Joanne,

I'm a big fan of instructional material. I started learning to play after my brother came home from the navy in Okinawa and gave me a Teac or Tascam reel to reel with a whole box full of tapes. CCR, Steppenwolf, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Johnny Rivers, Woodstock, Otis Redding, Jethro Tull and the list goes on.

My Dad taught me the melody to "Wildwood Flower". His left hand had been crushed in a coal mining accident so that was all he could play. A childhood friend taught me the 4 or 5 songs he knew.

I learned everything I could from anyone who would show me how to play a song or riff. It wasn't until I discovered Homespun Tapes in a guitar magazine that I really began to learn how to play and understand music. I taught myself to read music and learned music theory from Mel Bay books.

I then immersed myself in scales, chords and arpeggios form numerous books and videos. Then I went on to diatonic scales, modes and progressions.

I met a bunch of pickers who were much better than me and were playing songs I didn't know. I had to learn to improvise to survive in that environmet. Jay Blankinship was instrumental, (no pun intended), in pushing me to expand my playing ability. He is the guy playing mandolin on the link in my signature. Jay is blind, but he's a great mandolin and guitar player. He's also a dear friend.

I wouldn't have been able to learn all of the new songs Jay was throwing at me if it hadn't been for all of the instructional material I had found over the years.

What you doing is a good thing. Don't let any naysayers discourage you. Keep it up.

Bob
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http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains