Hi, I’m Jim. So glad to become part of this community.
I’m 63 years old and started playing guitar when I was about 10, round abouts. I played up into the late 90’s, but I hit a kinda wall. I seemed to be becoming stagnate and not getting any better at playing.
I’ve been into music all my life really. I played trombone in Jr. and Sr. high. Marching band, stage band, orchestra (guitar was a side kick that I never did anything with). So at that point I was reading music, could even sight read music. Not so much any more. That was too long ago and I’ve pretty much forgot all of it.
Around 2000 I just quite playing guitar all together. I had a couple of guitars, but they sat in their cases for the next 25 years or so.
Fast forward to now.
About 3 1/2 years ago, I decided to pick up the guitar again. I didn’t really know where to start at so went in search of some on line guitar lessons. I ended up here at JustinGuitar.com.
I just started with lesson 1 and went through the lessons.
I got up into grade 5 somewhere and stopped.
I was on a different forum and started collaborating with someone. That was a lot of fun but I kinda stopped my lessons at that point. I need to pick the lessons up again I think as the collaboration has ended.
After the collaborations ended, I needed to find somewhere to go. I really like Justin’s teaching skills and I remembered that so came back here. I didn’t even know JustinGuitar had a forum, but I’m glad I caught on. My base idea is that to get better, other than playing a lot (and perhaps some lessons), I need to find someone who is better than I am so they can try to teach this old cat new tricks, so to speak.
I’m ready to get back into the lessons but can’t remember where I left of other than somewhere in grade 5.
fwiw, I play by my self. I don’t know anyone to play guitar with. But I would like to collaborate with someone again. I liked that (only done on line collab).
I got me a interface and a daw that I can kinda use. I was learning that from my old collab buddy, but it got cut short, so that needs work too. I’ve got no great way to video record myself short of a telephone w/crummy audio.
I guess I’m looking for guidance from others has to how to proceed.
The music I like is from the late 60’s to the mid 70’s Rock and Roll, and folk rock. Plus I lean to the blues and folk side of Rock and Roll would be my guess. I play a few Beatles songs. Recent songs I’ve done on recording are. Youngbloods Get Together a collab (my last collab), CSNY Helplessly hoping, Our House, Triad, all solo recordings (multi track). I also have maybe another 10 or so songs that I collabed on. Even a two original songs.
One of the more fun songs I got to play along with was The Weight, by the Band. It was done in the style of ‘playing for change’ where ea. verse got passed on to another person. So had 5 or so different styles of playing for the different verses. I had fun with that song and I got to do the base rhythm guitar glue that holds the song together and I got to do the into, + I got to do verse 2. It was fun, and diversified.
fwiw, since I been playing for 3 1/2 years now, I’ve already been bitten by the GAS bug. So I have some new to me gear. At this point I think I’ve found the tones I want with the gear I have and have not had GAS since April when I got my last piece of gear. I have electric guitar or acoustic to choose from and go back and forth often depending on how I feel.
While I like the gear, I know it won’t make me a better player.
So hear I am. Needing to learn some new tricks and looking for guidance as to how to get there.
Another fwiw. Here’s kinda where I’m at.
This is me. 4 tracks I think. Finger pickin guitar (which I’m learning to do), Rhythm, strumming guitar. Main vocal track + a harmony vocal track. Sorry about the singing. I don’t sing, and I for sure found it real hard to come up with singing harmony. I also did this song too fast. When I did it, I purposely didn’t look up the song on the www. I wanted to do it w/o help from the real song. Only from memory. What I did was look up the tempo on the www. It said 140 bpm (from memory). Well, that seemed to fast and I slowed it down to 130 or so. After it was done, then I went and listened to the real song. Man, I did it way to fast and should have not bothered with the strumming guitar part. Hind sight is 20/20.
Looking forward to becoming part of this community and getting on with some more lessons and learning.
I don’t know, but do folks collaborate here? I found that to be a lot of fun. And I think it was helping me become better too. Playing with others is not playing by yourself. ie. staying in tempo. I find myself wandering in tempo many times, and if I use a metronome I find it hard to stay with the metronome.
Well, that’s my short/long story.
Glad to be here.
And Hello to All.
