Guitars for Vets Pittsburgh

09/14/2026

Pittsburgh chapter is starting a ukulele program if interested contact Ginger or Sara at [email protected] .

08/29/2026

Congratulation to our new graduate, Robert Steffer (left). And great job,Michael Arnold (right).

08/27/2026

Why continue playing after G4V graduation? This message is from Jim Donovan, a friend, drummer, educator and founder of Donovan Sound Health.

Most of you had never played anything before you walked into that room.

I think about that more often than you'd guess.

It comes back to me whenever I run into something like this.

There's a study out of Kyoto I keep returning to.

Researchers there followed 53 older adults who had picked up an instrument for the first time — not one of them had played before.

Then they waited four years, which for a research team is either patience or stubbornness, and looked at who was still at it.

The people who kept going had held onto more of their working memory.

Their scans showed less of the shrinkage you'd usually expect with age, in the parts of the brain that handle memory.

Now — I don't want to oversell this, and you'd catch me if I tried.

The people who kept going chose to keep going.

Maybe they had more time.

Maybe they were healthier, or less lonely, or had a friend who wouldn't let them quit.

The kind of person still doing a thing four years later is usually the kind of person doing several other sensible things too.

The study can't pull those apart, so nobody can honestly tell you it was the playing that did it.

But here's the part I trust. Every single person in that study started at zero, as an adult.

And four years later, the ones still fumbling around with something new looked different from the ones who'd set it down.

So the question was never whether they started young enough. It was whether they were still going.

Which is really all I wanted to say this time. If you've played anything since I saw you — a drum, a keyboard, that guitar somebody gave you in 1998 — and you liked how it felt, that's reason enough.

Keep going.

Not to get good.

Nobody's coming to inspect you.

Just because you liked it, and because the version of this that seems to matter is the one you're still doing a long way down the road.

All the best,

Jim

08/26/2026

Great little song. Maybe some on you could also post a Dolly song.

08/11/2026

Tomorrow night and every second Wednesday

07/31/2026

Congratulations on another graduation by Haleigh Nicole. Nicholas Irvin from Ligonier was the busy teacher, who taught between work and band he's in!

(reposted by Sara M.)

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18grmf6WMu/

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07/27/2026

Welcome to the world of music-making, Derek, our newest graduate in Pittsburgh from Westmoreland county.

06/29/2026

Graduation in Pittsburgh,! Cary Cocuzzi, 6/26/26

with teacher Ray Pelletier!

06/29/2026

Congratulations to John Ciak, a new G4V PITTSBURGH graduate. Pictured here with his instructor, Glenn Cawood, and John’s wife, Ann. Ann has been very supportive of John’s musical journey.

06/10/2026

John Palikaras is guest guitarist tonight, June 10th.

July is open mike.

Hi, calling all Pittsburgh and Butler Veterans and friends, Michael Boras is posting this recurring monthly event:
2nd Wednesday every month, 6pm- 8pm, beginning with the famous Eric Weingrad (who was central to the recent Butler/Pittsburgh musical Guitars for Vets event at the Original Pittsburgh Brewery)

At Steamworks in Gibsonia, PA