My name is Kris and I’ve been learning from Justin Guitar for around ten or eleven years. I’ve been bashing away at a guitar for probably 25 years now, but in fits and starts, so I haven’t progressed a lot a lot over all that time.
What I have learned I’ve learned in three bursts. In 2001-02 I was teaching English in South Korea and I met a guy called Kevin Wolf who played guitar. I played and sang something simple I already knew, he thought my voice was pretty good, so he said we should play together. He taught me a few songs and introduced me to the tablatures that were circulating on the internet back then that were such a great pre-YouTube learning resource. We put together a little set list, busked outside a mall and played a couple of ‘gigs’ at a local rock bar.
The second burst was after I dropped out of a PhD in anthropology in 2008 because I wanted more time to play guitar and watch t.v. (this was peak binge-tv watching years, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc etc). That summer I spent a lot of time on the crumbling rooftop deck of my crummy Toronto apartment learning a lot from lessons put together by Guitar Noise’s David Hodge. He had some really cool lessons, I remember enjoying Give a Little Bit by Supertramp and Driver 8 by REM as especially interesting to learn (I should pick them up again, couldn’t play them now).
While I first encountered Justin Guitar in 2012 or 2013, my third burst didn’t come til I received Justin Guitar’s Acoustic Songbook for Christmas in something like 2015. I really learned a lot from that book over a couple of years. I was especially proud to pretty much nail Sheryl Crow’s Strong Enough, with those couple of tricky chord changes and that really interesting 6/4 time signature.
In terms of aspirations, I’ve stuck to that Acoustic Songbook for so long now it’s time to move on - maybe just to some different acoustic songs, maybe into some electric guitar (just need an electric guitar). I’ve started posting some of the songs I learned from the Acoustic Songbook here as a kind of a ceremonial send-off to a dear old friend. It’s been more than twenty years since I performed anything live, so if I can work up the gumption, maybe I’d like to do that again, busking or some kind of open mic.
Hi Kris and welcome. I am from the opposite side of the country from you , in Wexford but am in Chicago at the moment. Wish you a lot of fun with your guitar.
Hi Kris, nice to meet you! Great choice to continue the guitar journey. Wow, you seem to have seen a lot of the world. By the way, I used to live in Dublin for several months during the '90s. I also did a bit of traveling throughout the country at that time, and I stayed in Galway and the surrounding area for some days. I enjoyed it very much. So, you were an English teacher… okay, then please ignore my grammar and spelling for now
All the best,
Franz
Hi Kris, welcome to the community to a longtime follower of Justin Guitar. If you have mastered the Acoustic Songbook then you have developed some serious acoustic guitar skills. I look forward to hearing your posted videos of your playing.
Hi Kris,
Always good to have another Paddy on board
Librarian in Galway after world travel, eh?
Good to see you focusing on guitar again. We’ll have you joining in our open mics as soon as you feel ready
All the best
Welcome to the forum Kris. It sounds like you’ve got some quite established chops behind you already! That’s a great idea to have a ceremonial send off to the songbook you used to work from, and I’m looking forward to hearing whatever you happen to apply yourself to next.
Welcome Kris, ‘3rd strike’ and still not out … good for you …
Plenty going on in here and look forward to seeing you for OM XXI in early '24.
This month the JGC is hosting a “Livestream” , Saturday evening (UTC 0), 2nd Dec . I understand it is being multicast on both Zoom and Youtube, There is no sign-up requirement for the audience, so watch out for publicity being posted.
, so we’ll expect to see you in the open mic soon then. 
