Joao Peneda

In case anyone wishes to access the contents despite the navigation and layout looking like a hot mess and not being as originally set (due to Google Sites being updated along the way), here's the current link: https://sites.google.com/view/goodolskillshouserebuilt/home Enjoy!

Here's another cool sounding portable guitar by an European manufacturer. It's the Furch Little Jane. Here's a nice video showcasing how it sounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=5kvuWFmo71U

This is a really cool topic. Thank you for sharing, Mandy! Among others, I came across a fantastic US based brand called Voyage Air Guitars. Really cool feats of engineering that sound quite amazing! I think I would very much appreciate having a VAOM-3CG2 and maybe a VER-1 BELAIR. But I guess they're only available to American customers. Maybe when I get to visit the states I get to bring them home with me.

Thank you so much for sharing!! Again, congratulations on your wonderful playing.

Wow @Wim VD1! That's amazing! And inspiring! Hope someday soon I can play it as well. Great job!

That's some nice playing on a fantastic sounding guitar! Congrats!

Happy Birthday!! Thank you so much for every bit of music you gave to me and us all!

UPDATE Here's the last batch of "Song Lessons". These are the ones added this time: Kylie Minogue - All The Lovers Vertical Horizon - Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) John Lee Hooker - Boom Boom Jimmy Reed - Bright Lights, Big City Johnny Cash - Cocaine Blues The Decemberists - Don't Carry It All Chevelle - Face To The Floor Michael Bublé - Haven't Met You Yet Deep Purple - Highway Star My Morning Jacket - Holdin' On To Black Metal My Morning Jacket - I'm Amazed Billy Squier - My Kinda Lover Glen Campbell - Rhinestone Cowboy Foghat - Slow Ride Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues Cheap Trick - Surrender Creedence Clearwater Revival - Suzie Q REO Speedwagon - Take It On The Run Patrick Stump - This City With these, the project is now finished. In case I find some new files and videos within the Internet Archive, I'll make sure to add them to the site when I have the time. If you find any glitches or errors in the site, please let me know so that I can correct them, for everyone's benefit. Also, if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear it. Enjoy! 😁

@Steve Goeringer @Eracer_Team-DougH Thank you so much for the encouraging words, Steve. I guess I may be aiming a bit too high and too hard for myself, but I believe I'll get there, as many others before me did. For quite some time, I have had a lot of fun singing and strumming the guitar (as I still do today), but not being able to express myself better through it is something that has been weighing on me for a long time. That's why I really want to get all of this to be done right and thoroughly. Because I really need to feel confident in what I'm doing in order not to think about it. And that's also why I consider doing the spotlight series content before the respective L&MG course lessons, even though I'm fully aware of how big of a chunk both of them are, relative to those lessons. I do realize these are not requirements for the completion of the course, but I view them as a deeper dive into the concepts taught in the course. And I do want to dive deep, Doug. Namely into fingerstyle solo instrumental guitar and blues/rock soloing lead guitar. Again, thank you both for the support and encouraging words.

I guess this is a good place to take my chance and come clean about the course. I honestly cannot remember exactly when or how I came about the course, but I’m pretty sure it was before 2010. Maybe I was searching online for something that would help me develop my skills as a musician and guitarist. Along with sites like JamPlay and YouTube channels like JustinGuitar, I stumbled into the Legacy Learning Systems webpage and somehow, with a few more Google searches, I got to a torrent version of the course which I downloaded and kept on my hard drive. I didn’t start the course right away, although I should have, and I postponed the studying for a number of reasons and excuses that I can’t remember today. Still, from what I recorded and according to the study plans I laid out, my first attempt at it was in November 2011, which got sidetracked mainly for the lack of a steady, defined quiet place to practice. The months went by and on April 2014 I gave it another shot. I restarted the whole thing, finding it a lot easier to roll by the earlier lessons up to session 10, when again my practice space and time was disturbed a few months later, in July. And I fell off the wagon, once more. Trying not to be discouraged and to hold myself accountable, I finally was able to order an original copy of the Homeschool Edition of the Gibson’s Learn and Master Guitar course on October 14th that same year. But because of customs control I only received it by the end of the year. Still, I did get an original copy of the course after so much time on a ripped internet version. For some reason or another, I kept the newly bought course on hold, bought the Song Hits complementary course along the way and didn’t restart the studying then. In the meantime, parenthood happened in 2016 and my already wild time management got even wilder which lead me to only give it a third try by September 2019, keeping a strict record of the progress this time. Again, I wanted to be able to do it properly, so I revised everything I had done on previous attempts. The first sessions were dealt with in a matter of a couple of months, and as I got into the theory exercises I started slowing down, although I’m pretty comfortable with chords and rhythm, since that’s what I’ve been doing for a living for the last 15 years. Also, I decided to rearrange the course a little bit. With other materials I searched and found on the web (just until I can afford to buy the original ones), once I finished Session 9 and corresponding songs from the Song Hits, I started the Fingerstyle course for a more in depth instruction, instead of starting session 10 of the main course. I finished the first session and moved into the second, but again, by the end of January this year, schedules got harder to manage and I put everything on hold again… You see the pattern and where it’s going… I’m planning on taking a few steps back, once again, because I feel many of the skills I have are sloppy (one of the reasons that lead me to search for instruction in the first place) and I really want to get them right. It’s been a rollercoaster journey for me, but I really find a lot of value in all this content that Steve has put out there for us. So I’ll restart and redo the course up to session 9 along with the corresponding Song Hits, move on to the first five sessions of the Fingerstyle Course until I can play Canon in D with confidence, then move to session 10 of the main course along with the Song Hits as a consolidation of the fingerstyle part, continue until session 12. Then move into the Blues Guitar Spotlight course and after that back to session 13 of the main course up to the last session and Song Hits tune. Only then will I be able to confidently say that I finished the Learn And Master Guitar Course. But I guess I have to start first… Again… And once I finish the course, I’ll tackle the remaining three lessons of the Fingerstyle course and see where I’ll go from there.

UPDATE Here's the first batch of available "Song Lessons". As of this moment, these are the ones I managed to get done: Lenny Kravitz - American Woman Neon Trees - Animal The Ramones - California Sun Tommy James and The Shondells - Crimson and Clover Train - Drive By Neon Trees - Everybody Talks Colbie Caillat - Fallin' For You Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me Iron Butterfly - In A Gadda Da Vida Tommy James and The Shondells - Mony Mony Harold Arlen - (Somewhere) Over The Rainbow Metro Station - Shake It Bo Diddley - Who Do You Love The Troggs - Wild Thing Hope to have some more songs done real soon and finally finish the project. As always, I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE The "Guitar Apprentice" section is now finished. All three songs - Foreigner's "Hot Blooded", ZZ Top's "LaGrange" and Alabama's "Mountain Music" - are now available once again. My next and last endeavor in this project will be the "Song Lessons" section. I suppose it will take quite a lot more time to finish. But I will probably be updating this topic with batches that get done along the way, instead of waiting for all 35 songs to be available. I'll keep you all posted!