U sound a lot like me, Jim......except I do not play professionally. We both have Gibson ES 335s older than Roberto but..........not vintage Strats as a main guitar..........I've fallen in absolute love with my brand new Fender Tele Professional series in Seafoam green!! I never knew that new could be so cool and great!! I highly recommend this beauty and I'm super impressed with Fender guitars once again!! Free ad here for them! I recall as barely a teenager my buddy Kurt desperately wanted to put together a R&R band and was trying to bring me along as his 'rhythm' guitarist........then he discovered this other kid in his class who was playing circles around even him in less than 3 months!! I was summarily cut loose! Very frustrating and even though I did bear down and work to improve on my own as incentive.....and did........I too discovered some guitarists are naturals (like Chris M.) and others (like me and sounds like you too) have to work in the salt mines slow and steady hopefully winning the race!! This is where Robert and MGA comes in and the secret here is not just studying each tidbit to death but learning to improvise and tweak licks and chord hits and double stops and hammer ons etc etc.........into our own!!  Jim C.

Hi Jim, welcome! I am on that same quest too!

Red Plate amp? Those are nice! 

I need a good Tele I think... see you are giving me G.A.S. you bad boy!