Yo from Carl, an expat in Japan

Hi all, Carl here. I live in Japan currently as an expat. Will be moving to Guam shortly. I’ve been playing guitar sporadically for quite some time, about 28 years. I started with weekly in person lessons in my preteens and played in your typical 90s high school pop punk band…loud with a lot of drums, power chords, and distortion! After not consistently playing for several years except the occasionally campfire song I found JustinGuitar about 10 years ago and completed the beginner track as a refresher and to shore up my weak spots. Stalled out a bit since and am looking to improve consistency and start collaborating again. I’m focusing on fingerstyle and singing right now but will remain open to adjusting my focus if I get the chance to play another style with another musician/band. I’ll start to post some of my really basic rock/country/folk chords and singing covers in the sharing space. Would like to spice them up with improving my singing and adding some guitar fills to get to the point where I could confidently do busking/open mic/informal solo bar gigs. Totally wanting feedback on practice or approach so looking forward to interacting in this forum. Perhaps I can also help others stay encouraged to keep going and avoid some of the roadblocks I hit in my music journey. Just recently discovered these forums and they’re somewhat of a hidden gem so huge thanks to those who put in the work to keep them going. Rock on! -Carl

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:wave: Welcome to the group Carl, good to have you here.

R

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Hey Carl
nice to meet you :slight_smile:
welcome to the community :smiling_face: :sunflower:

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Welcome, Carl @Sayheycarl! You’ve come to the right place to both get and give feedback and inspiration.

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Welcome to the forum Carl

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Welcome Carl, enjoy your time here.

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Hello Carl & Welcome!
I hope you find that this is a pretty good group of positive guitar people!
Keep it fun!!!

Tod

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Hi, Carl. Welcome. Sounds like you’ve got a good jump on things. I look forward to seeing/hearing your playing.

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Hi Carl,
Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun :sunglasses:
Greetings,Rogier

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Welcome Carl, hope you’ll have a good time here, lots of nice people here and a great spirit to help each other :blush:.

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Hi Carl. Enjoy your time here. I grew up with a friend in Puerto Rico that now lives in Okinawa. That’s about as much as I know from the interesting (understatement) country of Japan

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welcome

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Welcome aboard, Carl
You have a good head start on most of us here. Enjoy it.
Looking forward to your first share :smiley:

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Hi Carl, welcome to the community forum. If you completed beginner track stages 1 to 9 like I did 10 years ago, you might enjoy looking at the new lessons in the new beginner course. All of the chords in the classic beginner grades 1-3 are now covered in grades 1and 2 and grade 3 is completely new. Enjoy looking at all of Justin’s new song tutorial videos and learning about enhancing your guitar accompaniment while singing.

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Welcome Carl!

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Hi Carl. Welcome. :wave:

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Hi Carl, welcome. Good you’re still working on how to improve your guitar playing (and singing). In addition to the revamped beginner grades Justin has also improved the more advanced grades too. I’ve found for me that as far as I keep working at least a few minutes a week on the technique (on things I don’t know well how to play) it’s less likely that I’ll feel stalled and more likely to see progress here and there. Have fun.

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Hello Carl.
Welcome to JustinGuitar and this fantastic community. Please take your time to look around and get to know the wider space.
https://community.justinguitar.com/categories

We are a supportive and encouraging group of students and guitarists from across the world. Essentially, we are all here for music and to improve as players. We truly are a ‘community’. Members help and support one another and a friendly, positive attitude underpins this. We hope that all - young or old, experienced or new players - adopt and foster the pay-it-forward ethos that Justin personifies and embedded all those years ago when he started the website and forum.

Also, please make sure to read the community etiquette announcement for some important information and guidance.

Richard
:grinning:

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