Thank you.
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
Thanks Harry. I’ll stick with it as long as I’m able to stick around.
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?
Minimal skills. Played when I was I teen for a year or so.
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.
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…
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.
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!
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…
ie. learn to paint by numbers or how to undertsand its construction and step out on your own.
Either is good imo, obviously understanding the theory allows you to do more.
This is my attempt at “She moved Through the Fair” which Jimmy Page borrowed for “White Summer”.
Edit: PS:: for those not familiar with it, I’ve put a video of White Summer here because Led Zep only ever played this live and never recorded it.
Def not OTT. Retired organic chemist here. Definitely love theory. But there comes a time where one’s gotta get out of the books and into the lab.
Love Justin’s savant teaching. He reminds me of my college Chem prof who so captivated me I went to a wonderful career after his mentorship.
Learning guitar is quite an interesting journey, the fretboard slowly unlocks.
From open strings and open chords, one positions scales, to CAGED and multiple position scales, modes etc so much to learn!
My objective is to do something cognitive to tax the brain in retirement. One of the new skills I’m enjoying learning is video and audio editing.
But I should really be concentrating on the guitar playing. I wonder how many “mature” students are on here.
quite a few!
Awesome
Hi Bryan
Don’t worry too much about all the gear suggestions, no point if you cannot actually play.
Given your goals, what you will need is a strong foundation of core skills and regardless of what you did as a teen, you need to re-evaluate that. How, work through Justin’s courses from Lesson 1 Grade 1 and that way you will find your current level and be able to build from there. Jumping in and cherry picking songs above your play grade and attempting solos at this stage is likely to lead to frustration and jacking it in.
Learn to play the guitar, then you can play any song any style. So work on the basics which is rhythm. If that is not solid when you start to learn how to play licks riffs and solos your timing will suck. Core skills come first. With a hand full of chords and some rhythm chops you’ll soon be able to play along with rock songs of that era. For example ACDC use a shed load of open chords, which are taught in the early grades, so you will soon be rocking the house down.
And a our good friend @Richard_close2u says Learn Songs Learn Songs Learn Songs Learn Songs. Doesn’t matter what style, if you like em or not even better if you don’t it will open your ears and mind.
Learn to play the instrument then the worlds your oyster and at 63 you still have plenty of time.
Never Too Old To Rock n Roll
Totally agree with Toby and a lot of the previous posts. Talking about gear, buying gear, fiddling around with gear - that’s the easy bit. Your 10k worth of equipment will look great sitting in a corner gathering dust and that’s exactly what it will do if you don’t get real here and learn to play guitar.
Of course you have aspirations and an idea of where you want to go with it all, but start at the beginning and learn the foundations, it’s all generic and can then be applied to whatever style you fancy in the future.
Brian, not to get too dark here but I started the journey 7 months ago at age 67. Figure if I’m lucky have 10 good years left. Will be tough to get my 10,000 hours in ( but not impossible).
My goal is to play and record a playlist for my memorial service, possibly with video.
My Freind wrote his own eulogy and his son read it when he passed. It struck me as being so cool. He wanted to make sure everyone knew his values etc. I want to do the same but with music.
Good luck!