Hi, I’ve been playing guitar for about 6 years now and I’m currently somewhere around Stage 2 and 3 of the JG courses – learning has not been a straight line. I’m in my mid 60s and heading towards retirement with enough time to focus on my playing now. I do have a hand slight tremor which screws up my timing sometimes which is frustrating.
My kit is a Boss Katana 50, a Boss ME-80 multi effects boards and having tried a few guitars my go-to is a PRS SE Silver Sky and (oddly) a Harley Benton TE-90, both are very playable. Having tried a few different online courses, I keep coming back to Justin Guitar because his instruction is so clear and course so well structured.
I’m not a ‘natural’ player and it takes a while to learn some things, barre chords took forever to get to grips with, and I’m now working on moving the E shaped barre from 6th string to 5th string so am working on songs with that change including Man Who Sold the World and The Killing Moon.
My real challenge is that my playing still feels very one dimensional. I can learn the chord changes, follow a stumming pattern and (slowly and clunkily) pick up a simple lick or solo but playing doesn’t really feel spontaneous.
Welcome Graham! You’ve found the right place to learn, you can get so much out of Justin’s well structured course! The community is very supportive.
I highly recommend having a look at the Club Sessions here:
You can find a lot of helpful material, inspiration and suggestions to improve.
They paused the Club meetings for a few weeks now, but new ones will be announced here:
I attended mainly the Vintage Club sessions, you can find comprehensive material under the Resources Tabs in the Clubs Archive!
There could be a very good reason you keep gravitating back to Justin’s lessons.
Don’t sweat it ! We all learn at a different pace. Slow and steady is a good approach, said from someone who is the human equivalent of a sloth when it comes to guitar “mastery”.
Don’t stress about how long it takes to learn new things… we all learn at our own pace! Also, it’s not a race, unless maybe it’s a marathon!!!
Sounds like some good gear you have! Keep it fun & just keep on keepin’ on!!!
Good luck with your journey!!!
Hi Graham, welcome to the community forum. I got a lot of help breaking away from one dimensional playing by viewing and playing along with most of the beginning song lessons on the website. Justin starts with basic chord progressions and strumming and then shows how to enhance the strumming and the chord progression. I also went through the Strumming SOS course. It takes time, but eventually you can make even a simple chord progression sound interesting. Also I found it takes a lot of repetition to make even a simple lick or short solo sound spontaneous. Have fun learning
Great progress. Retirement has been a great boost for my guitar playing. The other morning I noticed my fingers were starting to feel a bit tender. Looked at the clock and realized I’d been playing for 3 hours. Look forward to hearing more from you.
Thanks for the response. I think you are right about learning not being a race, but its easy to get carried away and rush onto the next thing. Maybe a bit too much like a kid in a sweet shop wanting to try everything too soon - how old do you think I need to be to grow out of that mindset?
