Older beginning guitar player

[Flashmann]

3. not naturally gifted

Me either..If I have a shred of natural talent,it hasn't seen fit to rear its ugly head...

I compensated by trying to apply additional pressure to get a "clean" chord.

The death grip...Like most beginners I tried my best to strangle the guitar with each new chord..The worst was trying to dial in the big bad dreaded F,before learning any other E shaped bars....Oh yeah...I'm learning on electric too,mainly because that's what I like to hear..That it's easier to play than an acoustic is a happy accident...

I take weekly private lessons,in fact I go in later today,but I have a handful of online lesson sites I use too....Ultimate guitar is one...A couple have U-tube linked videos,like Justin Sandercoes site,whose method of teaching I really like....

In this past week I've gotten more heavily into music theory,learning to calculate the intervals between notes is just starting to make some sense....

So far,other than very simple and amateurish stabs at playing "Wild Thing" and "Louie Louie",it's mostly bits and pieces and chord progressions..

My instructor has me heavily into technique stuff,primarily,right now,to build strength/stretch/endurance and finger independence....Hammer ons,pull-offs,trills,"finger gym" exercises using all 4 fingers "walking" up and down the strings,in different combinations and I've gotten really fluid with 4 different scales...