Learning the guitar

That makes good sense to me, though my personal preference is for softer instrumental music - usually either solo fingerstyle guitar or solo instrumental piano.  I suspect that part of that is due to hearing damage from my time in the military, though I only recently found out about that from the VA. 

I don't care for all the distortion and pounding and hollering/screaming that seems to have ruled the airwaves since the 1960s, replacing real melody and decent voices.  Even country music has resorted to that kind of thing in more recent years, and is hardly discernible from rock.  All of that does seem to fairly accurately reflect much of what is going on in our world today, and their will always be that argument as to whether media reflects or drives cultural activity (I say both in a sort of "closed loop" where each feeds on the other).

Tony

I listen to a lot of blues and have done for a long time. Got my first Blind Willie Mctell record when I was 17 and that record is still one of my favs. By coincidence I've been listening to old blues almost exclusively in my car for the past few weeks since I discovered that my public library has a good series of blues albums, all of which are titled 'a rough guide to ...'  Each cd is a collection of different styles of blues, mostly from the 1920's to 40's. I can't say that I've ever listened to them and thought about what a hard life they led though, in fact I think that the majority of the songs are based on the same theme as most other songs, love found, love lost, mostly lost. What I like is that there's real emotion there. Whether happy or sad you can feel it in the song. But getting back to the subject of the thread, learning the guitar. I think since I got back to playing I've gained a new appreciation for those old blues guitarists. Some of them were really good. Really good! 

Yes, some of those guys were really good, saying a lot with a few notes rather than the more modern blues players saying little with a lot of notes.   As for the rest, I don't know what to say other than suggesting reading some of the history of these old blues players and what this music grew from.

Tony

no body told me noth'in , din't know how to turn it on,
din't know the sun's refection washed the screen away,
all I know is som'thin is not workin right .

I got the cellaphone work'in mans blues.

Someone please give a try and call me,
be up all night await'n ,  numbers on the wall ,

fell asleep sit,in hear await'in , no call  never came through



Got that work'in mans cellaphone blues.

Well, there's hope for authenticity for us middle-class white boys yet.

Tony

On a more serious note of learning, ArtistWorks had a special of a year of unlimited access to lessons to the professional of your choice for $209/year (quite a bit off their usual price of $279/year.) My only question is if I will have enough time to take advantage of it enough to make it worthwhile. But even if I only have time to do 20 lessons, that's only a bit over $10/lesson, which I think is probably cheap. Plus you can submit videos for critique, and watch other people's videos and listen to the critique. If it's worth it and I find enough time, I may do it again and switch to a different instructor to try different styles of music. I think I may get a lot out of watching other people's videos and listening to the critiques.