Novice to Retired Business Man now Touring Guitarist

Steve F.

I started playing guitar in 4th grade from a placed in Hopkins, MN called Bud’s Music Center. I learned chords but had no idea how they all fit together to create a song. In High School, I would play three chord progressions for the local youth group but really just for fun. In college, I would mess around with a buddy that knew a lot of songs and enjoyed playing with someone else, but put it down upon graduation and didn’t pick it up again until my mid-thirties. I lived in Stockholm, Sweden for several years and MTV was big at the time. I saw a video of Eric Clapton on stage with a bunch of guitars and a cup of coffee playing this beautiful tribute to his lost son, Tears In Heaven. The next day, I bought an Ovation guitar and started taking lessons again for the first time in thirty years.

This time, I learned more about theory, the 1-4-5 and Circle of Fifths. I still don’t know any of it well, but at least I know enough to understand how songs and different instruments should hang together. I had a neighbor that would practice in the basement of our Stockholm apartment building and I would chill with him and play what limited stuff I could. A friend gave me a piano and I started learning more messing around with that and found it to be very cathartic to stay up late and just mess around, even with a very limited range of playing. I learned more about the genre’s of music I enjoyed and found that I could play along with almost any song as long as the basic chords were written out for me at the appropriate places.

When I moved back to the US, I built a little music room in my house with keyboard, amp, bass amp, cheap drum kit, mixer and mac laptop. I didn’t buy expensive programs and messed around with Garage Band how to connect devices through a mixer. I figured out how to use headphones so I wouldn’t wake up the family when I was playing late at night (my preferred time to play).

I bought a Spark Amp by Positive Grid and that allowed me to play many different guitar and bass sounds without having to invest in a bunch of pedals and that has been my best investment so far. I have played by myself in my music room for years without having any aspirations of venturing out. I found an app called Chordify which was a game changer for me. I can search any song I like and it finds the YouTube video and shows you bar by bar what chords to play at the appropriate time for both Guitar and Piano. With kids and work, I haven’t always had time to practice a lot so I really just want to jam with songs I like. The natural progression of doing this was an improvement in my guitar and piano skills. I’m still only an intermediate player but I improved my timing and speed of changing chords.

Just before Covid, a couple buddies started a garage band just for fun and asked me to join. I did mostly rhythm guitar with pretty basic progressions and eventually dabbled in the bass guitar. Covid hit and I broke my leg requiring surgery. Though I enjoyed playing, that took me out of the band long enough that I was replaced. The following year, my buddy David K reached out to me while I was skiing in Colorado and asked me to learn some Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly songs for a couple gigs he had in Iowa the weekend I was traveling back from Colorado to Minnesota. I would rehearse in the mornings and ski in the afternoons. I had never practiced with the band or performed on a stage before I showed up at an Opera House in Iowa. It seems I did well enough because I’ve been asked to play many more gigs in Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa and Texas. In addition to Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly, I’ve learned many songs by Elton John, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and many more. Though I am still at an intermediate level, I have gained confidence in playing both bass and rhythm guitar with hopes of learning some lead licks as I progress.

Last year, a new house that I had lived in for only one year burned down and took out all my equipment and a number of really nice guitars.

I have since built a nice music room with new gear. I bought most of my stuff from Sweetwater, Guitar Center and Stevie’s Guitars. Sweetwater provides a specific sales engineer that has helped me in my selections even though I haven’t bought all my gear there (Thank you Nathaniel Lutes!). As a novice, this service has been valuable as I build something that fits my needs.  I have a new setup now which includes a couple cool cases for two of the guitars that got caught up in the fire. I consider myself to be an enthusiastic music lover with decent timing and solid but limited ability to play guitar and bass. If you play like me and are interested in how a guy with my capabilities ends up playing in a band later in life, feel free to reach out.