Hello everyone from Koby in Israel

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Hi everyone,

My name is Koby. I’m an electric and software engineer, living in Israel. I will be 50 years old this year :slight_smile:

As a youth I played the piano (actually an electric Organ), and about 2-3 years ago, when my kids started playing music at school (trumpet & tuba) I started learning to play the harmonica. I started at a relatively low pace, since I’m mostly pretty busy as work. But I needed something for soul :slight_smile: .
Guitar was always at my home, because my father played it for many years, but whenever I picked it up, I found it extremely difficult and placed it back… On the organ it’s very easy to see where each note is, and very easy to play a desired note. But on guitar, even after understanding the physics of it, and the semi-tone difference between adjacent frets, it still seemed like an impossible mission to just take a sheet of music notes and start playing… It’s not just pressing a key to make a sound like on the organ, you need to know how to press the strings correctly and strum the right one with the other hand, to produce a clean sound. Impossible :rofl:

But learning the harmonica taught me to be more forgiving for myself, and to give myself the time to know the instrument and that it can take time until you can produce a first clean note :slight_smile:

So a few days ago I decided to start learning the guitar, which was always a dream for me, and give it a real try, knowing it will be difficult at the beginning, like any other instrument, but not to break and keep trying.

How did I come to JustinGuitar? Before starting to learn guitar seriously and invest my time on that, I tried to find the best website to learn. So I’ve asked the most knowledgeable being I know: ChatGPT :slight_smile: I asked it for the 10 best websites for learning guitar, and JustinGuitar was the first one on the list :slight_smile: I tried to take a look at some of the other websites on that list, and eventually decided to place my faith with Justin :grinning:

BTW, I though learning guitar will start with knowing all the notes on the guitar, and playing solo with note sheet, but I saw that Justin starts with chords, where I don’t really know which notes I’m actually playing for each chord, I know only the name of the chord. That’s not what I was expecting from my old organ experience, but I trust Justin to know what he is doing, and that’s why I’m still here :grinning:

Thanks,
Koby

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welcome :slight_smile:

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Hi Koby,
Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun :sunglasses:
Follow Justin’s course calmly and with passion and everything will become clear soon enough and in the meantime if you have any doubts, or questions put or ask them here and you will certainly get answers :smiley:
Greetings,Rogier

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Welcome to the forum Koby

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:wave: Welcome Koby

R.

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Welcome (again) Koby! You’ll find many kindred spirits here. And thanks for putting ChatGPT to the test - it’s good to know it’s been trained well :rofl:

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Nice to meet you, Koby! Welcome!

I think you’ll find your prior music experience helpful. The technique stuff just comes with good practice. Best of luck!

-Jeff

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Welcome Koby.

There’s plenty of time in the future for learning the notes and as much (or as little) theory as you want but the surest way to get hooked on guitar is to start learning songs, and chords is a good place to start with that.

It’s been around a year since I started with Justin. I can work out what notes are in each chord and are on my fretboard but can’t do it instantly just because it doesn’t interest me at present, I just want to play songs. It depends what path you want to take as to whether you put time into learning theory but initially I’d say get through Justin’s grade 1 and see where that takes you.

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I enjoyed reading your intro Koby. You are jumping in the deep end of the pool, just keep strumming! By the way, I think it is an unwritten rule in the Justin Guitar world: You are not allowed to say Impossible :rofl:
You just need more practice.

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Thanks Everyone!
You seem like an amazing community!
So fun to be part of it!

Thanks,
Koby

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Welcome aboard, Koby! :slight_smile:

Wow, turns out ChatGPT is really smart. :open_mouth: :rofl: Glad it brought you here. That’s some nice musical background you have and with time, it will become invaluable on your guitar journey. :slight_smile:

I wish you lots of fun exploring guitar land!

Cheers - Lisa

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I dreamed about playing guitar for many years before I started. Justin helped me heaps when I was learning and still does.

Playing just chords makes learning guitar a lot easier. And it’s fun.

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Welcome, Koby. Now I want to learn to play organ, guitar is hard! :sweat_smile:

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Hello Koby
nice to meet you :slight_smile:
Welcome to the community.
Yep, I think you’re in the right place :smiley: :sunflower:

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Welcome Koby, you’ve found a great place to learn! Your musical background will help you along the way. Harmonica and guitar together, nice match!

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Hi Koby and welcome,
you’ve certainly landed in the right place to pursue learning the guitar.
Good luck with it!
Cheers
Ruaridh

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Welcome Koby,
Good luck with your journey good place to learn.
Loofward to hearing from you in the future.
A

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Hi Koby & welcome!

Justin definitely knows what he’s doing! I’m an “endless beginner” who’s played around with the guitar for years & years. With Justin, I’m finally making progress!!!

Good luck!!!

Tod

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Hi Koby, welcome to the community forum. I tried many beginner courses that started with learning to play the notes on the guitar, but they all lead no where. I think Justin is right to start with learning to form chords, strum and play songs. When you have finished the first two grades you will have learned the notes in the first four frets and start to learn about the notes in the chords. With your music background, all you need to add is daily practice and you will make great progress. More importantly, you will have a lot of fun.

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Thanks you all guys very much!

p.s.: @LunaRocket, starting to play organ is simple, but mastering it, like any other instrument, is much more challenging :slight_smile:
Organ is played with both hands and feet, each generally playing a different note. Needs quite coordination :slight_smile: . It looks something like this:

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My organ teacher was an assistant to a church organ player. She used to pull the knobs on the organ for him, to change the sound of each keyboard while he was playing. It’s another dream of mine to play sometime on a big church organ :slight_smile: .

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