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Discipline, practice, and patience. 

A story on Roy Clark.  Apparantly he was a very good jazz musician who enjoyed the old standards and could play them exceptionally well while bringing his own style to it, but on stage he stuck with "Pickin' and Grinnin'."  Why?  Because that's what he thought people were paying to hear and he was humble enough that he wanted to play for them and not for him.  The point is, playing in several styles isn't everything.  What is important is that you please yourself (or if you are a pro, your audience too).   If you want to play finger picking, play finger picking and if it sounds awful so be it.  Eventually you'll be playing with style and panache.

- Big D

Will,

I'm not sure how to send a personal message on this forum, so I apologize for this being public.  It is being sent by a person who, 28 years ago when I was your age, thought much the same of myself as you seem to think of yourself.  It's nonsense and a lie.  I don't even know you, but I am absolutely certain of one thing, there is not one person on this planet who is a waste of protoplasm.  Every person who has ever been born has a unique soul made by a loving Creator - and that includes you.  If you think being made specially to be you isn't important, I'll tell you with confidence that it is. 

You don't have to stand out if you don't want, but just because you think others don't appreciate who you are doesn't mean you shouldn't appreciate who you are.  Plus, you only THINK you know what others think of you.  In time, I hope that you'll learn differently.  When the chips have been down, I've been shocked at who stood up for me because they cared.  I had thought they were "enemies", but in fact they were people who cared for me and respected what I stood for - but just had a different way of going about their own lives.  I don't wish hard times on you, but the lesson was worth the trouble.  Good luck to you.

It's trite, but there's a Dr. Seuss quote that seems appropriate: "Never apologize for who you are.  Those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter." 

- Big D

You just described my main guitar.  It was given to me when I helped a friend move.  Apparantly, his first wife (God rest her soul) had had a boyfriend before him that was a guitar teacher and had left a number of guitars in the house when he split.  So as my buddy is cleaning out the house they shared he was surprised to find a bunch of guitars in one of the closets.  Because he had very little sympathy for his now deceased wife's former boyfriends, he chose not to contact the fellow to come get his guitars and gave them to those of us who were helping him.  My daughter has one as well. 

However, I prefer to play it in tune.

- Big D

I have a varied background.  I am now an internal management consultant for a large global company. 

In the past, I have done the following for money, and probably some I've forgotten:
Window washer
Janitor
Darkroom technician
Canoe instructor
Photographer
Bass player
Independent businessman
Lawn boy
Darts hustler (especially Cricket and except for the Scots - every Scot I ever played whooped me badly - good thing I could pick them out by their accents)
Operations Manager
Purchasing Agent
Data checker
Trainer's assistant
Facilities manager

I've been working since I was 12 years old, and frankly I'm getting tired of it but have at least 25 more years to go until retirement (barring winning the jackpot in Lotto). 

I've got a great gig right now in this consulting line of work.  I enjoy doing it, and the folks I help seem to appreciate my perspective.  Plus I get paid pretty well, which surely doesn't hurt.  And all I have to do is bill enough hours but it doesn't matter what time of day. 

I am free from back injuries, aside from some having dislocated several vertebrae in my lower back many years ago - which slid right back into place on their own without surgery as soon as they pumped me full of morphine and muscle relaxants.  I had dislocated a vertebrae in my neck at the same time, as well as a shoulder.  All of those put themselves right as well without benefit of a knife.  I used to think it was luck, but these days I know better.  Luck's got nothing to do with it, but a merciful Lord answering prayers from my father who is a righteous man does. 

- Big D

Try a thumb pick yet?

Well if you're into Country, Josh Turner's - I'm Your Man

The hardest chord I've ever played was D.  I've tried and given up guitar so many times I've lost count.  This past September or October, I decided to give it another go by forgoing all books and just downloading some songs I wanted to learn to sing and play passably well.  The first one was "Forever and Ever Amen", and the first chord in that song is "D."   The first time I played that "D", it was the hardest chord I had ever played.  But that had nothing to do with where my fingers were on the fretboard.

My current obstacle is F#m and other F variations.  For all those out there fretting over barre chords, count me in your corner.  Write back and give some of us other newbies encouragement when you get them to sound right in a song.

I've given up on F#m for now and am learning Jimmy Buffett's Tin Cup Chalice, which requires going from G to B7 to Em one beat after the next.  None of these chords are horrible on their own, but getting from one to the next quickly enough to keep the song moving is enough challange for now.  If I play it with friends around, I'll make sure they're good and drunk.  I sound a lot better when the audience is drunk. 

- Big D

p.s.  Wormproof on a tackle box refers to the plastic type.  Soft plastic worms put into some kinds of plastic trays can react and melt the tray over time.  A 'wormproof' tackle box is one that is non-reactive to soft plastic lures.   It also makes a capital screen name for a guitar forum!

Well, I am trying to learn finger-picking, too.  And I'm doing a little strumming with a pick.  When I tried strumming with my finger and thumb nails it just sounded like mud.  So, I don't do it now.  When I want a chord instead of a note when finger picking, I just pluck the top three strings with my fingers and one of the bass notes with my thumb.  It's not a strum and it doesn't sound exactly like the guy on the record, but it's the right chord at the right time and that's good enough for me.

Remember, you've got ONE MONTH of playing and the guys on the records started, improved, became intermediate, went pro, got a contract, and THEN recorded what you're trying to mimic.  Thinking you can strum like a pro on a record after a month of playing is like thinking you can do open heart surgery because you dissected a frog in biology lab.  Be patient, do your best, add some more patience, and keep practicing.  I guarantee you those guys that sound so good on your records sounded like crud at the end of their first month of playing. 

Good luck, keep a smile on your face, and if it gets too frustrating for you just set the guitar aside for a bit until you're calm again.  Pick it back up.  You can't play well if you're all stressed out about how it's sounding.  If you're the sort of person who gets stressed over progress, maybe record yourself once a month.  At the end of a month, listen to how you sounded last month.  You'll hear the improvement if you're practicing.  But my advice would be to remember that you're doing this for fun and not to get stressed out over something that's supposed to be fun.  Just an attitude improvement can improve your playing and it will definitely allow you to progress more rapidly.

All the best,
Zurf

I can only speak from an evangelican Protestant perspective.  I've been attending churches like that for a long while.  In them, there are a few songs from the Methodist Hymnal that a lot of folks might recognize, but by and large the music is "Praise and Worship Music" that has a lot more similarity to 1970's singer/songwriter and folk music than it does other hymns.  Some of it's pretty good and rocks pretty hard.  Some of it's pretty good and creates a good mood of worship.  A lot of it stinks out loud. 

I have played bass in a Praise and Worship band.  There are some nice advantages.  One, you have a gig with an audience every week.  Two, you get to play something new that you haven't heard on the radio a gazillion times (assuming that you don't listen to Contemporary Christian radio stations anyway).  Three (if you're a guitar player), they are meant to be sing-alongs.  This means that the keys are often keys in which guitar players infrequently play - so you get to practice some different chords.  Four, arrangements are expected.  People don't complain, "Hey, that's not the way Zepp does it..." 

Usually worship sets are three or four songs, and maybe additional song time during collection, or maybe the guitar play picks out a subtle and contemplative tune during prayer time to add to the mood. 

It's a lot of fun.  The key things to me for playing in a Praise and Worship band were two-fold.  First, the audience is an audience of One.  Two, the other folks present are encouraged to participate and when it all comes together and everyone's having fun and grooving and singing and praising it's a kind of fun that's tough to describe.  I guess these are really just two sides of the same coin. 

Down side - rarely applause.  That's not what it's all about, but I'm immature enough to admit that sometimes when I've done a really good job on the bass and everything was grooving that it'd be nice to have an ego stroke.  My problem, not the congregations. 

- Big D

David Harp did a great little theory book titled "Musical Theory Made Easy."  And that's just what it does.  Here's a link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Theory-Made … amp;sr=8-4

The book's a lot better than what I could do, as I'm still learning a lot about theory myself.  Read this book, and pay attention to what's going on while you play, and patiently wait for the 'EUREKA! moment.' 

- Big D

At my brother's wedding, the DJ (a friend of my brother's who lives to tweak noses) played Angela Lansbury's "Beauty and the Beast"  from the Disney movie.

My mother-in-law, God rest her soul, loved piano music without lyrics.  She thought "Send in the Clowns" was a beautiful song and wanted us to use it as a processional.  She wasn't joking.  We went more traditional in our selection. 

- Zurf