[Brian Krashpad]

When I was a kid my dad bought a few different acoustic instruments on his world travels as a US Navy officer. He could play a bit of banjo, but never really learned to play the others. So he announced that any of us kids that learned to play one of his instruments could have it for themself. He had a "Mel Bay" guitar book for beginners, so I used that to start off. This was back in the early 70's so there were no DVD's or instructional videos. With 5 kids on a navy salary, we sure couldn't afford private lessons.

The following year in junior high school, I took a beginner guitar course at school, but I already knew enough that the teacher just took the 2 or 3 kids who could play some and let us sit out in the hall and jam for an automatic "A." So I learned some more from the other kids in the class that were better than I.

Although it was an elective, the rule with the music classes at that school was that you could not repeat a music class until you took the other 2 instruments also. So the rest of that first year I took recorder, and then keyboard. When I went back the following year I got another automatic A sitting out in the hall jamming again (after that I just took shop or PE or something).

Since then I just used to jam by ear with records and such, and then later in bands (since the early '80's). At one point I did take a short chord theory course, but I've forgotten almost all of it (something about the "circle of fifths..."). Another educational experience was playing in church for about 10 years, which I stopped a couple years ago after switching churches. That was very helpful for me, because, even though I don't sight-read, I got used to playing with lead-sheet charts, plus I had to play in styles I would never have played otherwise. Fortunately, the Music Directors there pretty much gave me free rein to figure out my own arrangements and parts on each song. I'd love to get back into doing that again, I highly recommend it for anybody that goes to church or other place of worship.

Try to learn the cards in order to get better at playing real songs. It also helps the songs later. When you can play well enough, you should try to learn the theory. Learn scales, chords, keys, spaces and more comfortable. I would also suggest learning to play fingerstyle. If you play fingerstyle blues or jazz, then you have some talent.