The Ups & Downs of reading e-mails from guitar companies...

FloridaGull,

Those are beautiful guitars.
I have the Cordoba C5, cost about $300, was actually playing it about three hours ago, very nice guitar.
Now if I was to have one of the Cordoba guitars shown in your link, the way I play it wouldn't sound any better, but a good classical guitar player could make it really sing.

@tbeltrans,

Totally agree with all your comments.
You have just described my classical guitar playing, "anemic and flat", but I have great admiration for the good classical guitar players, I believe until you have tried playing the classical guitar you cannot really appreciate just how good and talented some players are.

@tbeltrans,

Yes agree with all your comments.
Just from my selfish point of view, I play the guitar only for my enjoyment, don't really try to play/copy anyone's music, just do my own thing, generally noodling, some nights I'm quite impressed with my playing, but could never replicate it, but by the same token some nights not that impressed with my playing, but always enjoy the guitar but unfortunately time seems to pass more quickly and I could really do with slowing time down.

FloridaGull,

Yes I'm the same, only play fingerstyle and play the same thing on the Nylon strung and steel strung, it's just nice for a change to get the different sounds/tones.

CTGull,

 I'm just the opposite,  I read all the emails from guitar companies and music stores.
 Because I have the willpower to resist all guitar related information including all the YouTube reviews ect.
 My I nearly convinced myself there.

with all the guitar stores you take your chances with online purchases...

So how many here could be satisfied with what they have without shopping for another guitar? At that point, it wouldn't matter if there are guitar stores locally and whether or not they are open.

During this shutdown, musicians have had their gigs cancelled and are finding alternate means of creating income. One way is to offer lessons, and those who do that, have been having sales. There are many lessons you can purchase to take either online or download (or in my case, download either way). You can purchase a lot of lessons for the price of a decent guitar, and learn to play a lot of new music with that guitar.

There is one such musician whose lessons I have been buying, Jake Reichbart. He lives in Michigan and makes his living full time as a musician with restaurant gigs, weddings, corporate events, and playing sessions. His lessons are available on DVD or for download (if you have a reasonable internet connection since they average about 3 GB in size). Each lessons is between 1.5 and 2.5 hours long. Each lesson delves deeply into just one solo guitar tune, examining various ways of playing it. You learn a lot about chord substitutions, fills, all the things that make for a good fingerstyle jazz instrumental. He also has a series of 4 2 hour videos, each focusing on arranging, jazz harmony, and jazz lead playing. In a recent sale, I was getting these for $15 apiece. I now have a lifetime of material to guide my playing.



Jake's lessons are geared toward those who already know their way around the guitar and have the ability to really hear, which comes from having spent time learning from recordings (i.e. good relative pitch). He dives in assuming you already know music theory and where everything is on the fretboard, and builds on that. To me, it is fascinating stuff. to somebody else, it might be incredibly boring. There is no written material. It is all on the video, by ear and sight.

To me, this arranging in real time is like figuring out a crossword puzzle or Sudoku. For me, it is far more enjoyable than getting somebody's TAB or sheet music and learning to play a tune. That, to me, is boring and I lose interest quickly. I like playing a tune the way I want as I play it, and that takes building the vocabulary to do it, just like learning a language so you can speak it.

These days, there are all manner of lessons for guitar, piano, and whatever other mainstream instrument one wants to learn to play, and these are presented to many different learning styles. I feel fortunate that Jake Reichbart's teaching style fits my learning style and present level of musicianship. I think most everybody could find somebody's lessons that fit their learning style and musicianship level. You can get all this online so it doesn't matter what music stores are in your immediate vicinity for this.

Tony