etc. I first picked up a guitar years ago and was pretty awful at playing. This past year or two I tried to relearn. Nowadays we are spoiled with you tube and the internet. I have been doing the Justin guitar course and feel like I made some tremendous progress. His teaching methods are fantastic. I am pretty good with most of the common open chords and can change chords at a decent pace.
A few months back I decided to tackle playing and singing, which is a bigger challenge than I thought. I can play the music to a song a lot faster and more accurate when not singing, but want to do the whole package. I posted a few videos here on the forum in the record yourself area. I think the best one was the Cinderella song, but very basic strumming. I still have a long way to go and would appreciate any feedback from a pro like yourself if you ever have time. The positives I have is I have no problem performing in front of large groups, as long as I know the song, and no issues with hearing what I need to improve. Thus far the main feedback is playing in tempo, even strumming, some mechanics, and singing louder. I use that metronome everyday now.
Anyways great to meet you. I inspire to get better by asking advice from experts that have done it, One day I hope to do what you did and be performing. Solo sounds good to me too, Thanks for reading and for the advice. Rock on
Hey Jeff,
as far as improving your singing, I would reccomend Mark Baxter. I bought his book years ago titled “Rock and Roll singers survival manual”, but he is on YouTube. I still do his vocal exerices to this day.
Best
Dave
Thanks for the recommendation to help improve singing. I ordered a copy of that book and it should be here today. There were lots of good reviews on Amazon from others who used it, Thanks again for all the help:)
Hi Sherman, welcome. Good you are finding the ways to improve your playing, that shows how much you love music. Thank you for the good advices you are starting to provide. I may give it a try to the book you mentioned above.
It’s great to have a jobbing musician join us - I’m sure there is a lot you can offer to people taking their learning steps, lots you have learned over the years that hopefully you will feel able to impart and guide folk.
Learning to play our instrument is a lifelong pursuit. Good on you for looking to stretch yourself in new directions.
Cheers
Richard
