Hi everyone. My name is Shane and I just found this site a few days ago. I am getting ready to signup for full access. I just wanted to introduce myself and ask a few general questions about learning to become a better guitar player.

I have had my guitar for many years it is a '91 Fender Strat Plus Deluxe. I took lessons for about 6 months back when I first got the guitar, but I have hardly touched the guitar in the past 6 years. I picked it up a few weeks ago, and I decided it is time to put some effort into becoming a better player. Now with that said, I have no idea where to start to actually accomplish this.

I am familiar with Major, Minor, and Pentatonic scales and how patterns move around the fret board to produce different keys/chords/etc. When I say familiar, I mean that I know the patterns on the fret board.

My big problem is that my ear is not very good. I can not for the life of me pick out a song by ear. I even have trouble tuning my guitar by ear. I can tell when it is not in tune, but just can't seem to get it back in tune by ear. I have learned most everything that I can play by reading tablature or having someone show me. I would like to develop a better ear. Of course I can not sing anywhere in tune also.

My favorite type of music to listen to is 80's rock (Skid Row, Poison, Whitesnake, Tesla, etc.), guitar instrumentals (Vai, Eric Johnson, Satriani, etc.), Pink Floyd (David Gilmour), and modern Blues (SRV, Ian Moore, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, etc.).

Any information on a good practice routine, exercises, etc. would be great.

Thanks,

Shane