So what's your playing goal?

[TBman]

Just curious.

A particular technique, a few new songs (names?), maybe record some songs and post them in the future?

[HHP]

I'm OK with not stinking. Anything beyond is gravy.

[Silly Moustache]

I've just passed my 69th birthday, and I am about to start treatment for cancer.

My ambition is to be able to sing and play in six month's time, like I can now.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

I've just passed my 69th birthday, and I am about to start treatment for cancer.

My ambition is to be able to sing and play in six month's time, like I can now.

Happy b'day SM, mine was a couple days ago too. We're all pulling for you (American for wishing you the best of luck).

[rick-slo]

At this point not to retrograde too much.

[Wyllys]

Best of luck in your treatment and recovery!

My goal when I started out was to be able to play along with what I heard as I was hearing it. After getting to that point as a back-up guitarist I wanted to do the same with harmony lines. The third stage was to be able to hear the melody, play the melody. This was done on fiddle.

The process took about 15 years to really ripen. Fortunately after the first stage I was able to earn a living as a musician. At age 70 my goal is to keep my body working well enough to continue playing.

[RodB]

A question I probably should ask myself but don't.

I'm more about the journey now than an ultimate goal. I do set out to arrange tunes rather than play someone else's version, especially happy to find pieces that others haven't transcribed for guitar, and just enjoy adding a variety of new tunes to the list.

One goal I suppose I have set myself is to record the ones I like most and I then put together a CD every Christmas primarily for my two sisters (one in Florida, the other in the UK). This keeps me moving forward coupled with a desire to make each one sufficiently different from the last.

[Nailpicker]

To keep working at always improving. Slowly, but surely always improving. Never accepting the idea of being just "good enough."

Although at my age I must confess to sometimes worrying about what Rick-slo said, "At this point not to retrograde too much."

[EllaMom]

I want to be able to play chord-melody, arrange music I love (Great American Songbook) and eventually, write my own music.

[menhir]

Simple. Forty songs that are completely stage-worthy.

I've learned a lot of songs over the years, and I can pick and grin through a decent amount of them just for fun, but I'm shootin' for a core a forty well-executed songs that I can really knock off on stage playing all by my lonesome, without fumbling for a chord, muffing up a riff, or screwing up a lyric...without looking at a cheat- sheet or tablet.

Why forty? When I used to play in a band, we always planned out each night's performance on four sets of ten songs each...plus or minus depending on the clock.

[Pitar]

Originally Posted by TBman

Just curious.

A particular technique, a few new songs (names?), maybe record some songs and post them in the future?

All of the above on an ongoing basis. I may not be able to name the (sung) songs or describe a technique now but, as we all know, that is constantly changing.

I'm always working on instrumentals of songs because I find them to be pathways to new techniques I would not otherwise think to take or evolve.

The song by Mary Hopkins for example, Those Were The Days (My Friend) is a song I always enjoyed and I'm now bashing it into an instrumental. I'm pretty much done with it but I've noticed the progression bears some similarity with Herman's Hermits' There's A Kind Of Hush, which I had in the queue to learn next. Instrumentally speaking, I would not have known learning one would season me to easily take on the other. California Dreaming is next in the queue for instrumental rendering and followed by others.

Yea, Those Were The Days is an old song ('68) but I always enjoyed the muse it evoked in me. That was a time for melody writing - same year as Classical Gas - that I return to for instrumental inspiration. When the 70's arrived protest songs became the fashion and though it was a very good time for acoustic guitar music it was time of songwriting that was less endearing to me. Paul Simon carried me through that time. I'm bashing his American Tune to an instrumental as well.

That's my current wandering. Thanks for asking.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by TBman

Just curious.

A particular technique, a few new songs (names?), maybe record some songs and post them in the future?

I have been working on arranging tunes that I know, and grew up with. I have a handle on arranging for solo guitar, but have a long way to go. What I am working on toward that goal is studying the master arrangers' work. I am very fortunate to have many, many arrangements by the likes of Howard Heitmeyer, Harold Streeter, Laurindo Almeida, and Stan Ayeroff. These are the "old school" professionals who hold the melody as sacred and seem to have a real feel for the music. They lean more toward the classical styling rather than typical fingerstyle. I would say that the closest I hear most often these days is probably Earl Klugh on solo guitar.

For some reason, your part about recording tunes didn't register at first. Yes, I think that is a great idea. It gives us something to work towards, a goal to keep us motivated when working day after day alone doesn't. Also, it makes the advice we give others in this forum more real - we are doing it ourselves and coming from real experience.

Tony

[M Hayden]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

I've just passed my 69th birthday, and I am about to start treatment for cancer.

My ambition is to be able to sing and play in six month's time, like I can now.

Hoping it all goes well for you. Wonderful song!

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

I've just passed my 69th birthday, and I am about to start treatment for cancer.

My ambition is to be able to sing and play in six month's time, like I can now.

Mr. Silly (Silly Mister? ), I have been reading and enjoying your posts for quite some time. I wish you all the best in your treatments and firmly believe that your wish to be able to sing and play in 6 months will really help you pull through. By the way, Happy Birthday too!

Tony

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by TBman

Just curious.

...maybe record some songs and post them in the future?

That's mine. I haven't recorded in a good while and I'm eager to get going again.

Silly M: Nice tune, and wishing you all the best going forward. I have a good friend who had something similar. A malignancy in his throat. That was 10 years ago. He's still cancer free today.