Hi Everyone, I'm a guitar addict

Hey Brendan, welcome to the community. I beat my GAS when I realized the gear wasn’t making me a better player, so now I have GPS instead. Good to see a Canadian here, I gained a really good Canadian friend working for a global company. I’ve had aspirations of learning to be a luthier. Another friend of minute took a couple of build your own guitar courses and now builds his own range of guitars and ukuleles.

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Nice! I’ve been working on building my first guitar for quite a few months now. I got side tracked part way through and started making my own bench haha, but slowly the pieces are coming together.
So far my GAS has helped inspire me to play more, but I can see how quickly it will get out of control if I let it haha :sweat_smile:

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Welcome Brendan.
It is Justin’s structure allied with his easy manner and supreme skills of teaching that make him so popular and successful at helping people all around the world to play.
Congratulations and kudos for stepping right back to the role of absolute beginner and stating from the basics.
:slight_smile:

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Hey Brendan, sounds like you’re definitely on the right track!
Do not underestimate GAS it’s very sneaky, it attacks when you’re expecting it least! Her indoors keeps mine under control, she’s very clever at spotting any ideas I have about getting things in through the back door :joy:
Looking forward to hearing from you as you go through your journey, it’s customary to share recording(s) in the AVOYP section; it leads to critique, advice, encouragement and confidence to be gained plus keeping a record of your progress.
Join in the fun and enjoy!

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Hi Brendan , welcome!

GAS is a real thing, talk to me about photography :wink:

As for the luthier bit I think its important to know how your tolls work and how to keep them in shape whatever you are doing

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Thanks for the reply guys! Stepping back to beginner was quite an amazing experience, Richard, it helped me appreciate all the hours of practice I’ve put it and how far I’ve come since I first picked up a guitar and thought “wow that’s a lot of strings, it’s so shiny, I hope he doesn’t give me a pick to play something”

Darrell it’s funny you point out the AVOYP section, I’ve already posted there! You should check my post out if you want, I’d love all the feedback I can get!
Rob Zombie - Dragula (Cover, Audio Only)

If I was more reckless I’d definitely be buying an EQ pedal, a better cab, some sort of pedal switching system, my list goes on and on (and on).

Rob, one of my co-workers does astro photography and I’ve seen him put down some seriously big money on that haha.

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Hello there :wave:

Welcome and make yourself comfortable. We always have room for another one :grin:

It seems we have very alike taste for music (and detours) :sweat_smile:. Another metal head to the family :grin:.

Well if you are not comfortable in your current job and being a luthier is a realistic goal… I don’t see the problem :+1:.

Anyway, good luck with your journey
:metal::guitar:

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Welcome to the community, Brendan. What better way to manage GAS than learning to be a luthier. I look forward to following your progress. Rock on.

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Hey Brendan! Glad your enjoying the lessons here! :smiley: Guitar Addiction is truly sneaking up on me as well and owning a guitar shop sounds like double the trouble! :joy:

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Oh yeah haha I used to teach that

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Welcome Brendan. New guitar addict here. Check out my new baby. Check out this attic find!

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Thanks for the introduction, Brendan. Look forward to updates from you. Would love to hear and see more of the guitar build project.

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Hello Brendan and welcome to the community. :slight_smile:

There are plenty of people here willing to talk and share their musical experiences.

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And so it starts. Next will be the addition to put the bench in so you have more room, then new tools, then the shop thing starts to really gnaw at you. I am truly sorry, but you are so badly bitten there is no going back!

Glad you found a space here to share your insanity, er, I mean passion, with like minded folks. :grinning:

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Hey Brendan,

Welcome to this awesome community :hugs::hugs:. I totally feel your GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) and I think the only cure is to acquire more guitars and play more music :grin::grin:.

If I could, I would totally send you help to setup your own guitar shop :star_struck:. Just how awesome would it be.

I am looking forward to see your music and shop :muscle::muscle:.

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Haha I know exactly what you mean. I’m part way through making the bench and I started making a few tools so that making the bench is easier lol. Badly bitten is an understatement :joy:

And to everyone else, thank you for the warm welcomes! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Hello Brendan. I’m new here too and I have the same addiction too. I have quite a few expensive hobbies and guitars is one of them.

I have a few of Troy’s books. I put them aside…for now since I am “coming out of retirement”. Feel free to look for my initial post on the Introduce Yourself Page for the background story that lead me to joining the community and signing up for Justin’s app.

I agree with you on what you said about Justin’s methods being logical and methodical.

I too have a major interest in blues and jazz. I dabble a little bit in those studies elsewhere, but I have to keep reminding myself to put more focus on Justin’s lessons. I think that will help me avoid “bad habits”. I had a lightbulb moment when he taught using anchor fingers for chords. It just makes learning them so much easier than I did 20 years ago. I just learned them from a book. I quickly discovered that there are more efficient ways for finger placement in chords by going through Justn’s app.

I recommend looking into his app. It really streamlines the online lessons on his website. The navigation is already done for you. It makes learning so much easier especially when you want to practice for a few minutes.

On a side note, I’ve been looking at another format for jazz lessons. I happened upon Frank Vignola. I watched a YouTube video and he said one thing that I think we should all remember about practicing. Practice for 15 minutes every day. You will find your progress to continually go up. If you practice for 2-3 hours a day one day a week, you won’t make much progress. Makes sense to me. I believe Justing even said this early in the lessons to just do 15 minutes a day.

Enjoy your journey and have some fun!

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Do you plan on getting back to Troy’s books? I’ve almost finished the second rhythm guitar method and I found chapter 8 to be the hardest so far by a lot!! I finaly nailed that chapter recently though and it feels pretty good. Chapter 5 is also super hard lol. Ugh, it’s all hard actually lol, but I still enjoy every minute of it.

My problem is trying not to over practicing lol. Once my kids are in bed I can easily lose my whole night playing guitar and I’m worried I’ll injure my fingers by playing too much.

I found the anchor fingers really cool and useful too! But I can’t finger the A chord the way he suggests to because it causes me some pain in my index finger :disappointed:

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Yes I do plan on going back to them. For now, I just need to concentrate on Justin’s app and some jazz lessons that I am looking at on Truefire.

I tend to get bored with lessons mostly because I try to learn too many styles all at once. Also finding the right lessons, whether in books or online, need to be logical in a way that shows you progress and the lessons make sense. Learning certain chords, especially the essential jazz chords, and trying to make them perfect before moving on is a pitfall for me. Justin and Frank Vignola (from Truefire) both remind students that perfection will come with time. Play for 15 minutes a day and try not to get too bogged down in the details with playing. I realize that I can’t make each lesson perfection until I can move onto the next lesson. I just get decent at the lesson, move on to the next lesson but refer back to the previous lesson several times a week in my daily practice session. This actually takes the pressure off of me.

I tend to make things too hard.

So once I get comfortable with my abilities, I’ll pickup Troy’s books again at some point. I just need to work on a few methods at a time first.

In regards to the issues with finger pain for the A chord, perhaps you are pressing too hard. When I first started, 20 years ago, I was one of those who pressed HARD. With Justin’s explanation on finger pain, I do this much less. The other helpful tool I use for reducing finger pain is to play each string of the chords one at a time making sure the string sounds clear. I’ve found that putting too much pressure on the string doesn’t let the string ring clear. It actually buzzes on the next fret up.
On my 3 electrics, I use 9s. On the D’Angelico, it has 11’s. I find those to be better for me as I am less inclined to press the strings hard. Perhaps try a higher gauge strings. I’m not sure what gauge you are using but it might be something to think about.

I have a 78 Les Paul Standard and those frets are flat. I use Ernie Ball Super Slinkies 9’s on that one. On my Bonnie Raitt Strat, I use the same. I can see that I may change them to 11’s the more that I get used to the D’Angelico 11’s. I have a custom made guitar that also has 9’s on them.

I have small hands so I feel some of your struggles with fingers on chords. I can’t play really wide necks that well either. My LP neck doesn’t feel wide to me. It pretty comfortable actually. I had the luthier take the measurements from that neck and use that for my custom made guitar. The Strat has an unbelievably comfortable neck. Those Strats where made to target women players thus the reason why I bought it when those were released.

Ah I totally get the problem of trying to make things perfect before you move on. I tend to do that with new rhythms a lot, ive spent a lot more time practicing rhythm and groove than chords and fast transitions and stuff.

The pain is 100% from too much pressure. That’s a larger problem I have though, my muscles are involuntarily tense all the time and it takes a lot of focus to relax them. Regardless of guitar or any activity it’s just something I live with lol.
I use ernie balls hybrid 9s. I can’t string bend with 10s, but I prefer the feel if 10s on the low end. So the hybrids work nice for me.

I only have the one guitar so I dont know much about how different neck shapes feel. I did try an epiphone once that had an asymmetric neck and I really liked the feel of that, but I’m not sure if I like the shorter scale length.