Welcome to Play a Little Guitar

Welcome to the Play a Little Guitar blog, where I am now well into my second year of musical incompetence.

This blog, which is pleased to be cited as today's Blog of Note, is the chronicle of a middle-aged beginner with no musical background trying to amuse himself by learning the guitar. Sometimes the efforts go beyond amusing to downright comical and sometimes even tragic but as it stands now, I am well on target to reach my goal of appearing on "Austin City Limits" in 2029.

Here you can read about Telecasters through history, my daughter and her stray guitar, a bathroom that looks like Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein guitar, my prejudices against all B chords, goofy things said at Guitar Center stores, guitar toilet seats, the ethical dilemma of pinky-planting and the distressing trend of distressed guitars. Someday, once my band-to-be, Stinktown Willie & the Hard Liquors, makes it big, I'd like to have my own guitarist action figure.

And while I have your attention, can anyone tell me why they call the song 'Dueling Banjos' if one of the guys in the movie is playing a guitar? And what about a guitarist's fingers? Are they overrated? How long should they be? How many is too many and how many is too few?

Thanks for looking around.