Hi Everyone, 

I've been a member of the site for a while, but I never introduced myself.  I’m 48 year old male living in the dark and rainy UK. 

I first picked up a guitar when I was around 8 at school and had a few lessons with my dad’s really old acoustic guitar in a room with about 10-15 other kids, but I didn’t really take to it seriously, I just remember sitting on my bed strumming the thing as fast as I could randomly fretting notes but loving the sounds and the vibrations on my chest.   I then took up the violin around 9 for a few years but I didn’t make much progress with that either, I just have memories of a very sore collar bone but  the amazing smell of the resin compensated for that. 

I guess my passion to learn guitar seriously was ignited when I was watching a band called IDLES perform on Tiny Desk on youtube, it sounded raw, it was a very new and unique sound and the guitarist Mark Bowen just looked like he was having the time of his life!

After telling my partner that I had an overwhelming urge to learn playing guitar that won’t go away we picked up a secondhand Ibanez Gio GRG121DX, grabbed a little Blackstar fly 3 practice amp and a cable!   Been learning/practicing/messing around pretty much every day since April 2022 then signed up to GT after reading some excellent reviews about the site and well here I am and why didn’t I do this earlier in my life ?  

I was extremely lucky to find a Marshall MG100DFX amp going cheap on ebay, the sound quality is just night and day compared to those little practice amps and I have been slowly building a pedal board to experiment with over the year.  I also recently just finished GF2 so treated myself to a new guitar as a gift to myself for completing that course like I needed an excuse, an Ibanez Artcore AS35 semi-hollow which I just absolutely love, has some lovely deep warmer tones and also has that classic acoustic look that I love too.   I’m currently working my way through the rock course and am slowly getting to grips with them barre chords 😊   

I love grunge, punk, metal and most music but I feel that Stoner/psychedelic rock is where it’s at for me, like Queens of the Stoneage and hope to be able to play some of their stuff in time. 

Anders just oozes enthusiasm and makes his lessons so enjoyable and fun to follow, such a great teacher, hope to check out some of the other tutors too, as I can see myself staying for years to come as there is so much information here.

 Sorry for the long intro, its nice to finally emerge from the shadows to say Hi to everyone.  🤘