Hi, I’m Cheryl. I’ve been playing acoustic guitar since I was about 15 years old. Now, that was a long time ago! During the intervening years I’ve played on again off again depending on what else had been going on in my life.
This blog is a collection of YouTube videos I’ve pulled together showcasing learning acoustic guitar from amateurs to professionals. I put it together for myself to have a kind of one stop shop. There’s no end to what’s being offered daily in the realm of playing acoustic guitar videos.
Over the years I’ve learned to play a number of different methods. I even took classical lessons once. Every method expands my ability to play and hear music. What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that no matter what method I use to play, or what method I’m learning, what is most important is that dirty little word, practice. But practice is fun when I’m enjoying what I’m playing!
Having said that, practice doesn’t have to be difficult, though. When I am learning a new piece, if I expect to know it immediately and expect to play it fast, I’m always disappointed. In fact, I lost a number of years of learning because for some strange reason I thought that I should just know how. It seemed like everyone could play the guitar and what was wrong with me??
I was fortunate about 15 years ago to take lessons with Rick Ruskin. Initially I joined a guitar class where he was teaching country blues guitar. I loved it. After the class I worked with him individually for about a year until I went back to school to learn a new trade. And again I put my gorgeous guitar back into its snug little case and neglected it for a number of years.
But I digress… the best thing I learned from Rick was to play each bar slowly until I had it memorized, in my head and in my hands and then go onto the next. When I played this way I was amazed at the progress I made. I taped our lessons and have started relearning some of the songs.
I’ve also purchased a number of Stefan Grossman videos and he teaches the same way. Interestingly, both Rick and Stefan learned how to play from Reverend Gary Davis when they were in their teens. What amazing times those were.
The cool thing is that life goes on and there continue to be amazing guitar teachers out there just waiting to teach you and me.
I remember when I was a teen, I really wanted to learn how to play but my parents decided that they would not pay for lessons because my brother had taken some but wasn’t interested and didn’t practice. Therefore neither would I! At the time my father worked for a large publishing company and he came home one day with a set of cassette tapes on beginner guitar. This was revolutionary at the time. I wish I still had them, they’d be a collector’s item. Now there are so many books, DVDs, web sites, and other options for learning how to play. The choices seem endless. I’ve tried out a few and will write about my experiences with those in future articles.
We’ve come a LONG way. I recently bought a monthly subscription on JamPlay.com and I’m amazed, really, at the level of guitar teaching professionalism and major bang for the buck. For $20/month I can learn from one of about 30 teachers and growing, I can choose a style I’d like to learn or I can choose a song to learn from their every growing list. JamPlay caters to complete newbies, including children to seasoned players looking to learn something new or in my case, get back in the game of playing after letting my job take up all my time. It feels SO great to be playing again. I’ve already learned Alice’s Restaurant and now I’m working on Dear Prudence, the full acoustic finger picking version of it. The teacher is a guy named Matt and he slowly goes over exactly how to pick the strings and he plays it beautifully.
I also plan to pull views from a variety of sources to create a rich assortment of ideas, products, websites and options for learning acoustic guitar. This is a picture of my Larrivee OM-03R guitar I bought a couple of years ago. It’s a really lovely guitar to play.
So put your fingers on the frets and let them fly over the notes. Most of all, have a great time learning.