Hi everyone,
I’ve got a really mixed, unusual relationship with the guitar.
I started playing as a young teenager in the late nineties and was really serious about it into college. I wanted to major in music, but ended up with a minor (the guitar program was dropped partway through). I was always sort of perpetually on a plateau, for lots of reasons. Most of my peers in the music department had a big leg up on me, guitar was limited to classical, and I struggled with some pretty deep confidence issues. I graduated into the Great Recession and ended up working a lot of random retail and guitar teaching jobs. I think I’ve worked at every big guitar big box retailer, plus an indie (these were mostly Not Awesome experiences, as a young woman).
In my twenties I played in a (kind of bad but very enthusiastic) gigging cover band and had an original (same) pop punk band that played out. I was never great–good enough to look brilliant to non-players, not good enough to keep up with most of the musicians around me. I’ve never felt particularly good about my playing. My parents were never thrilled about my interest in music, and this made things harder, too. This was also not the most conducive moment for women, girls, and femme folks trying to play guitar, as I’m sure many can also tell you. But I was still pretty determined. I went back to school for a little while and studied jazz, but dropped out (same confidence problems as before, except people were even scarier, because jazz). I taught private lessons (mostly to children and teens), worked at the odd rock camp, and played a lot of open mics.
I ended up in a several-year-long abusive relationship with another guitar player, and stopped playing almost completely for several years. Maybe once every two or three years I play at a campfire or do a random three-song set at an open mic, but then it goes back into the closet. As always, I can impress non-players. But I have essentially been building cities on the same plateau for almost fifteen years.
I have had so so so much therapy (LOL), sailing into middle-age. What I have not done is try to be in community with nice people. I made a goal this year to build a doable, non-threatening practice regime and focus on playing for joy rather than to “be good” or “be real” or whatever other standard we sometimes have for ourselves. I would like to spend 2025 revisiting some basics, filling in some holes with the things that I never learned, doing some songwriting, and maybe even finding a way to play with other people again.
TikTok turned me on to Justin Guitar and I really like the community-based donation model. I’m excited by the idea of lessons without anxiety (and I’m excited that the guitar landscape is becoming more gender inclusive).
Thanks for reading my long post! I hope to get to know some of you!
coyotesnacks
. Start at the beginning of Justin’s lessons. The very beginning. You’ll sail through (your biggest time commitment may be watching the videos!). Others have done this, though, and said they picked up some really good tips even though they had a good guitar background. Also, since you’ve taught, you might find it interesting to watch Justin’s methods. If nothing else you’ll see how the course is organized!
It is very friendly, supportive and inclusive 
( discl: I only know the bad stories from the newspapers and the TV news itself, I don’t go there)