kennywtelejazz
I see a few members have showed up 
 
I would definitely tell myself not to get caught up in all the petty side issues and ego trips of being a guitar player  .
 
In the near future , good guitar players are gonna sprout like an invasion of sex crazed bunny rabbits and over populate the music business .   
Even keyboard players that can easily outplay the best of guitar players are gonna start using samples of well recorded guitars and get into the act .Get used to that Idea , learn from them all , and use it to your advantage .
 
Be open to learning something new and useful in music . Hopefully something new in music that will translate into a musical skill that you can enjoy doing , get good at and use to be of service to your fellow man & woman in music  .
 
 
 
Kenny
 

The funny thing in my case is that I would probably recommend myself not to put the guitar away as much as I did between 2001 and 2010, and to challenge myself to at least learn new things, even if that wasn't going to end up on tape.
 
Coming from a rock and metal background, the new millennium was a challenging place if you wanted to maintain artistic integrity. Ever since grunge, playing with any sort of virtuosity has been frowned upon in popular rock music. I feel that it goes on to this day - it's all about texture, and melodies are kept to a minimum. 
 
Unless you go full out "classic rock". But there's a cheesy aspect to that too. You can't exhibit serious rock star chops unless you mean it as a joke. 
 
The irony being that there is an endless supply of amazingly skilled kids out there, but all they seem to do is to show off in front of their web cam and upload it on the web. Okay, most of them exhibit an absolute lack of emotion, but, hey...
 
Me I felt I had reached a plateau. I wasn't hot enough to shred like the hairy dudes. OTOH, I couldn't pretend to be Kurt Cobain either. And everyone had been abusing the SRV/Hendrix thing for over a decade, which had also been my thing...
 
Anyway - using those new tools that are accessible to everyone today, I can honestly say that my playing has improved dramatically, even just in the last few months, whereas, I was stuck in the same place for over a decade. I could and should have challenged myself before...

One word: plastics.

If we're veering off into general "career" stuff then I would definitely have to say...
 
"That one chick? RUN!!! RUN FAR FAR AWAY!! She... will... ruin... EVERYTHING!!!"
 
Same old story. Ugh.

I was a sax player many moons ago.  Haven't touched one in years. 
I would tell myself to pick it (the sax) back up and learn keys, computer and mixing like there's no tomorrow.
 
Although a producer friend of mine in Chicago told me to learn those things, I was slow and wasted a LOT of time. 
 
I would also tell myself to go practice, practice, practice.  One trick (or in my case, one take) ponies are soon gone. 
 
I would also tell myself, "learn the music business and then don't fall victim to it"...  and be ready for the computer revolution to totally change the way music is made. 
I've always believed that it's like riding a wave.  If you're slightly ahead of it, you'll ride it out fine.  If you're too far ahead, you'll only watch the others enjoy it.  If you're too far behind?  Well..
 

Beepster
If we're veering off into general "career" stuff then I would definitely have to say...
 
"That one chick? RUN!!! RUN FAR FAR AWAY!! She... will... ruin... EVERYTHING!!!"
 
Same old story. Ugh.

If only Lennon had gotten that message...

Hi,
 
I had an old friend, psychic that was NY Jewish and Sydney, Australian, and at the same time, I already had a massive collection of music, and he enjoyed the things that I played, and some that he thought were over blown (like Stivell's Celtic Symphony), and some that were awesome (Gismonti's No Caipira) and he said that the only thing I needed was 30 days in the hole with a synthesizer!
 
It never happened, unfortunately, and my love for music and living and dying with it in listening, did not translate into learning, and I was not able to pursue it until a couple of years later I saw a Bass Guitar and I wanted it (the cherry red EB-0 with the pegs backwards), but trying to learn it more and more proved tougher, and when I lived in a house with various musicians one of them got a nice little Korg, but the sounds and play did not click or turn me on. 35 years later I still have not gone to music full time, but I will as soon as work gets cut in half, or I retire, depending on my health. I'm hoping for half time/part time with no benefits.
 
All in all, considering how much music I live through and with, it is astonishing that I never learned more ... but a lot of it had to do with Portugal to Brazil at 9 years old, and parents not being able to afford anything, until we came to America, and by that time, at 15/16, other music's had taken up my mind, and learning music was not a primary desire or concern. But listening to all the new things was ... massive! And my first real chance to learn and grow!

"None of these tracks are done yet, so don't put them out yet." Haha. "Keep working on it!"