Hey all!
I just recently turned 40 (ugh... where the hell did the last 20 years go?!?!) and made the command decision to start from scratch, buckle down, and actually “learn” how to play guitar.
My background: back in ‘98 I decided the Trombone I was playing in the high school band was fine, but I’d always wanted learn guitar and shred! So I went out and bought a cheap peavey and a practice amp and started noodling around with no idea what I was doing. Literally... I thought properly tuned meant all the open strings were supposed to be the same note. Oof!
anyway, after a couple very unsuccessful days and failing to be able to teach myself anything from the early dial up internet, I claim to the conclusion that my hands/fingers weren’t long enough for a six string guitar. OBVIOUSLY a 4 string Bass was the answer! Besides... I’d been playing trombone and sight reading bass cleft for almost a decade at that point, so... perfect logic! I made the trade, dicked around with it for a few days, and then pretty much never touched it again for around 7 years.
Made the excuse my fingers were too short and shelved the dream.
Just after college, I was really starting to get into Heavy Metal again, in no small part due to A7X, Atreus, and other bands that were really starting to kick off. Still remember the first time I heard Beast and the Harlot on XM (way before it merged with Sirius!) Before the song had finished, I pulled into the local Target, bought City of Evil, and spent the rest of the afternoon driving my Truck around with the CD on loop! A year or so later I got Guitar Hero 2 (had an absolute blast just being able to fake jam along to so many great tunes) and played the hell out of it before having a moment of clarity and realizing that tons of 8-10 year olds were picking up actual guitars, largely due to that game, and learning to play pretty well. My fingers might not be long, but they’re longer. than the majority of grade schoolers. At the time I was in my mid 20’s, had plenty of free time (ie... no kids/wife/etc), and a decent bit of disposable income. Intro my first REAL guitar...A Black Ibanez VBT700 V-Blade! I started trying to teach myself again, though with much better resources this time. I even took a few in person lessons (though the local teacher wasn’t great. Just a kid and virtually no lesson structure. “Here’s a couple chords. Here’s a scale. See ya next week.”
) on about the third lesson he hat me trying to do pinch harmonics and shit... by that point, I’d bought Guitar Pro and was basically trying to teach myself various song riffs by tab.
And so it continued off and on and further off for the next 6-7 years (over which my full on Metallica obsession took full root). In that time I picked up a Near mint Marshall JVM410H, a good condition 1960A cab, and a Hetfield signature LTD Snakebyte. Also did numerous upgrades to my Ibanez and other stuff. Even tried Rockband 3’s Squier real midi guitar controller for a bit. By 2014 I was only playing (not well) a few minutes every month or so.
I bought Rockband 2014 about then and that’s been my main go to for guitar since. My half stack is mostly sitting in a corner collecting dust. I mainly stuck to Rocksmiths session mode and just kept playing songs. Started getting into the bad habit of having a few beers, then loading up the game, and just jamming a way. I know what your thinking. “Oh no! Did he develop a drinking problem?” No... I just got to the point where I ONLY played the game after I had 6-7 beers, which is typically about once every 6-8 weeks. Soooo, yeah.... a couple years ago I decided to try the Bass again. Broke out that old peavey Bass and tried it on rocksmith. Hey! I’m actually not terrible at that! Lol I’ve even got a few songs I can 100%+ with the Bass! I managed to get a helluva good deal on Schecter Hellraiser Bass on Amazon warehouse (huge discount for a “damaged” headstock, that ended up just being scotch tape residue.) got a Bugera Veyron Tube head and a great discounted MarkBass 4x10 ported cab. Unfortunately... real life and bad habits have conspired to limit my Bass playing to rocksmith under the same conditions, but even further spaced out.
That brings us to today. Newly 40 and disgusted by the layer of dust that has built up on my equipment.... Not only have I crested the hill, I’m way over weight. I recently started back up at the gym, pushing around the heavy weights, and I need something else to help distract me from eating in the rest of my free time. I’m getting married at the end of June. I need to drop enough weight to fit into a penguin suit. I also wouldn’t mind being able to jam a couple tunes out at the reception. That’s when I came across this site! My biggest goal has always been to shred. Now here’s an artist teaching people to do that from the ground up. What a bonus that there are so many A7X songs on the list I want to rip out!
I’ve decided to start right from the beginning, because my skills are that far out of practice. Not to mention, years of drunken pseudo shredding to rocksmith has developed some horrendously bad playing habits... for example, I just started the lessons the other day and the first actual playing exercise (the major scale) made me want to shout myself already! I’m trying to do it correctly... all four fingers, one per fret, and alternate picking my way up and down the scale.... Holy F! I literally had to do an 8-12 count per note just to get both hands to do what I wanted! And even then I managed to screw it up (my string skipping/switching is pretty horrible as well! Lol). I also came to the conclusion that my V style guitar probably isn’t the best thing for developing proper techniques. So I bought an Ibanez thinline Acoustic guitar. Much better shape for developing technique and a little bit tougher on the fingers to promote calluses! (I know, I know, but... still no kids! So I can afford it! Lol)
Anyway, sorry for the long novel of an introduction! Writing it out like that has really helped me put my goal into perspective and get me more focused on staying on track with my practice and learning. It reminds me how I started, how far I got, and how much I’ve lost. Hopefully it’ll also help others, by showing that this program can be helpful to people coming from all kinds of learning backgrounds.
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me, otherwise...
TLDR: Middleaged dude with better gear than talent half assed it for 20+ years and is going to start relearning from the ground up!
I just recently turned 40 (ugh... where the hell did the last 20 years go?!?!) and made the command decision to start from scratch, buckle down, and actually “learn” how to play guitar.
My background: back in ‘98 I decided the Trombone I was playing in the high school band was fine, but I’d always wanted learn guitar and shred! So I went out and bought a cheap peavey and a practice amp and started noodling around with no idea what I was doing. Literally... I thought properly tuned meant all the open strings were supposed to be the same note. Oof!
anyway, after a couple very unsuccessful days and failing to be able to teach myself anything from the early dial up internet, I claim to the conclusion that my hands/fingers weren’t long enough for a six string guitar. OBVIOUSLY a 4 string Bass was the answer! Besides... I’d been playing trombone and sight reading bass cleft for almost a decade at that point, so... perfect logic! I made the trade, dicked around with it for a few days, and then pretty much never touched it again for around 7 years.Made the excuse my fingers were too short and shelved the dream.
Just after college, I was really starting to get into Heavy Metal again, in no small part due to A7X, Atreus, and other bands that were really starting to kick off. Still remember the first time I heard Beast and the Harlot on XM (way before it merged with Sirius!
) Before the song had finished, I pulled into the local Target, bought City of Evil, and spent the rest of the afternoon driving my Truck around with the CD on loop! A year or so later I got Guitar Hero 2 (had an absolute blast just being able to fake jam along to so many great tunes) and played the hell out of it before having a moment of clarity and realizing that tons of 8-10 year olds were picking up actual guitars, largely due to that game, and learning to play pretty well. My fingers might not be long, but they’re longer. than the majority of grade schoolers. At the time I was in my mid 20’s, had plenty of free time (ie... no kids/wife/etc), and a decent bit of disposable income. Intro my first REAL guitar...A Black Ibanez VBT700 V-Blade! I started trying to teach myself again, though with much better resources this time. I even took a few in person lessons (though the local teacher wasn’t great. Just a kid and virtually no lesson structure. “Here’s a couple chords. Here’s a scale. See ya next week.”) on about the third lesson he hat me trying to do pinch harmonics and shit... by that point, I’d bought Guitar Pro and was basically trying to teach myself various song riffs by tab.And so it continued off and on and further off for the next 6-7 years (over which my full on Metallica obsession took full root). In that time I picked up a Near mint Marshall JVM410H, a good condition 1960A cab, and a Hetfield signature LTD Snakebyte. Also did numerous upgrades to my Ibanez and other stuff. Even tried Rockband 3’s Squier real midi guitar controller for a bit. By 2014 I was only playing (not well) a few minutes every month or so.
I bought Rockband 2014 about then and that’s been my main go to for guitar since. My half stack is mostly sitting in a corner collecting dust. I mainly stuck to Rocksmiths session mode and just kept playing songs. Started getting into the bad habit of having a few beers, then loading up the game, and just jamming a way. I know what your thinking. “Oh no! Did he develop a drinking problem?” No... I just got to the point where I ONLY played the game after I had 6-7 beers, which is typically about once every 6-8 weeks. Soooo, yeah.... a couple years ago I decided to try the Bass again. Broke out that old peavey Bass and tried it on rocksmith. Hey! I’m actually not terrible at that! Lol I’ve even got a few songs I can 100%+ with the Bass! I managed to get a helluva good deal on Schecter Hellraiser Bass on Amazon warehouse (huge discount for a “damaged” headstock, that ended up just being scotch tape residue.) got a Bugera Veyron Tube head and a great discounted MarkBass 4x10 ported cab. Unfortunately... real life and bad habits have conspired to limit my Bass playing to rocksmith under the same conditions, but even further spaced out.
That brings us to today. Newly 40 and disgusted by the layer of dust that has built up on my equipment.... Not only have I crested the hill, I’m way over weight. I recently started back up at the gym, pushing around the heavy weights, and I need something else to help distract me from eating in the rest of my free time. I’m getting married at the end of June. I need to drop enough weight to fit into a penguin suit. I also wouldn’t mind being able to jam a couple tunes out at the reception. That’s when I came across this site! My biggest goal has always been to shred. Now here’s an artist teaching people to do that from the ground up. What a bonus that there are so many A7X songs on the list I want to rip out!
I’ve decided to start right from the beginning, because my skills are that far out of practice. Not to mention, years of drunken pseudo shredding to rocksmith has developed some horrendously bad playing habits... for example, I just started the lessons the other day and the first actual playing exercise (the major scale) made me want to shout myself already! I’m trying to do it correctly... all four fingers, one per fret, and alternate picking my way up and down the scale.... Holy F! I literally had to do an 8-12 count per note just to get both hands to do what I wanted! And even then I managed to screw it up (my string skipping/switching is pretty horrible as well! Lol). I also came to the conclusion that my V style guitar probably isn’t the best thing for developing proper techniques. So I bought an Ibanez thinline Acoustic guitar. Much better shape for developing technique and a little bit tougher on the fingers to promote calluses! (I know, I know, but... still no kids! So I can afford it! Lol
)Anyway, sorry for the long novel of an introduction! Writing it out like that has really helped me put my goal into perspective and get me more focused on staying on track with my practice and learning. It reminds me how I started, how far I got, and how much I’ve lost. Hopefully it’ll also help others, by showing that this program can be helpful to people coming from all kinds of learning backgrounds.
If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me, otherwise...
TLDR: Middleaged dude with better gear than talent half assed it for 20+ years and is going to start relearning from the ground up!
Rocksmith is actually nice!!
