74 years old and retired. In the 1980s I started to learn guitar, had weekly face to face tuition, but due to other commitments (work and travel mainly) it gradually slipped away, so by the 2000s I had virtually stopped.
In the UK Covid lockdown in 2020 I was classified as Extremely Clinically Vulnerable and couldn’t go out. With this enforced restriction I thought about how I was going to occupy myself. the lightbulb came on - the guitar !!!
I did discover Justin’s website and dipped in and out of it (as I did with others). Then recently I came across Justin’s book for Beginners and thought this is the way to go. Hard copy workbook + audio access to lesson tracks + the videos in the modules. Loving it !!
Welcome to the Community, Edmund! I hope your earlier guitar work is coming back to you. I also hope to hear more from you, sharing your experiences and questions as you continue on this journey!
Hello and welcome,
Greetings from Poland!
Nice to meet you here. I’m 71, retired, and due to some health problems I have to face many restrictions in my life, too. It is essential to find a satisfactory hobby helping to survive the hardest moments. I wish you all the best in your endeavour to learn guitar.
Regards
Tomasz
Hi Edmund , welcome to the community forum. I saw that you are using the original Justin Guitar Beginners Course Book. I used it back in 2015 and just wanted to add that stages 1,2 and 3 from the old JG Beginners Course book match up with the chords learned in the new Grade 1 (modules 1 to 7) and the classic beginner course stages 4 to 9 chords are taught in the new grade 2 (modules 8 to 14) but not in the same order. The new grade 3 has more advanced techniques that are not in the old Beginner Course book.
If you are going to learn “old school”, which I understand since I am 69, then I would highly recommend getting the beginner songbook 1 either from JG website or other places like Amazon. Beginner Songbook 1 has chords and lyrics for all 100 of the songs listed in the old JG Beginners Course book. You can find lessons for most of those songs on the JG website. I learned just as much from those song lessons as from the main beginner course. So have fun learning a lot of songs.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I knew differences exist between the “old” Beginners Course book and the website modules but that to me was to be expected as the website would evolve.
It’s still a very useful book and IMO better than others that I have seen.
Welcome, Edmund, it’s a grand place. I second @SteveL_G99 suggestion on the songbooks. I have both volume 1 and 2 and sometimes there are tidbits in it that I didn’t notice elsewhere. Plus, it’s nice having lyrics written out, right there! Enjoy the journey.
