OMG, Mark. That is exactly my situation. I can usually hear her coming down the stairs and I will immediately stop. But a number of times she has surprised me and she has never commented. My assumption is the same as yours. 
Thanks for commenting.
1 Like
Welcome back. Nice to hear from you again. My first advice to anyone is commit to just 10 to 15 minutes a day. Every day. My second advice is to keep it fun so you keep coming back. For me the fun that kept me coming back was learning songs. Once I learned my first easy song all the way through, that was all the encouragement I needed. Look forward to hearing more from you.
1 Like
Thanks Tony! I can commit to 10 to 15 minutes most days. I have been enjoying the songs in the modules. Some aren’t necessarily my type of music but that doesn’t matter. By learning a song all the way through, do you mean the songs in the modules or did you buy song books or subscribe to Tabs? I’m curious. I think the song books might be where it shows the lyrics and chords but no rhythm. You would have to know the song to play it. I really don’t like trying to play like that. Do you know if that’s what the song books are like?
Thanks for your comment.
1 Like
Great question. This was 14 years ago, well before the app. I bought the very first edition of the first Justin Song Book and the song I learned was from there. It was Dylan’s Blowin in the wind which had to be taken out of subsequent editions because Dylan’s lawyers sent cease and desist letters. I guess the times weren’t a changing after all. haha.
What’s important, in my view, is more that you choose a simple song that you’ll be able to get through. One that has just A E and D chords is great because Justin teaches a technique giving a common anchor finger that stays on the same string for those 3 chords.
I have a friend who started playing guitar and the first song he tried to learn was Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven. Groan. I tried to nudge him to learning something easier first but he said playing Tears in Heaven has been a long held dream of his. Guess what, he’s given up on the guitar. It was “too hard”.
Your first song teaches you heaps. And playing it from start to finish helps you think about things like the intro and outtro, that sort of thing.
Interesting comment. The song I learned is so well known I was well and truly aware of it. But Justin’s version was really simplified and well suited as a first song.
Not sure about your question about what the song books are like. I bought the song books partly because with all the free stuff Justin does I wanted to support him. I remember being excited about all the songs in the table of contents but when it came down to learning the songs, there was a much smaller handful of songs that just worked for me, many I skipped over fairly quickly.
4 Likes
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer! I will definitely focus on playing entire songs and I’ll probably buy a song book.
1 Like
Welcome Back Ron!
Hello Ron.
Welcome to JustinGuitar and this fantastic community. There a whole host of golden oldies over in the dog house.
Please take your time to look around and get to know the wider space. View by Categories.
We are a supportive and encouraging group of students and guitarists from across the world. Essentially, we are all here for music and to improve as players. We truly are a ‘community’. Members help and support one another and a friendly, positive attitude underpins this. We hope that all - young or old, experienced or new players - adopt and foster the pay-it-forward ethos that Justin personifies and embedded all those years ago when he started the website and forum.
Also, please make sure to read the Community Etiquette announcement for some important information and guidance.
If you want to record yourself to show your progress and / or seek feedback there is our ever popular Community Recordings section.
Behind the scenes there is a small and dedicated team who work to make the JustinGuitar experience as good as it can be. Check out the Onboarding sessions provided by Fanny.
Justin also has a small group of Approved Teachers he recommends for people wanting 1-to-1 lessons to supplement his courses - of which I am privileged to be one.
We also host regular (virtual) JustinGuitar Community Open Mic events for community members.
That is plenty to be going on with. It is a vast community space so if you need help as you find your way around just ask.
Cheers. Richard
| Approved Teacher & Official Guide / Moderator |
Thank you so much Richard! Lots of good info you gave me and when I have time, I will definitely sift through it all. I am really excited to “learn” all over again and do it right this time.
This community is great! Side note: I was on Fender Play for a couple years and the lessons were not filled with tips like here on Justin. Also, Fender Play originally had a forum which I think is extremely valuable. But they discontinued it!! Obviously not seeing the value like here.
Thanks again!
1 Like
Thanks Mark!
I briefly looked at Fender Play during a free trial that ran during COVID and it just didn’t click with me. I’ve also had several attempts to start learning guitar and most were unsuccessful. Private instructors, group classes, online programs. There are a couple that clicked for me (Justin being one of them) on my most recent attempt a little over 2yr s ago (my longest stretch of playing guitar!), and I still use them now.
I can’t emphasize enough that not everybody clicks with every instructor or teaching method. That’s certainly been true through all my attempts. I just wish it didn’t take over 20yrs for me to find something that worked for me.
I’ve gotta wonder how many instruments your acquaintance has attempted to learn. Because guitar has been the most difficult instrument that I’ve tried to learn. Trumpet was my first. I took a piano course in college and picked up a lot of basics pretty quickly. And both of those involved playing from sheet music. I have been trying to learn to play guitar for nearly 20yrs and couldn’t really play whole songs until maybe a year and a half ago. That’s just to pick up the basics of the instruments. My understanding is that getting really good at ANY instrument is extremely difficult.
A man of my own mind! What you describe (songsheets for individual songs/songbooks for collections of them) can be so incredibly frustrating for beginners. They are absolutely ubiquitous in guitar circles. Sites like Ultimate Guitar exist almost exclusively to share these. So as you learn the instrument and want to learn more and more songs, you absolutely will encounter these and you’ll need to learn how to deal with them. Especially if you find people to play with or friends who want to share songs.
I was absolutely baffled after starting to meet other players after I’d been through close to a year of independent learning because they absolutely couldn’t fathom that I was having trouble with songsheets, yet I could read TAB. Of course any discussion of TAB needs to qualify that ASCII TABS suck just as bad as songsheets because there’s no timing/rhythm information. But detailed TABS like you can get/make with Guitar Pro (which are similar to what Justin offers with his tabs subscription) are a different animal because they DO include timing/rhythm info. And yeah, I could read/use those long before I could use songsheets (lyrics and chords).
I spent a bunch of time really focusing on being able to use those. I’m a bit better with it and have a sort of method now. Justin’s Songs app was helpful for me to get started. That Guitar Karaoke function helped me to visualize what’s going on at first. I still use it when I’m looking for a new song that’s around my level. To use songsheets, I had to wrap my head around the idea that for basic strumming, which rhythm you use doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you use something and that you can keep up with it at a consistent tempo. If you don’t like a particular rhythm for a given song, then try something else. A next level step is to use more than one rhythm during a song, but get yourself to the point that you can use “Old Faithful”. Power through the boring parts of straight whole note, half note, quarter note, and eighth note strums. They’re absolutely boring AF to use exclusively as a solo guitarist but there absolutely are times when they sound really good. When you’re playing with others and you need something different than everybody else is playing, especially when you’re playing with people who are better than you are. Sometimes to include with other strums to help a song “move”. But once you get to “Old Faithful” you’ll find that there are plenty of songs out there that actually do use that strum or something close enough to it that it still sounds like the song. And from there, songsheets start to look a bit less frustrating.
They still have problems, of course. But getting to that point helps to make those problems a bit more surmountable.
1 Like
I’m in the same boat as you guys, in a small house, I steal time to practice. I want to learn one of her favorite songs but I don’t want her to end up hating it after I butcher it over and over again 
She also doesn’t say much when I play.
Thank you Nate for all of your comments. Thanks, especially for telling me that learning guitar is, in fact, not easy. Not that I completely believed what that person said, but that, along with barely progressing in 5 years, did hurt. So your comment means a lot. I’m starting to get used to “old faithful” but struggle a bit changing chords quickly. But as someone has mentioned previously, it doesn’t matter if I strum all the open strings while I’m landing on the next chord. That will get better eventually. Everyone here is so helpful!
1 Like
Thanks Andy, I might have responded already. I find forums confusing so who knows, I probably responded to someone else instead. I thought I was the only one by feeling I didn’t want to share my poor playing with anyone, especially my wife!
I don’t mean this in a rude or crass “redditor reply kind of way” - but you should work on this. You have nothing to be self conscious about. Everyone begun their journey somewhere. Even BB King. Even Prince.
I was self conscious a bit at the start. I was at the cottage with the family plinking along in a room by myself. When I was done, I was fabricating comments in my own head like “you’ve been learning for x months and all you can do is y?”
Instead what I got was “you sounded really great. I know you’re still learning but it’s really nice to hear some live music around here. keep it up”.
That’s right. My relatives LIKE hearing scales and open chord practice.
1 Like
Thanks Jeff. Oh, I didn’t take that as rude or crass. I’ve been self conscious my entire life and at this stage, I doubt if I can change now. Well, actually I think I have made some progress. I think if I had just started learning guitar a short time ago, I would be able to let others hear me but like my post says, I’ve had an unsuccessful journey. So if my wife hears me plunking away, after 5 years of “learning”, she would surmise that I’m awful. But I think I just became lost over the last 5 years and had even lost most of the things I had learned years ago. But with this course I feel like I’ve got it so far and as long as I don’t advance when I shouldn’t, I think I’ll be alright and who knows, maybe in a few months, I won’t care if anyone hears me. Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it!
Your inside voice says she would say that. But she’s your partner. What would she really say? “You seem to be having fun and that makes me happy” would be the hope right?
1 Like
My wife’s favourite song is daydream believer by The Monkees. I learned to play it and tried it out on her, but she immediately asked me to stop. I thought she was kidding, but then I saw her face.
(Sorry)
1 Like
Hi Ron!
You keep at it, and that’s already a useful trait ^^
Make sure your practice is fun,
Try to play a song oyu like but already keep playing the ones you like.
don’t underesitmate the importance of rhythm and the ability to have a strummign hand that keeps going up and down, as if on auto-pilot. As soon as you can quit thinking about strumming conciously, your mind will open up and give oyu “processor power” to focus on other things.
Good luck!
btw; if you need a few pointers or confirmation that your method is solid or you don’t have any bad habits, consider booking a session with one of the Approved Teachers
1 Like
Too funny, Bill. Well, kinda funny. That probably hurt, especially seeing you chose her favorite song. My wife absolutely loves the Beatles Birthday song. For her birthday every year when she wakes up, I play it for her. Not me. I put the actual song on for her. It’s become a tradition. I’ve thought of learning it and some birthday playing it for her myself. First, I have tried and I can’t come close to getting anywhere near good enough to actually try it. Second, from hearing your experience, I think I probably never will!! We can dream, can’t we?
Thanks Lieven, for all those tips! I’m getting pretty good at not thinking about strumming. But Justin has us try a couple 6 8 songs and I just can’t get my strumming hand to behave during those songs. 6 8 seems very foreign to me. Great idea about contacting one of the Approved Teachers. Can we do that for just a session or two or do we have to sign up for many sessions? And how does that work, payment wise? I think in my previous 5 years I have developed a couple bad habits that I am working on fixing. I probably do some things wrong that I am not aware of also. Thanks for the suggestion!