Donzo

Hi all, my name is Don. I'm 42, I live in Vancouver, Canada. When I was 20 I hacked around for a year with a guitar - basically learned how to read a chord chart and 1 finger picking pattern from a friend and applied it (or tried to anyway) to every song in a pair of music books (Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce) with mixed success. (I got really good with that one pattern ;)) Then I broke a finger (badly), moved out of the house (it wasn't my guitar), spent a few years traveling, never picked one up again. Spent many years wishing I had a guitar but thinking that it would probably end up just collecting dust in a corner and people would laugh at me and so it wasn't something I should spend money on when my wife was working hard to pay the mortgage, etc etc.

Then, last year, the company I work for instituted a policy that the company would buy every employee a present up to $500 on their birthday - and we were encouraged to get something that "you really want just for yourself". (Yeah, what a crazy company, eh?) So, I bought the cheapest new solid-top acoustic guitar I could get (yamaha) and poured the rest into lessons. Around that time I found GN and I've been lurking here ever since. I've been working mostly with a pick but sometimes noodle around finger picking. I got a fast jump on the open chords because I remembered most from 20 years ago.

I've taken lessons pretty regularly since then (Feb 2005), 1/2 hr / week, and I practice almost every day for 1/2 hr or so. Well, I guess I don't "practice" by Arjen's definition :)... I "play". I just play whatever in my big folder of music that I feel like at the time. Lessons helped a lot but my progress has not been particularly stellar. I have no ambitions to performing, but I'd like it if my family or friends didn't mind when I was playing :)

Last month my wife and I had our first child (yeah, late starters) so lessons have gone by the board, but the Easy Song Database has come to my rescue. Especially the "pub" songs (thanks dogsbody et al.)

I'm playing Jimmy Buffet, Gordon Lightfoot, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young (only a couple of each ;)) ... and now ESD "pub songs" too!

Yes, I wish I was a better player, but I enjoy playing more than I am bugged by my lack of progress, so I'm pretty sure I'll keep at it and see if I mystically gel into Super Guitarist in 10 years... one can only hope. Until then, I read GN almost everyday and occassionally struggle through a dhodge lesson :) (The lessons are great, all "struggle" is my own fault - I just don't stick at it because I don't like sitting in front of a computer with my guitar.)

Don