1/5/2025 – Still playing 7 days a week, one hour (minimum). In my practice area (I have a set place for playing). My weekend playing is two things: Writing / building, and until further notice, re-visitng the challenges, “Sambora Sweetness” (to work out hybrid picking) and now, “Every Time She Goes” (to work out a good fingerpicking style). I also revisit these during the week after running through that day’s challenge. ***2026 – Hybrid Picking now an effective part of my toolbox*** Will be retiring on July 31 and jumping back into music.

I have actually been playing about 50% of my TAC on my electric guitars. I have one acoustic / electric guitar. A 2018 Ovation Richie Sambora Special Double-Neck. It rocks.

I find TAC to be a grounding rod to constantly learning new skills and I am more and more quickly finding them ending up in my playing. I have been patiently practicing (discovery, as Michael Schenker refers to practice) / discovering, and I am extremely happy where I am now. I am always picking up stuff from TAC. I have taken some Monday Night warm-up lessons and mingled them with others to create mixed warm up or quick practice patterns that I still use.

I have actually been playing guitar for some time. From April 1981 to June 1985, I played guitar in a cover band (Quest). From 1987 all the way through 1990 I played bass in a Goth Metal band playing originals (Kidd Wicked). We made demos, shot two videos, and shopped our music around. We opened shows for Hurricane and Killer Dwarfs here in Denver. After some musical differences arose, we split, and I played bass in a modern radio-type band that had a female singer through 1993 (RedAdair). All of our music was originals. The very last time I was on stage was at the KAZY Music Fest in March 1992 where we opened for Foghat and Blue Oyster Cult (RedAdair) here in Denver.

That was the last time I picked up any musical instrument until August of 2019. It was worth it by far – I got married and our son is now flying successfully with his new wife. Anyway, I have been planning to wait until full retirement and then jump back into local music. I joined TAC back in 2020. I play with some friends a couple times a month, lean songs, and I now note down a lot of thoughts, ideas and feelings (a case of cool notebooks from Temu LOL!)  I never stop studying or playing “basics”.  Fingerpicking has not before entered my world, however now it is rolling along decently. Also, after all of these years this Fretboard Master course has shown me some new things that I have never directly studied previously. To me, TAC is one of the fun parts in playing challenges and new styles.