Hi, welcome to my blogging project!

I'm Brandt and I'm a guitarist. I have played guitar for nearly 10 years and I've recently made the decision to push my skills to the limit, to pursue a path toward virtuosity. Why? Because I want to accomplish something in my life that is quite difficult, in hopes that pursuing this goal with all my energy, will allow me to find my purpose in this crazy world.

So, what is this all about? I guess this is a quarter-life crisis that is surpassing my "quarter-life." Or perhaps it's the fear of 3o looming over my head - which happens in 1.5 years (sigh) - combined with a feeling of "what the hell just happened to my life since high school?" I'm not really sure to be honest, but I am sure of one thing: I'm not who I want to be and I'm no longer in control.

I'm sitting here on New Year's Day, writing this blog post, taking my first step toward my theme of 2010, which is to re-structure my life and (hopefully) find myself through the process. The question is how should I do this and can I even do this? I'm not really sure on both counts, but I think this blog might be a good start.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something. I'm going to master guitar and use this blog to track my journey.

I'm armed only with...
- my will to learn
- my gear and custom Warmoth Strat called the Orange Beast
- my guitar heroes: Eric Johnson, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Brad Paisley and (of course) Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page.
- and my guitar teacher, Craig, for guidance

I figure, to be a well-rounded guitarist you need to be able to master all the basic styles: rock, jazz, blues, country and classical. To master these styles I'll need great chops, a foundation in music theory, a solid understanding of composition, great rhythym and the ability to read notation.

This is my journey, my quest to find myself through the study of music and guitar.