Tony Bowe

[Tony Bowe]

At 70 and deciding I have a lot of life left in me yet I have decided to invest in Life Membership of Breakthrough Guitar.

I joined on an Annual Subscription last year with the intent of polishing up all of the gaps in my abilities occasioned by my self taught guitar playing. When did I start playing guitar?
Two answers:

1. At 19 I appeared in a Revue and the producers wanted my character to strum a guitar whilst singing a song. I can’t even remember the song but it had three (3) chords. They lent me a guitar, showed me the chords and sent me away to practice. There I was, a guitar player in a Revue that ran for three (3) nights to audiences of 200, 400 & 600 people. But I could only play one song and, when they took the guitar back off me, well, what could I do? I bought a new cheapy, an Angelica. It sounded really good and in mellowed with age. And, I bought an “easy chords” campfire & popular songs book which dramatically expanded my repertoire to about 300 songs all with easy open, not necessarily the correct chords. I wore both the book and the guitar out as I never actually ‘learnt’ any song and I needed the book in front of me to remember the chords. For many years I entertained family and friends with the same old songs.
2. Fast forward to about 5 years ago. I pulled out the Angelica and joined Ultimate Guitar and started to relearn how to play. Last year, my wife, seeing tge potential bought me a Yamaha and I Joined breakthrough so that I could learn, music, strumming, picking, keyboard notes, barre chords and more. That resulted in a commitment and I have had opportunity to play several improptu concerts whilst travelling in our caravan (Australia). I have also had occasion to join with other musicians and it is really great to have some sense about what they are talking about when they ask, for instance, “What key is it in?”