Newbie wants to learn 70’s & 80s rock

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Hello,

1st let me say Justin your vids/instruction are awesome. I can’t emphasize that enough. Thank you.

Total newbie & I’m rapidly closing in on 63 yrs of age. Just now I’m watching your “S.M.A.R.T Guitar Goals” video….

I know exactly what my goal is —>

I want to be able to play along with 70s/80s rock that I grew up with. Led Zep/Lynrd Skynrd/Stones…etc. Playing both lead & rhythm.

I want to be able to do this in the comfort of my home theater.

AND I’d like to pursue this training with as few as possible detours.

How do I go about this?

Thanks

Bryan

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By using your home theater?

1st you’ll need a guitar , Les Paul, Strat , telecaster etc pretty much any will do.

You’ll need either an amp or some software that pretends to be one, and some cables/interfaces to link that up.

What exactly depends on how you want it to work and what you have already. A modeling amp with a line out would be a good start ( katana, fender gtx etc).

Then its a case of dialing in the right sound and learning the bits.

I’d work though Justins grade 1 basics before going much , and perhaps some of grade 2

Most of the riffs from Zep 1 are fun and not too hard

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Thanks Rob. I’m on track with your suggestions. On 3 now. :+1:t2:

Definitely trying to figure out the gear I’ll need but I’m clueless with this. I’d like to pipe everything thru my home theater if that’s even feasible. Please understand I’m going out on a limb here and exposing my ignorance on the gear side of things.

Thanks for your quick response.

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ok what do you have now, in terms of guitar stuff and HT (amp, PC?) stuff

and what kind of budget are you looking at for sorting it out

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Strat and a Fender LT25. No limit on the upside of the budget but my wife would def disagree. So, let’s say $10K.

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Justin lists song lessons by group but most are relatively high, some of the stones are grade 2, there are other lessons elsewhere on LZ etc riffs that are easier if not complete songs etc.

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ah I think the LT25 would do a line out/usb or headphone out to an AV amp which in theory should cover you , its a modeling amp so should also have a decent range of sounds

if you want something more high end with line out for your AV amp you can look at somehting like this

But there is a million options here

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Thanks. I’ll check that out now.

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As to justins lessons as said grade 1& 2 are so generic all round guitar playing its not worth actively skipping them.

Even grade 3 is all pretty useful, you’ll want general chord and rhythm playing, some fingerpicking, all the blues and power chord stuff, major/minor/blues scales etc

I guess later you can skip the jazz focused lessons etc but anything on technique is probably worth it as it’ll build your general tool chest of skill.

Each lesson/grade has an expanding set of songs to practice with and apply what you’ve learned, a lot of those are the 70/80s stuff.

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I would worry more about learning to play the songs you want, before upgrading your gear.

What you have will work great, so learn to play. When you start feeling the groove, get what ever moves you to keep playing. Likely, with a $10k budget, a couple more guitars, a nicer amp, looper and other cool pedals!

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Thank you. :+1:t2:

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great to see someone my same age. If your just getting stated I would go with a bug type amp. They plug directly into your guitar and you plug headphones into it. No cords or plugs just a couple batteries some are rechargeable. I recently bought myself a Fender mustang micro and couldn’t be more pleased. for the guitar go to the store and pick one up. Some fret boards are wider than others and necks are also different lengths. you can pick up a decent guitar for about $300. see if your going to stick with it first. you can always upgrade

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Thanks Harry. I’ll stick with it as long as I’m able to stick around. :slightly_smiling_face:

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OK Let’s be a bit more realistic here. At the age of 63 (I’m 66 BTW) do you have any guitar skills at all to establish a start point…what is your time frame to reach your goals?

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Minimal skills. Played when I was I teen for a year or so.

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Time frame is whatever time I’ve got left on this side of the grass. I’m def OCD with this. Didn’t know that until I bought the guitar and now I can’t put it down.

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Me too and that’s good cos you probably learnt a lot quicker and easier then and believe me it does come back.

There are currently 7 grades on JustinGuitar. I’m currently doing about a grade a week; almost finished grade 2. For some a grade can take a year or more. So you could be looking at 7 years before you can play a Jimmy Page solo. Before investing 10k you might want to see how far you get.

Some of the early chord grips are hard but you need to persevere and follow the course. It does get easier…

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Thanks. As I told my son (who actually got me back into playing) I’d die peacefully if I could play Since I’ve Been Loving You.

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I (re)started Jan 2022 after playing a fair bit as a teen, I can play a lot of that now so I would certainly give it a try soon but it’ll take a little while!

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OK. For starters that’s a blues in C minor. You could just learn that alone or go through all the theory and background which is probably around grade 6 or 7.

So to bore you He mixes both the minor and major pentatonic blues scales along with chromatic notes from the minor scale. I never knew all this but learnt it by ear. It’s only the studying that teaches you the theory so you can apply it to other stuff

If all this is OTT I apologise but have a sneak look at some of the advanced stuff and you might get what I mean. In the meantime good luck with the F chord…

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