I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old.
I wanted to do it because my friend David played. He was good.
As good as a fifth grader can be I guess.
I used this no-name-brand electric guitar that belonged to my dad. It was black with a white pickguard. It looked like a Stratocaster, but it had these buttons on it that must have acted as a pickup switches. I think there were three of them, big and wide and white and smooth – like lightswitches almost. Maybe 3/4 of an inch wide and 1 1/2 inches long. In my mild internet research I’ve not been able to find them. Maybe you can. If you do let me know.
Anyway.
The guitar worked fine (despite it’s sketchiness and homemade aesthetic). I took lessons at a local music store and learned out of a song book. I think I made it all the way through the first book… possibly started the second. But after 3 months of lessons I was done.
I’ve told my guitar-playing origin story before (on this very website) so I’m not going to go into it again. But it turns out I just wasn’t ready to play the guitar. Fine. No big deal. As a 10 year old I was more into Nintendo.
A few years later I picked the guitar up again – this time an acoustic one (strangely enough, that very same acoustic guitar is sitting within arms length – you can even hear what it sound like here or here).
I also picked up a Jimmy Buffett song book. This was before ultimate-guitar.com was a thing… and definitely before youtube was a thing. I muddled my way through tabs and chord charts in the song book and was well on my way.
That was 1995. I was thirteen. I’m writing this in 2020. Twenty five years of solid guitar playing.
I really haven’t put it down since.
But recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the 10,00 hours rule (which may or may not be true). I figure I’ve probably accrued close to 10,000 hours of guitar time. If not, I’m getting close. Now that hasn’t been 10,000 hours of deliberate practice… Jesus Christ I can’t even imagine. But it is about 25 years of non-stop guitar. It’s not like a took a year off. Sure there have been weeks when the guitar never got picked up, but nowadays I hardly go a day that I don’t play.
So I was wondering if there is any lesson or point or meaning or purpose to these past 25 years of guitar.
Here’s what I’ve come up with…
