Who is learning a new musical instrument after FIRE?

[ScooterGuy]

I built a couple of cigar-box guitars (& one out of a cardboard pizza box). Then, following the instructions from It's Easy to Build Your Own Lap Steel Guitar (Martin Koch, 2004), I built one.

However, I still have few musical skills:

• Precious-little musical background
• no musician friends (particularly on the lap steel)
• no prior talent
• no family history of music
• already 65 years old
• a tremor in my dominant left hand
• screwy vision
• I know only a little musical ‘vocabulary’ and ‘theory’
• I don’t know Country from City
• Can’t tell The Blues from The Reds
• Don’t know Ragtime from Pastime
• Can’t figure out Jazz from Razz
• Don’t know Hawaiian from Lower Slabovian
• Can’t tell Western Swing from Eastern Teeter-Totter

I do have:

• A strong desire to have fun playing my musical instrument(s)
• A homemade, DIY electric lap steel & small amp
• a pretty good 'ear,'
• a good memory for tunes
• Being retired, I have more time for myself (but I share that time with my sexy young wife, motorcycle touring, national & international travel, armchair reading, home repairs & upgrades, medical appointments, DIY projects, etc.)
• I have a modest budget for teaching fees, books and DVD’s
• I can get around with a car, motor scooter or public transportation
• I accept that my progress will probably take 2-3 times as long to learn, in comparison to other folks
• I’ll probably only play ‘in public’ in the park, at a motel while on a motorcycle tour (they’ll never see me again) or on a street corner

My tastes in music are all over the landscape:

• I have no interest in contemporary rock (heavy metal, punk, techno, etc.)
• I have no interest in rap
• I’m only marginally interested in C6-tuned country-western
• I do like folk & ballad
• historical
• contemporary
• Celtic
• delta blues
• fusion of musical cultures
• medieval-renaissance-baroque-classical
• some pop
• a little older rock (50’s and 60’s);
• parodies & satires of other tunes
• 'dirty ditties’ & funny songs/tunes

I want to play:

• for my lovely, sexy wife, now and then
• for an occasional family member, friend or encountered person
• mostly for myself.
• I just want to make music! Happy, sad, lamenting, dirty, exalting, historical, contemporary, satirizing, red-hot, ice-cold wailing music.
• I want to sing to my own playing, if only to something like “The Orange Blossom Special,” “Bi-Mix Number Nine,” “Black Is the Color,” “The Bricklayer’s Lament,” “Frobisher Bay” or “It Was Early Last December …”.
• or just play “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” “Say My Name,” …