Hi from New Jersey!

I'm am a music nut and have been playing guitar off and on for the last 30 years. I played electric guitar in a band in high school which never got out of the garage. I have also played acoustic guitar in the contemporary choir in our church, basically accompanying the piano.

I love all sorts of genres of music and have always had a soft spot for the great guitar players - SRV, Page, Clapton, Gilmour, etc. I love the shredders too like John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, etc. I've recently discovered Joe Bonamassa and can't stop listening to his music.

Back in high school, my best friend taught me chords (open and barre) and some fun licks. 10 years later I took lessons for a year as an adult.

I have always thought that I needed to firm up my foundation of basic skills and music knowledge. Private lessons didn't really do that for me - though I learned some cool songs - Crossfire (SRV), Comfortably Numb (Floyd), and Wind Cries Mary (Hendrix). I never got to master those songs though and lessons were frustrating for me. What I longed for was being able to refer back to my lesson with something other than chicken scratch of tab written in my lesson book.

So lately I've been getting the itch to take it up again. A coworker suggested this site last week, and I'm so glad he did!! The quality of the instruction is just amazing. I can do however much I want, whenever I want, and repeat it 100 times and not feel like an idiot! Oh, and it's way cheaper. I'm so impressed, I took advantage of the $99 for a year deal.

I'm currently making my way through the 2nd part of the fundamentals. It's been a lot of review, but I've picked up some new things. I FINALLY understand what a chord inversion is! I better understand chords, scales, and how they relate. I'll be repeating some of that to really drill it in my head.

My plan is to make my way through the fundamentals course and go down either the rock or blues branch. At the same time, to keep it fun, I'm going to start working on La Grange. That will be a project! Depending on how tough I find that, I may take up Hotel California - which is a beat in a different way :-).

Back in high school, we used to play Hotel California. Looking at the instruction here for it, wow did we not have it right. It was close... I'm really looking forward to learning ALL of the parts of that song, not just the basic chords and an incorrect version of the second solo.

I play both a fender strat (and american standard I bought in 2000), a faded les paul studio bought last year, and a seagull S6 acoustic from 2000. Currently I seem to favor my les paul since it's smaller profile suits me better (shorder and narrower neck). I just bought a Peavey ValveKing 112 tube amp which has really inspired me to play. My lp wails through it!

I look forward to learning a lot and cruising these forums to commiserate with my fellow guitarists. It would be awesome to find an outlet for playing again, like I did with my church's contemporary chior, but first things first.

Rich

Hi Rich..
Welcome to GuitarTricks..
this a good place to get a new start

Thanks Compart1!

Hi maggior,

It sounds like you're focused and have a plan, welcome to GT!

When you're ready here is "Crossfire":
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1482

And "The Wind Cries Mary":
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1457

Have fun!