My name is Stijn and I am 27 years old. I have been wanting to play the guitar for a long time now (years!), but I did not want to take time away from my studies since that was taking long enough already. This year I graduated, and my girlfriends’ parent gifted me my first guitar! Apparently they still ‘owed’ me a few birthday presents.
I got my guitar three weeks ago and have been playing it a lot - I guess around 1.5 hours per day. I did take 2 days off in the first 10 days or so, to let my fingers calm down. The finger pain has been gone since this week, and I am starting to conquer the beginner’s hand stretch as well! Most of all, I have been having a lot of fun with it. There are so many songs that I want to play, but I am only on Grade 1, Module 5 now (as of today). I am really looking forward to being able to play my favorite songs. Although I’ll have to wait until Grade 2 to play all of them.
The songs that I am able to play are going really well! I am super proud of the songs I know and love performing them for girlfriend. As of now, I only know Walk of Life and Three Little Birds by heart, so she gets to enjoy those two daily. Luckily for her, she also gets to ‘enjoy’ my practice sessions where I play along with the songs Justin has selected for that module. Right now I am learning Get Lucky and while it is quite challenging at the moment (Am, C, Em, D) I have already improved a lot since I first tried it this morning.
We are looking for a bigger place to live, so that she can set up her keyboard again, which will allow us to play together. Long story short: I love this course, love learning to play guitar, and there are lots of things I am looking forward to! Very grateful for everybody running this platform, especially Justin of course:)
Hey! I was actually extra lucky, the store we went to had just acquired another store. They wanted to get rid of some of the inventory they bought. Because of that I could get a “Ditson D-15 AGED” within the budget I really like the sound! The guy at the store played one of my favorite songs on it which really sold it for me
Hoi Stijn,
Welkom hier and I wish you a lot of fun
Nice gift from your in-laws , a guitar …any idea if they are looking for a foster son? He is already (or should I say still) toilet trained with only a few traces of use
Just out of curiosity I’m asking for a friend… That guitar shop happens to be somewhere in the middle of the country? I think it must be far north from me my friends place .
That’s a really nice introduction. Great present you got. It gives you some extra motivation if your partner enjoys your practice sessions and you want to play and sing for her. Actually a motivation for me to take up guitar was so that I could play and sing to my wife.
I wish you all the best with your guitar learning.
I don’t think you will be playing ALL your favourite songs by the end of grade 2 as you will continually remember more that you would like to learn and some will be quite a few grades higher, but that’s the fun of it. It’s an enjoyable never-ending journey.
P.s. we didn’t get to see a picture of the guitar!
Hi Stijn, welcome to the community forum. Have fun learning new songs. You will be able to play many more songs when you learn module 6 and the G chord
Thanks for the warm welcome! I do not think they are looking for another kid (not even if they come pre-trained). But the store was not far up north at all! I got the guitar from Music All In, in Noordwijk. I don’t know much about guitars, but the people seemed knowledgeable and were kind to me so I recommend going there!
Thanks for your story! Playing for my girlfriend wasn’t my initial motivation, but is has quickly become my favorite part of learning to play! I think it’s super cute you started learning for your wife. Hope you both still enjoy it!
And I agree with you that I will not be able to play ALL of my favorite songs, but I looked some of them up and most need either and F or a B, which I believe are both taught in Grade 2. So I am already looking forward to learning those. But first: C and G chords! I plan on working my way through all grades so eventually I’ll play anything I like! But that will probably be a multiple-year-plan (which is great, that means I have a lot to look forward to)
thank you for your answer, this is a beautiful store but unfortunately also very out of the way for me, I live in Nijkerk and am in poor condition to travel and often not for more than half an hour. But you never know what the future will bring. I’ll just wait my time and look for another guitar shop where some of my wishes can be realized in a guitar.
Welcome Stijn! What a great introduction! Thanks for sharing the good vibes! I hope you’ll share more along the way…just have a look around here how the Community works and find your way through it
I really like the sound! The guy at the store played one of my favorite songs on it which really sold it for me
That guitar shop happens to be somewhere in the middle of the country? I think it must be far north from 
I’ll just wait my time and look for another guitar shop where some of my wishes can be realized in a guitar.
!