Everybody learns how to play the guitar in different ways, and in this series of blog posts I’m going to tell you “my story” of how I learned how to play the guitar. I think it’s good to hear how others began, and also see that everyone starts off learning the guitar in the same way. So this is part 1 of an ongoing series of blog posts about my experience playing and learning the guitar.

When I was 16 years old, back in 1990 I think, I was watching Quantam Leap, a show that was really popular at the time, and the episode had a sequence where the main charactar, “Sam”, sat down and played “Imagine” by John Lennon. What an emotional experience! After I heard that, I knew I wanted to be able to take an acoustic guitar, and produce that kind of magic through the instrument. Also, after hearing Led Zeppelin III, I realized that I must learn the greatest instrument of all time, the guitar!

Well after that, I saved up some money and purchased a Kay electric guitar and a small Peavey amp. As soon as I plugged it in and pressed the saturation button, I hit the Low E string on the guitar and thought , WOW this is cool, I am a guitar player!

I soon began to take private lessons from a small music store in Mobile, Alabama where I learned my first song,”If” by Bread. I practiced everyday after school, until I could at least change through some open chords. I remember thinking, “If I only could change from G to C and D then I would be awesome!” Those chord changes seemed almost impossible, and forget about lead guitar. I had been given this thing called the Pentatonic scale to practice, and man was it hard. I did practice my chords and the scale for about an hour everyday after High School. I kept thinking that someday I might actually be able to play a song in front of someone, but that day seemed so far away.

Eventually I learned how to play some chords and a couple of easy lead riffs, such as Johnny B Goode. I thought I was awesome now! So I asked my friend to come over and check out what I had learned. He arrived and I sat down and proceeded to play the intro to Johnny B. Goode. I knew I was awesome! When I had finished I asked him if he knew what song that was, he replied “Uh, I have no idea.” I said, “You know, the song in Back to the Future.” He was like “I don’t think what you played sounded like that, but yeah it sounds good.” with a smirk. I knew that he was not impressed. Oh well, I guess I needed more practice.

In part 2 of this series I’ll tell about my first live performance. Until next time.

For information on how you can learn how to play the guitar please visit www.learningguitarnow.com

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