Hi all! How are you? I'm sorry I've been a bit absent lately, the first week of January was a bit overwhelming but I settled down towards the weekend, and now I'm good. The weekend was great!
I did a 50% stupid, 50% fabulous thing today. I joined a workshop on Zoom to study the guitar style of Tony Rice. I saw info about this course earlier in the week, it's taught by Michael Daves who's my bluegrass singing teacher on Artistworks, and I did another bluegrass singing workshop with him on Zoom in the autumn. He's s very inspiring and good teacher and a very competent singer and guitar player.
Earlier I said to myself that this Tony Rice workshop should be interesting but is certainly too above my skill level. But then yesterday I saw an Instagram post by Michael in which he said he opened another slot at noon because he had so many people interested in that course, and then I was tempted again. I posted a comment saying something in terms of "I'm very tempted but the course is probably too advanced for me right now - maybe next year". Then I forgot about it.
This morning I saw Michael had replied to my comment on his Instagram, encouraging me to join. I sent him a DM, asked a few questions, whether he thought I would be able to follow the course at this level, and he was very positive. I signed up. And as soon as I had made the decision, I couldn't stop smiling.
So, I've played flatpick guitar only since the summer of 2020 (but chords for many years before that). I can play a good number of fiddle tunes, some of them are going very well, some not so much. I'm struggling with some chords and my left-hand angle and strength. I'm quite basic with some skills and more advanced with others. I have so much to learn and I really have no idea whether I should call myself still beginner or intermediate. And I've always seen Tony Rice stuff as rather advanced and not really beginner-friendly.
But it's going to be SO MUCH FUN!
The class started this afternoon, starting with "Old train", first the vocal melody and then Tony's intro and solo. It didn't seem impossible to play although it'll take some time because there are some finger twisters there. But I felt like I can do this!
I've felt for a long time that I want to move on to more advanced stuff on the guitar but didn't know where to start to get there. Since this new class is less about technique and more about style, learning specific solos, licks, and more, I think it will give me lots of material to work on that is probably exactly what I've been looking for. I think it's going to give me a good kick in the butt to get to the next level on the guitar and that makes me really happy.
Also, during this very dull month of January, saturated with news about sky-high Covid numbers everywhere and worry about family and the future, the class will give me something nice, fun and uplifting to totally focus on and indulge in. And maybe this will be the year when I get to a guitar level that even I would call "a pretty good player".
I hope you all are doing well. If something in this post doesn't make sense it's because it's heavily edited, I tend to write way too much about these things!