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Joe w. – How I TAC
1.) How many days per week do you play?
Like Tony, I’ve committed to 5 days per week (Monday through Friday) but, usually it’s 7. And multiple times a day sometimes.
2.) What time of day do you play?
Formal practice time is after dinner, whatever time it may be that day.
3.) Where do you play?
At the kitchen table – the only place with armless chairs!
4.) What was your guitar life like before having a guitar routine & how has implementing a consistent guitar routine helped you? (if possible, name 3 ways).
– Long story. Age 7 or 8, I asked my parents for guitar lessons. Went to neighborhood music store (Beck’s) and took lessons. Became good enough after 2 years to play lead guitar in the store’s annual student showcase band. But I chicken out, afraid that people would laugh at me if I made any mistakes: Fear won out. Haunts me to this day. How might my life have been different? Who knows? What’d I do about it? I quit and became focused on street, then ice, hockey for many years – till my 30’s when 2 guys took me into the corner boards and I blew out my shoulder.
Where was I? For some reason I don’t recall, I took up guitar again in my late teens/early twenties. I took classical lessons in downtown Philly. Bought a Takamine and learned lots of painful hand positions in a year: Get that 5-fret stretch, boy! Fast forward a decade or more and I’m roommates in an apartment with a keyboard player in a band. His mates hung out often and I get the itch to play electric. Got a crappy Strat and amp, learned a little Blues and noodled. Got bored of it. Fast forward several years gain and, on an impulse purchase, buy an expensive, electric hollow body (PBC AC200: Find it if you can. RIP Dave Bunker). Loved it. Wrote some tunes with it, had a few friends and we rented a rehearsal room and worked on the songs and jammed. We played out only once. I got married and the guitar went into the gig bag. Fast forward several more years and my father passes away. Which is when I joined the church choir (another, different long story) after being told all my life when I tried to sing “Don’t quit your day job!”. I needed an instrument to practice with and learn the notes I had to sing. By this time, I’m married with 3 daughters and I had bought the oldest a Christmas present of a ¾ size Fender Squire acoustic. She never took to it so, I used it for my practice. Played it so much I put a “Wille Nelson” memorial hole below the pickguard.
Now my children are grown, and my middle daughter is married. Several months ago, at a garage sale, her and her husband bought me a Chinese made, laminate Ibanez dreadnought because they thought I should have a guitar without a second hole. I liked the big sound and began to play it. A lot. Just what I already knew but, still, playing. I began surfing the web looking for free sheet music and stumbled across TAC. I’m intrigued, I join and soon, I’m thinking I need a nicer guitar. So, I bought one; the parlor sized model you see in my videos. Which brings us to the present.
– Now I have the focus to set goals and work to accomplish them (I finally learned “Mood For a Day” – hooray for me!).
– Unconscious habit… Playing on the sofa with my recently acquired parlor size guitar, I run thru exercises without thinking.
– I actually look forward to practicing the FUNdamentals (scales, licks, progressions, etc).
5.) Bonus Question: What is one non-guitar item that is a must have in your guitar routine?
My homemade iced tea.
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