[Deliberate1]

I surely hope so. I am a 65 year old dog who picked up the guitar two years ago. I have posted before about my life-long experience as a jazz winds player who took up the box after falling in with a crowd of unsavory string players.

I took lessons for two years awith a teacher who was more about the theory of playing the guitar rather than playing the guitar, so much so that I could have left it home most lessons. He wanted to turn me into a jazz guitarist, which is all well and good, but I have that genre covered as lead tenor/clarinetist in an 18 piece big band.

So a month ago I found another teacher who is all about playing. His specialty is American roots music. He is a good guy and a capable teacher. We have been working on Freight Train as our first piece. I got it down, finger style, in about a week and was pleased. But then we got into the syncopated version which was a whole 'nother can of beans. I have found it a challenge to coordinate the upbeat plucked notes while keeping the thumb moving. He has made vids of the tune, played slowly, which I play and study carefully. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes what I get goes away. But I perservere.

I have never assigned any struggles I have in this realm to age. That said, I do wonder if learning this rather complicated coordination of finger/thumb movement is a particualr challenge for old grey matter. Even when I get a sequence down, sometimes it just evaporates when I return to it.

So I wrtie this post not to whine (though it may seem that way) because I am frankly thrilled to be able to do what I have accomplished in just three weeks of this. But I would appreciate hearing from any of you of a certain age who faced similar challenges learning this coordination intensive style, and what strategies you used to progress, and to avoid that head-banging frustration when it just don't come.
Thanks all.
David