Ever since I started playing guitar back in the summer of '06, I've been [finger]picking the brains of every guitar player I've run across on the internet. Mostly I've been using YouTube as a medium, but heck, I figure what better place to try now but Arlo Guthrie's own forums?! Maybe even the folkslinger himself will chime in!

I'm sure theres bound to be at least a few guitar players (many with similar musical tastes) around these parts, so chime in! Don't play guitar? What instruments do you play?

Personally, I play the guitar and harmonica both primarily. Just picked up a banjo last fall too, but I've only gotten a few songs into Pete Seeger's old 5-String banjo book so far.

I don't mean to round up all you players out there into one big lump for my own disposal. I see this as a running convo about music playing of all types. What songs are you playing right now? Write any material you have online for us to check out? And yea, need any pointers or been thinking about playing an instrument and just never got around to it yet?

If any of you are interested, heres some stuff I have online right now: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=xavean Keep in mind, I only started guitar in the summer of '06 and harmonica in the fall of the same year.

Right now, I'm sorta messing around with some beginner fingerpicking (I've got Dust In the Wind down pretty solid..just beginning Here Comes the Sun). I gotta say though, I really love the flatpicking over it. I'm only starting to pick out my bass and treble lines separately. I've actually been watching the Homesprun DVD with Ramblin' Jack (Hosted by Arlo), and it's giving me a pretty good idea of how to mess around with some things. I wish it was a better tutorial resource though. As it stands, it's just a terrific video of stories and music with Jack and Arlo. I think Arlo has a really fantastic sense of the questions a beginner (at least like myself) has, and often puts them to Jack. But it's still a much more performance-based DVD. Still great.

So how about everyone else? (I hope this thread isn't bringing up a topic already beat to death, since I'm new around here!)

I play guitar but am no so good at it. Even tho I've played guitar since the 70's It end to play mountain dulcimer, autoharp, canjo & bowed psaltery more. I play piano & organ too. Welcome to the site...

You should check out the Name or Play that tune thread and the Tablature section.

I play guitar, but I'm never going to be really good at it. I can keep up in a jam, accompany myself or another singer and not do anything embarassing, and fingerpick some tunes. I'm competant on diatonic autoharp. I'm eleven years into my once a week Irish fiddle lessons. Jigs, reels hornpipes or O'Carolan tunes, anyone? I like to plunk around on my little Martin ukulele. I'm having a lot ot fun learning Anglo concertina; the Irish tunes fit on that really well. The Irish tunes also fit on a mandolin (they're tuned the same; the finger patterns are the same) so that's fun to play with, too. There's a few more instruments taking up space in the house, but they're mostly for amusement purposes. I'm happy playing music with friends, family and at our local open mic at the Folk Club of Reston-Herndon. People don't get up and use my sets for a restroom break, so I guess I'm not too boring.

Sue also plays at the yearly tailgate gathering just a half-a-foot from the railroad tracks.

Sue is a good musician. She is really good at playing autoharp, guitar & fiddle etc. I thank her for getting me into the autoharp which also led me into the mountain dulcimer & canjo & bowed psaltery...

I mostly sing harmony these days, but some day I will get back to playing the guitar. I've got a nice Martin D-35 sitting in the corner of my living room.

I've been playing the banjo for only one year. ( I’m a beginner !) I learn by myself, with video, because there are not many banjo players here, (women even less! )

I play the guitar and harmonica. Have been since I was 12 years old when my mother bought me a classical guitar. But, my older sister had a Bob Dylan's Free Wheelin album and I was hooked. I then began listening to every album she had and then I found Arlo's Alice’s Restraint Album. The album just blew me away. I played Alice’s restaurant over and over. I wanted to learn how to play that song so much but didn't like the sound I was getting from my guitar. So I said well what kind of guitar does Arlo have? Well I couldn’t afford a D28 so I traded in my classical guitar and with what little money I had from my paper route I bout an used Guild Maderia. Not the best guitar I ever had but the sound was what I was looking for. So to make a long story short I put the guitar for a long while and have picked it back up again. With the inspiration of my fellow ArloNet friends I have now been practicing regularly and perform a few open mikes here and there. I have also started to put some of the lyrics that I have to music. Heck there sure is a lot to write and sing about these days...

Well, I bought a guitar in 1966-which makes me as much a guitarist as standing in a garage makes me a car. I took lessons and learned a few chords and a few songs. I never could make the F chord correctly.

About 10 years ago I decided I could learn to play the piano, so my husband bought me an old one. I'd had a few lessons as a child in 1959.
I never did learn to do anything with it, but one of my daughters learned it on her own. Now she's a drummer and has her own trap set.

I think I could learn to play the drums. I offered to trade my daughter potty training her little girl for drum lessons and she said "deal." Now I need 2 weeks in Hot Springs with the child, the potty and the drums.

I am going to get another guitar simply because I love the song "In Days Like These" so much that I have to learn to play it. Also, it doesn't have an F chord in it.

p.s. How hard is the harmonica to play?

I wish someone could just film just a little bit of these tailgate gatherings and put them into the net for us lonely faraway strangers to share. Maybe someone next time when it comes around.........?

The F chord was always a hard one for me to play. It's harder to play guitar when the string actions too high...

I learned one song on the Piano about 14 years ago. "Off we go to Music land. Training gingers, hand and eye." I swear, with a little bit of luck by getting my Family behind me, we could be at Music Land today. It was around that time, I kept playing Steve Miller's Swingtown 4 or 5 times a night on the juke box. For we have been working way to hard, and I may go insane if we don't truly get there soon. Though I do have Bob Seger's "Someday you will accompany me" almost down pat.-hoping to play both some day for the blond who blew my mind. I had changed the words to the the music land song to "off go to Carol's Land. Teaching here to talk to me, instead of everyone else in 40's club "but" me.

I just inherited a piano from my recently deceased friend John. We've had the piano tuner out for a visit, and he's tuned it and declared it healthy for it's age (1919) . I'm in the middle of stripping it ; the finish looks like alligator skin. Rubbing alcohol does a great job, stripping off the old varnish without raising the grain on the wood, but you do a little at a time; the fumes get to you! It will be very pretty when I get done with it; the veneer is all figured red mahogany. I'm really bad at piano, but it's fun to play with.