JohnB: oh yes, "Bobby Shaftoe" in the Bert Weedon book - I remember !I also used to spend hour upon hour singing "There was blood on the saddle, and blood on the ground, and a great big puddle of blood all around" - the lyrics appealed to me greatly at the time - but I don't think that one came from good old Bert and his book. I think Bert was rather more genteel :)

Anyway, back to the subject: There's lots of great advice here, and I reckon a combination of ALL of it is a good way to proceed. I think anything and everything that gives you the impetus and incentive to sit down and practise and play and have fun trying out new things has got to be good. It all then becomes a "virtuous circle".

I totally agree with the past few posters about going out and watching as many good people play as you can. The incentive for me to seek out my first ever guitar lesson this week was a combination of recently hearing some excellent guitar playing that made me think "Coo, I want to do that !", and hearing a beautiful song that made me think "I've just GOT to learn that one !"

I agree, too, with what people have said about having the incentive of wanting get the song/tune up to "paying public" performance standard. I beg to differ, though, about playing with other people always being such a good thing. As I said in my earlier post, whenever I have played guitar (in public) it has always been in bands/duos, where the others have played the "fancy bits" either on guitar or mandolin, and I've rather relied on them and just generally been allowed to get away with things. I'm coming back into this after a very long gap of only messing about on guitar at home, and I am faced with the alternative of mainly performing unaccompanied songs and being embarrassed about my really rather basic guitar accompaniments OR improving my guitar playing. So my incentive is actually the fact that I WILL be performing on my own.

The best thing is definitely to find a teacher. I've been practising my scales, because I know he's going to know if I haven't ! He's going to be watching like a hawk, too, to see that I get my fingering correct: I really need to be put right.

- jeanie