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Happy NGD to you and Happy Father's Day. I, too have a new purchase to share, but I will post it under another thread so as not to hijack your happiness. Pix, please!

Scott

I just had a visit with my parents. They came over on Christmas Eve and my Dad and I played for a couple hours together. I definitely play better with someone else as I don't have to concentrate too much on the strum patterns as I just follow along with whatever he is doing. I didn't do much singing as my throat was a little scratchy, but I piped in on a couple songs. We played some Browns and Keith Whitley. We also played my mother's 3 songs. I had played one of them which is titled Forgive Me Lord, the other 2 were not put to music the last time I visited with them, but had heard the music was written for them since then. One of them is called My Dad, written about my Grandfather.  The third is Thy Will Be Done. She seems to have a knack for writing hymn type songs. I haven't asked my wife to pull that poem out yet, but we have been trying to get our house ready for our adoption (we are still in the process of being certified). I titled the poem, The Pot of Gold. I cannot remember the words and wrote it very early in our relationship when Computers were still a bit of a luxury, so I do not have an electronic copy. I will get to it eventually. I am hoping that I get the writers gene, and currently think it is more of a confidence issue right now.

I was impressed that you played in a bar. I hope to get to that point someday. I need to get quite a bit better and put a little more time in to my playing before that day though. I am looking for a more "normal" job that will allow me to work 9-5 M-F, which will give me time to work out AND practice more. Wish me luck!

I recently found out that my mother has written 3 songs over the last few months. Her cousin has put them to music. I am hoping the songwriting gene has been passed to me. I was never much of a writer, although I do remember a poem I wrote for my wife that may be able to be rearranged to a song. I wrote it for her a LONG time ago and then transposed it for her in Calligraphy. I would like her to pull it out some time to see if I can rearrange it to a song.

NELA,

How do you make those conversions? Although I am making progres with G,C,D I started out with A,D,E. I would like to know the capo conversions for these 3 chords. Any help would be appreciated...

Scott aka caromshot

I am a male living in Upstate NY. I have been playing the guitar for about 6 months total. I started last year, then got discouraged and laid it down for a while. However, I picked it back up a few months ago and have been playing ever since. Although I haven't played for a while, I have loved guitar for longer than I care to admit. Some of my fondest memories are sitting in our living room with my father playing the guitar and the rest of us singing along. One of my goals is that after my wife and I adopt (we are in the process now), I can pass this tradition down to my family. The genre I mostly play is folk/country (John Denver, Kingston Trio etc). I intend to expand eventually to Rock as well, but right now am concentrating on folk/country so I can play along with my dad. I don't get to practice nearly as much as I would like to but fidn playing relaxing. I have made several posts here, but never in this topic. I appreciate the warm welcome I have received as well as all the help. I won't get to sign on to often, but I will check back as much as I can.

Scott aka caromshot

Thank you. I also use D and A7, although sometimes my fingers forget and play an A. I also remember this one from "my dad". I was recently in Maine and was able to play guitar with him. It was AWESOME! One thing I like about playing with another player, is I can set my next chord up earlier and continue playing. I don't want to continue having other players "carry" me, but I was also doing alot of things at once that I normally don't do. I was playing chords, strumming (which I had done 0 work on as I am still on Part 1 in justinguitar training), singing and trying to harmonize with my parents both of which were singing.

We recorded ourselves on my laptop and I must say, I was singing flat as a board. I hope I don't sing like that normally, as it was enough to make me just play and not sing. Woo boy! It was fun and I also had a marathon session for me as we played for about 3-3.5 hours.

Ok, I took mekidsmom's advice and went to justinguitar.com (THANK YOU!). I like his style. I have been following the beginner lessons for about 2 weeks now and I see marked improvement, even over where I was last November. One of my goals is to play one song as well as my father does, so that I can play along with him. My previous goal was to play with him, which I reached last October when I went to visit him in Maine. He is self taught and some of my best memories as a kid are listening to my father play the guitar with our family singing along with the lyrics. My wife and I are going to adopt a baby and I hope to pass this tradition along to our children.

Many of you are probably now saying, crawl before walk, walk before you run, run before you run long distances. I have some high goals, but I will to acheive them in good time. I have applied Justin's lessons to learning one of the songs my father taught me and I am seeing some progress there as well. It adds a couple concepts like transition chords (Technically called a filler I think), and changing a chord to allow for the chords I already know (using A instead of A7). Thank you all once again for your encouragement. I appreciate it. I hope to pop in here more often in the future to chat with you all and update you on my status.

Thank you for your encouragement. I have no doubt I will pick it up again soon. I have a scheduling issue. I work 4 days per week 11 hours per day, I am working on my weight which take priority as it is increasing my health (thus will increase the amount of time I remain in this world to play the guitar). I will definitely check out the website you wrote about. We will see where it leads.

Scott - HV, NY