Folks,
You want plain talk? Well, here it is. Point blank and in your face.
If you have not already ordered Kirk's
PlaneTalk book or DVD, you are doing yourself a disservice. And this is why........
But before I get too deep, as I have a fondness for doing, I just want to set the record straight. I know Kirk via his guitarforbeginners.com web site. Just like you folks. And very recently at that. I'm half way around the world from Tamborine Mountain, which is just the coolest name, and will, more than likely, never ever meet Kirk in this lifetime. I have posted some up my works in the "Recording Section" of the GFB forum. So you know what I am, how I play, and most importantly how well I play.
I found Kirks GFB web site because I knew I was missing something. And google is my friend. So I started googling for guitar "stuffness", as it were. Yes, I can play. And for all intents and purposes, at least in my mind, pretty good. I'm not "an accomplished" guitar player, but I can hold my own in a pinch. But I was missing something. As it turns out, I was missing quite a lot. I mean... a big lot!!!!!.
Here's my drift. I've been playing acoustic guitar for thirty some odd years. I'm a kitchen musician. I have played public only a few times. I play for myself and my family and thats about it. I do have aspirations, though, of one day writing, producing and distributing my own CD on my own label, 'Croaking Frog Brand Music'.
Now to the meat .....
I received Kirks PlaneTalk book and DVD today. I had waited in anticipation for a week or so as it made its way around the world. The first thing I did when I received and opened the
PT package was to insert the DVD into the computer so I could determine, very quickly, whether this was the "Real McCoy" or just another "I can teach you guitar if you send me money".
Well, here it is folks. The blatant truth.
"It's the Real McCoy!".
At this writing I haven't even watched the entire DVD. At a quarter of the way through I thought, my God, this Kirk guy knows exactly what he's talking about. So I continued to the half-way mark. Folks, I had to stop. I had to stop and
re-e-val-u-ate my entire 35 years of guitar playing. I'm not kidding. I had to stop the DVD!!!!! There was more information about the complexity of a 6 string guitar in the first 30 minutes of Kirks DVD than I had ever dreamed of in the last 30+ years. But.... and this is a HUGE BUT.... Kirk explains within the first thirty minutes what I could not even come close to comprehending in 30 years of "playing". And it's crystal clear. I mean, you can be a novice player, a good player, a seasoned player, I don't care. If you don't walk away from just the "first" 30 minutes of this DVD, with more insight to playing the guitar than you imagined, then you are not meant to be a guitar player. And that's not a bad thing. Maybe you should be a lawyer or a politician or a plumber. Those are all well accomplished positions in society. And they all sing a song.
Ok. I got a bit gruff with the plumber thing. But here is the Gods honest truth. I know more about my guitar and playing it after 30 minutes with Kirk than I have taught myself in 30 years. I'm talking 30 years worth of "experience" and it took "30 minutes" of attention to Kirk to revamp my entire thinking of the guitar, its purpose and how to deal with it.
I'm off to the 2nd 30 minutes and then to the book. Don't look for me for a few days......
Les
Crab Orchard, KY.
USA
