Hey everyone. This is David from Sydney, Australia. I am 51 years old and recently picked the guitar up again after not playing for 27 years. Times have changed, technique and technology has changed as has my ability to play or lack thereof, hence why I am here.
A little about me:
- How many years have you been playing? I started to play in 1979 because I wanted to play like Ace Frehley from KISS.
- What musical genres are you interested in? Back when I was playing it was hard rock and heavy metal. KISS, Hendrix, Van Halen, Led Zepellin, 80’s metal, glam rock etc. Now, with age my tastes have changed in what I listen to and what I want to play. Today I am heavily influenced by Ian Thornley of Big Wreck, Guthrie Trapp from Nashville who is a blues and country player, Tom Bukovac from his Home Skoolin’ youtube channel, John Mayer and so many more.
- Particular things you’re excited to learn / talk about here? Obviously, the mechanics of player more economically, cleaner and faster.
- Self-taught? Regular lessons with a teacher? Both? Originally I was having lessons but that stopped when I stopped actually progressing which led me to stop altogether. Now, I am learning from online resources. Now that I am older and possibly more mature, I am finding that things like theory are making more sense to me. I am breaking out of the pentatonic box quite quickly that I was stuck in all those years ago.
- Have you spent much time on technique before finding our stuff? I have spent a lot of time in the past year trying to clean up my playing but realistically I was not aware of what I was doing.
- What Cracking the Code material have you watched? I have watched all of the Pickslanting Primer and the Any Woods and Martin Miller interviews. I like those players.
- Can you comfortably play a scale? At roughly what speed? Yes, but have not measured any speed really.
- Any particular things you find yourself stuck on? I actually struggle in changing direction and also descending.
I would just like to say that my mind has exploded with all of the guitar content available online. I just wish YouTube was available all those years ago as I may not have stopped playing out of frustration. I now feel like I have so much more catching up to do. But, at least I am now playing EVERY day.
Cheers everyone.
David