Thought I'd try out Jay's suggestion of blogging my practice. SO it's a bit of a record for myself and its a sneak peek for my TG friends.

Monday 30.August (celebrating 1 year at TG).

Tuned down 12 string Takamine 1/2 step. Practised chord progressions on Gypsy by The Moody Blues to better fit my voice on the high parts. Just about make it without straining. I may be missing a chord here but rhythm sounds good. Great up-lifting song to belt out. Practised with original recording on speaker for 20 mins them 10 mins without.

Practised opening riff (as I do nearly every day) on Story in Your Eyes - Moody Blues. Can play it near perfect with the midi and original recording at full speed by now. I practice it slow and then speed up to as fast as I can go. Then I slow down to normal speed... which is FAST buts now seems easy. This is almost always the first thing I do when I pick up my guitar each day. Spend about 10 mins on it.

Learning to play Fast Car by Tracey Chapman. Found a video on Youtube (don't tell Neil!) which shows it really well and they do a great job on the song but it's not like following a Neil lesson. Playing this on my Takamine nylon string. I have the beginning down and am progressing SLOWLY. Spend an unfocussed10 mins on this.

Being in a Tracy Chapman mood, I play through Talkin' 'bout a Revolution 2 or 3 times. Easy to play, love to sing it.

Well folks, it's a short slide down hill to Christmas and New Year and I have begun the end of my year. Best thing I have done this year? I went to a masseur today who was the top of his trade at the national sport school and then spent 6 years learning Chinese techniques in Bulgaria when it was still behind the iron curtain. Now this guy is GOOD. And the massage HURT like hell as he was re-aligning the muscles and tendons of my hips and legs which have taken a hammering with all the hours I have done on court. He told me my left hip and thigh was really F***ed. Then he hurt me A LOT and then 40 minutes later I'm fine. More than fine. Feel like reborn. I can actually move. Freely. Without pain. It may be symbolic that before I went, I did 30 minutes training on my indoor bike and watched The Wrestler with Micky Rourke.  Remember how he was moving. That was me this morning. Now, I'm flying. If I hadn't experienced it, I would not believe it could be. Apparently he's the only person in the country who knows how to do this. I'm so happy I went. I am in awe and so thankful of people who make a difference like this. Especially when it makes such a difference to me!

Talking of people who make a difference, especially to me, Neil, Matt and the crew of TG have made a huge difference to my guitar life and they are touching more people's lives than any other guitar teacher organisation ever and they have only just begun (I hear the Carpenters!). You all know exactly what I mean. So for my soul, joining TG has been the best thing I did this year by far. I'm looking forward to all that will come and to some time with my family down in Espana this holiday... with guitar in hand armed with some Christmas songs and other cool stuff I learned in the past 4 months.  I have also met so many great people amongst the TG members who really make a difference to my every day life. Great guitar friends! So thank you guys, you really make a difference and I am truly grateful for it.

Now I'm all set to try to make a difference to others, any way I can.

May Santa jingle your bells folks!

Chris

Well folks, this is typical of totallyguitars.com. You go out to do an honest day's work, you come home and find that TG has moved the cutting edge of online guitar learning to somewhere else! Boldly going where no guitar website has gone before. This really smacks of Captain Kirk and crew. Don't be surprised if the site language suddenly becomes Klingon or something like that because this Enterprise is going somewhere fast! So I'm going to wrap up my first blog ever on the internet  with this theme tune and hope you'll on board now because this site is taking off!

Get on board folks!