Hello all.
I am a mid 50's mostly new guitar player. I did have lessons for about 6 months in my 20's, but it was in a classroom setting where the pace of the lessons was determined by the abilities of the ones that didn't care to practice. ( I couldn't afford private lessons, and YouTube hadn't been invented yet.) Unfortunately, I got too frustrated to stick with it.
I played trumpet in high school and in a makeshift jazz band, so music is not entirely new to me. I recently found my old acoustic guitar that I thought was complely lost while going through storage, took it in to have it renewed, and then started looking for who was going to guide me through the path of really learning to play. Guitar tricks was highly rated for the structured learning that I was looking for - so here I am!
Like most adults, I was a bit concerned about the time that I would have available to practice. I think I've found a workable solution. I placed the TV remote behind the stand that the guitar is on. When I feel like killing time watching TV, I have to pick up the guitar in order to get to the remote. Then I have to decide whether an hour or more of watching TV will give me the same future benefit as an hour or more of making myself a better guitar player.
I gave myself another incentive to learn by treating myself to a Christmas present of a new Yamaha 112v electric guitar that is supposed to be pretty decent for beginners and a small practice amp. It just arrived today.
I've been working through the Fundamentals course with Lisa on the old acoustic - most of the way through level one so far. (Great voice by the way, which is fortunate, since mine isn't.) I also ran across her guided practice sessions, which are actually enjoyable to me, although they seem to focus mostly on the fretting hand. Strangely enough, my left hand is doing better than expected, and my right hand, which I thought was coordinated, is not doing as well as I would like. Does anyone know of any guided practice sessions devoted to the right hand that I could work on when my finger tips get too sore to press down on the strings anymore? Either strumming or picking would be great. I could perhaps do those while watching TV ;-} I figure I don't need to stop learning just because one hand isn't cooperating any more.
I'm not sure if it's permissable to request songs be added to the list in the forum? I looked for a couple of songs that made me want to learn guitar in the first place. Neither is available. One of them is Hallelujah. I thought the original by Leonard Cohen might be easy enough for me to play early, and maybe Jeff Buckley's version when I get a little better. The other is a guitar version of Bridge over Troubled Waters which I will have to get much better before attempting. Actually I couldn't find anything by Paul Simon. On a guitar music site? Really?? (jokey)
