I picked virtuoso for skill level because people who hear me play say I am... In reality I am mostly an "intuitive" player; I do not know all the scales, etc.. I taught myself, (so I have a fool for a teacher) I picked up the Mel Bay Chord book. I played those chords (except for some of those crazy Beatle's type B chords)developed lifelong callouses, read and listened to anything I could get my hands on that had to do with guitar. Anyone who could play, anything, I would watch and cop all their licks...Finally someone heard me playing "Mandolin Wind"-Rod Stewart and turned out to be a newspaper guy and a player. He couldn't believe what I was getting out of my $10 rummage sale guitar and gave me a Martin copy( a Sigma)which improved my playing to a new level. Most importantly he showed me how to change strings, how to tune harmonically instead of the depressed string method and gave me a lot of encouragement. Too bad he gave me the newspaper write up and picture! lol I was seventeen and thought I was a star, already...I had groupies, free drinks, free weed and coke(powerded)(it WAS the 80's :) So, around that time I just spent a lot of time carrying my guitar around when it wasn't in the pawn shop, that is...And that is how it went for about ten years. I have tons of recorded tapes from that period and some of it is just awful...some of it is so sweet and insane I would give anything to know how I came up with some of that...Finally, I crashed hard from all the partying...and went through another ten years of not playing at all...I thought I had to quit playing to quit the partying...and it was kind of true at the time. Now I am alive again without all the partying. And I am finally able to play guitar without ending up totally wasted every minute...At first I just kept trying to capture everything I "used" to play or figure out what I was doing on those awesome tapes...Now, I am growing and found these articles and mags so great! Thank