Guitar Slinger

It really is all about the music for me. Music can sometimes be the best medicine for what ails the soul. It can take you high, it can take you low, it all depends on where you want to go. I've been thinking for a long time about starting a music related blog. It's what I like more than anything else in this world. I couldn't imagine a day of life without music in it. Welcome to my new blog. I've been playing a 6 string since I was about 12 years old. I have a lot of relatives on my mothers side of the family that play, so I guess it's in my genes. I've never had any "formal" musical training except for the normal music classes in grade school. Do they even have music class anymore ? When I was in grade school it was required of everyone to take a semester of music. We all had to purchase a recorder and lean a few basic songs on it. I think the idea was to find out who had the natural talent so they could be recruited to play for the school band. I was never interested in band music in school. I wanted to play the guitar and there was no such thing in a marching band, so I ended up going it alone with a Mel Bay instruction book. Mel has been teaching the world to play since 1947 and his work is still going strong today.

Reading music was something that never interested me. After 35 years I still have a hard time making heads or tails from it. I'm a self taught player aside from those old Mel Bay song books and chord charts. I was told that if I learned my chords and scales I could eventually play anything I wanted to play. That's pretty much the truth too. You can also learn to play things you may not necessarily want to play, but playing what you like is a lot more interesting. If you get stuck having to learn things you don't like to hear, music will never be fun for you. Chances are, you'll put your instrument down and quit playing after a while. It has to be interesting and fun if you want to play well. At least that's the way I see it.

I'll be writing about a little bit of everything in this blog. As long as it's about music, it's all fair game to me. I'll be writing about music from a guitar players perspective. I might write reviews of songs, or instruments, amplifiers, effects, you name it. If it has to do with music and playing it, I'll be writing about it. So sit back and enjoy the journey with me as I take you through the music world from my point of view.