Hi All,
I have tried to learn guitar since I was 11, I am now in my 60’s. I played in a couple of amateur bands in the late 70’s in SE London, mainly rhythm guitar. I stopped after a couple of years when work and married life came along.
I had a mid life crisis in my late 40’s and went back to college to study music and do a BTEC course(Pop/Rock & Jazz). That was a bit of a baptism of fire as I was very rusty, poor rhythm, and little guitar and music knowledge retained. Learning and performing 3 new songs a week was truly daunting, and I suffered from nerves when playing live. I progressed slowly and got to an average level, I was just starting to improvise better and was feeling good. Then near the end of the course I got problems with my left hand, it was thought this was repetitive strain injury from too much guitar practice, it stopped me playing, a very frustrating and depressing time and I stupidly sold all my gear.
18 months later when things got much worse with my left arm it was found that I had a trapped nerve in my neck, which had caused all the issues in the first place, after an operation to fuse two vertebrae and a years recovery the pain was gone. By then I was busy working and did not think about playing guitar again for about 8 more years.
Recently I retired and my wife gave me an acoustic guitar, via a friend, and said why not have another go you have lots of time to get back into it. So now here I am with an Aria Pro II Nashville(Telecaster type) electric, a 30W Kustom amp and a couple of pedals, some music guitar books, my old course notes and luckily for me I found JustinGuitar when an ex work colleague recommended him to me.
I am practising most days and gradually things are coming back, I am enjoying playing again, but I am still struggling with aspects, as I did 10 years ago, mainly rhythm/timing, and syncronisation.
I am hoping to get good enough to play with along with a few like minded local musicians for fun if I can get over my nerves as well.
Cheers
Adrian
