Who Is Paul Smith?

Let me introduce myself and tell you some of my background. You probably know several people with the name, Paul Smith. Sometimes it makes it a little difficult for me at the bank, but that's my name.  Really!  I have no claim to fame, no desire for stardom and although it may sound odd, I'm not interested in that sort of thing in the least bit! However, I do love music, and I do love to teach.  All my life (born in 1952) I have loved music. I began to play the guitar shortly after my father died just before becoming a teenager. He was a musician too.  He played the trumpet in the "Big Band" days, and he passed on to me his love for making music. After his death, it was very difficult for me to pick up the trumpet anymore so I transferred my musical expressions to the guitar in my high school days.  Today I’m an independent musician, guitarist, song writer, recording artists and a member of SACAP.  

You would be surprised how many emails I get about my teaching abilities.  So let me tell you a little about how that came about.  I was given a full scholarship to go to Indiana State University as an All-Around gymnast (One who competes on all six Olympic events).  In my senior year Kurt Thomas was the first All-Arounder, Doug Griffith was the second, and I was the third on the team.  All four years that I competed at ISU our team placed somewhere in the top 4 of the nation.  I got a teaching degree there in secondary education and graduated in 1975.  Then I at ISU and began to work on my master's degree while worked as an Assistant Coach under Coach Roger Counsel.  That year Kurt Thomas was training for the 1976 Olympics.  It was a privilege to be there and help him.  As you can imagine with gymnastics of that caliber I learned a thing or two about discipline.  I’m telling you before hand because you will sense this discipline as you read through my web site.  Also being a gymnast helped me develop my teaching skills because that’s what gymnasts do.  They teach!  Before completing my master's, I began to teach high school Gymnastics and Industrial Arts in Indianapolis Indiana at North Central High School.  Shortly after that I stopped teaching High School all together and did something daring.  Some thought it was irresponsible me but it was something that I had wanted to do since boyhood.  I became a professional musician.

It was also in my college years while on the gymnastics team that I began to develop my right hand guitar playing skills.  Bob Mellin, who was one of my teammates, would play the guitar with me in the Dorms of ISU.  He too was learning finger picking and students would comment on how much they liked our music ringing up and down the stairways.  Finger picking has been “my forte” ever since.  Even to this day it is my favorite style of guitar playing.  I sincerely hope you will benefit from both my guitar skills as well as my teaching shills while using this web site.  I believe that you will. 

In recent years I have been recording my own original music and teaching finger picking style guitar lessons on the internet.  On this web site you will find the finger picking instructions needed to get you started with finger picking guitar. (More so than any other FREE site that I've yet seen, because trust me I've been looking!) If you did a search because you want to learn finger picking guitar then you need look no further.  If you are an accomplished guitarist and you what to improve your guitar playing you too will most definitely learn something from this site.  That is if you keep with it.  So to help you with that desire to keep with it I have provided information here about WHY you should finger pick your guitar.  I do this in order to provide motivation to keep with your lessons.  Then I will also provide information about HOW to learn to finger pick.  If you follow these basic instructions on HOW to learn then you will make the fastest possible progress.  I guarantee that! 

Please remember that elsewhere you could be paying a lot of money to get this kind of instruction.  However, I am asking no money for this service at all.  I’m providing it to you ABSOLUTLY FREE!   However, there is a catch!  There is always a catch! Isn’t there? - I am going to ask something back of you in return! 

All I ask is that you PLEASE SHOW your appreciation for all the work I’ve done to provide this FREE instruction. 

Please SHOW that appreciation by purchasing my music. 

It’s like this.  I’m helping you – so please….. help me! 

I thank you for that!