Intro!

Hello, all. I'm a 33 year old attorney in Illinois who's always been saying, "I'd love to learn to play the guitar...someday..."

My wife of 8 years finally decided that "someday" needed to be "today." For Christmas ('07), she and my mother-in-law got together to get me an inexpensive but very nice acoustic guitar and some lessons. I've been working hard at it since, and I'm having just enough success to keep me happy.

This is the first musical instrument I've ever played. My lessons are the first serious musical training I've ever received. My teacher is great, and started out immediately by teaching me about musical notation and insisting that I continue to work on that and music theory throughout our lessons. He's also made it fun by working with me on learning some simple songs incorporating new skills he teaches me, making it a lot more fun to practice, and he's happy to have a student who's a little older, since I take my lessons a little differently than most kids.

My wife switches between being really happy she got me doing this to wanting to hide under a pillow on occasion, but she's pretty thrilled to see me take to this so completely. I'm having a blast, and I expect the guitar to remain a big part of my life from now on.

This site and forum are awesome, and I've incorporated some things I've seen here into my practice, which has allowed me to surprise my teacher once or twice with my progress from week to week. I may be more of a lurker than a poster, at least for a while, but you can bet I'll be out here!