I'm on a mission and driven to learn guitar way past where I once thought was my limit

Music is the best. In terms of “quickest form of emotional expression”, there's really nothing else that beats it.

Music for me started out with loving full songs, but now with my ADHD-like brain, when I learn a song on guitar, I learn the chord progressions for the different parts, but I find that I really don't want to play through it. Full songs are now no longer where my interest is.

My musical tastes changed a lot about 15 years ago. Not necessarily the genres or styles of music, but if you can fit a great song in 2-3 minutes, it can become one of my favorite songs ever. Except when it comes to jazz, which can run many more minutes. Jazz will always be interesting if it's 3 minutes or 12. One of my favorite songs ever is a 9 minute jazz song, Misterioso by Thelonious Monk. Other jazz songs I listen to, time is not a consideration, and it flies by. But generally, let it be known, that I love jazz. I listen to it constantly. Mainly the greats from the 60s and earlier. It's my main gig. That classic jazz beat, bebop jazz, etc. The drums and the double bass, piano or sax or trumpet or guitar. Even big band like Duke Ellington. Love it.

I've been playing guitar off and on for like 30 years. I remember learning my first full song that was more on the difficult side, Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I grew up in a great time to play guitar, I picked it up in the mid 90s. I played the whole song for my friends, lugging my guitar and amp to a sleepover with the goal of playing that song for them. I was proud, still am, to play guitar, and want to record videos and share them. I know there are a billion people better at guitar, and at the ability to grasp musical concepts, but that has never stopped me :)

I've never really considered myself good at music, though I can play some notes on guitar, and give it soul. Guitar is a percussive instrument and I use it to its full potential. My first attempt to “get good at music” was to learn piano. By “get good at music”, I generally mean know the notes in keys, scales, learn to read music, learn more chords, learn difficult songs and musical concepts. I am not there. But I want to get there. And I think, for me right now, the best way to do that is to learn jazz guitar.

I have bought lots of books. I am practicing more every day that I pretty much ever had with possible exception of when I first started, since I don't really remember. I love to learn and get better. Seeing progress. Finding stuff I found hard a few weeks ago to be easy! I'm really into it and hope to one day be Joe Pass-able on some jazz tunes.

The thing with guitar, you learn a few licks, and you learn the pentatonic scale, and you get into muscle memory and are able to just make up stuff on the fly around that scale. I'm even trying to get better at that. The scale, of course, covers the whole fretboard, but I basically only ever used two boxes out of 5. Sliding, bending and hammering my way to basic competency. I can definitely make it sound good. But those scales are all I have seen when I look at the guitar. Now I'm starting to see more. Arpeggios, jazz scales for dominant 7ths, major 7ths, etc. Minor scales. I don't quite see them yet, but that's what I hope to gain out of an hour or two of practice per day. That and all the new chords that come with it.

One thing I would probably like to improve is my posture in learning. I have books, which are my preferred way of learning. But typically you are holding a book when you read it. But with guitar learning, there's no holding it. Standing and learning isn't the way to go, and my pet peave is that most books I buy are not spiral bound (game changer). Sitting on my piano chair and trying to put the book on the music stand isn't working for that reason, the lack of spiral bound. The best way I've found so far is on the couch. I'll use my Gretsch Corvette, as it's the smallest guitar I own. So I can have it on my lap and read my book and learn scales and chords and concepts. And I have my little laptop on the coffee table to play samples that come with the books. So I can hear the intonations and the percussions, and little detail that isn't really covered by a number in a tab.

I look forward to getting better :D