During my early years of playing guitar (early 70's), there was this local magazine, a chord book which has both local and international songs with chords (of course,
), which became a regular companion to me (sort of a teacher). I would choose a song which I know and try to learn the chords of that song, which are illustrated near the back page. It was not a case of learning the chords only, but leaning how to fret the chords while I was playing the song very, very slowly. I can remember strumming with all down strokes only.
That became a routine for me. Until I found out that I can already strum Jose Feliciano's "Once There Was A Love" and Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" (the intro part of this song was learned much later).
That chord book has a new issue every 3 months at first (which became a monthly publication after some years). We ended up having a collection of that chord book. In effect, I got exposed to strumming the songs that were familiar
radio tunes.
Around late 70's, (the late) John Denver's songs became popular in the radio and with some high school friends, I learned the fingerstyle playing (plucking, as we call it). This time I would bring my sister's guitar (a cheap acoustic guitar) to school and we played on the school grounds after classes, singing and sometimes jamming. (Aaah, sweet memories.
) And it went on even in college days, but this time I had my acoustic guitar already.
It had been mostly strumming and plucking for me for the years that followed after that. And as you would guess it, I had been bored many times too, but I always come back to playing the guitar. This time around I am trying to learn many things new to me, like hybrid picking, theory lessons, and improvising / soloing.