Older guitar students - can 'old dogs' learn new tricks?

Welcome scoobie1 you youngster! It really isn’t about how good you are, it’s about how much fun you’re having!

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Hello you a little older chicken Dianne, :wink:
Of course you are going to catch on what is needed … and otherwise just ask another old chicken or rooster…wish you a lot of fun,

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This is exactly what I was going to say! :slight_smile:

Scoobie, who cares how good you are, can you make some eardrums bleeeeeeeeed?!?!?! :rofl: Spinal Tap - Heavy Duty (live 1984) HD - YouTube

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Hi from Utah! I’m 58 years young and decided a few years ago when I took up golf that it was fun being older and really sucking at something, but experiencing (and enjoying!) the progression through mastering a new skill. Still not that good at golf, but good enough to go out and enjoy a round or a few hours at TopGolf :golfing_woman: Looking for to a similar journey learning the guitar!

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@smartypantssuz Welcome to the Community, Suzanne. Stick with Justin’s programme and you’ll become good enough to enjoy guitar as much as golf (maybe even more :wink:)

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Yo Homies, I’m 57 from Canada. Played on and off since the 70’s but never bothered to learn a whole song. JustinGuitar has motivated to finally learn full songs…having a blast. Finally feel a sense of accomplishment on my guitar after all these years. First time ever I’m actually getting calluses.
If you’re new at it… keep going.

Did anyone here ever play a vinyl record to learn a song, you’d listen to a note, lift up the needle on the turntable, try to find the note and and then repeat to try to get the second note?

Cheers!

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Welcome. Yup. Both 45’s and 33’s. Tedious. Tough on the stylus and the vinyl.

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A friend helped me to pick out a guitar about 10 years ago, an Alvarez RD20S 6 string acoustic. I tried some lessons with a few different instructors but, none really clicked. So, the guitar sat in its bag and collected dust for a decade.

A couple of weeks ago I found JustinGuitar and started my journey again. I turned 62 yesterday. I finished the modules for grade 1 and am currently working on consolidation. With a bit of reflection, I feel that I was too excited to start playing and I went through the lessons too fast. So, I am going to slow down and focus on getting the chords to ring perfectly and I am going to work on smoothly changing between the chords. Hopefully, I’ll get up the nerve to play a couple of tunes for you soon.

Justin’s teaching style resonates with me and this is such a supportive community. I’m truly glad I found this place.

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Happy Birthday Victor Music is the best present you can give
yourself.

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Hi Mo, I never tried to learn a song that way, but some of my earliest experiences with music were hours spent playing 45s on a little record player that really wasn’t much more than a toy. My aunt lived with us for about 6 months and when she moved away she left behind about 100 45s.

Glad to hear you are getting those calluses, feeling motivated, and having fun!

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Hey Victor, happy birthday! I definitely had the same experience. It actually took me a long time to get through grade1 because of a lot of starts and stops and life interfering, but even with that, I realized I was rushing it. This last time that I restarted I went back to the very first lesson and went through each lesson carefully and felt like I was able to round off a lot of rough edges.

So, did you get yourself anything cool for your birthday? New gear? A bag of assorted plectrums? :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the reply. I’m going to take it slowly and try to get it right. I’ve decided that there is no reason to rush and that I should just have fun. I did give myself a Fender Mustang Micro amp so I can plug some headphones into an electric guitar. I’m borrowing my son’s beginner Ibanez Gio until I decide if I want an electric guitar or if I should just stick with my acoustic.

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Hi Everyone, my name is Rich, and I just started lessons on Justin Guitar last week. I am 54, and was an avid intermediate guitar player. I grew up playing piano, though not particularly well, then in college I took a guitar course and music theory course. I mostly did acoustic songs, very heavy on the Neil Young (I am obsessed with Neil Young songs). I picked up the harmonica and can imitate Neil’s playing pretty well (harmonicas are not very difficult to learn and play). I did some open mic nights. My real issue was that I wanted to learn to play lead guitar, but I couldn’t pull it off, and I didn’t know how to learn.

I have a history of sing-phobia, which had been dormant when I pushed through it while in college, but it reaffirmed itself and I stopped singing and playing for 20 years.

Now I’m beating down the phobia, singing again, and taking lessons with the goal to learn to play lead. I’m going through the intermediate course from the beginning, and I’m already learning a lot. My fingers are relatively agile again.

The great thing about picking up lessons again is that I am older and wiser now. I am much more patient, and I’ve got nothing but time! I have chronic fatigue syndrome, and rarely leave the house. I can practice all the time. I needed a hobby and community, and this is turning out to be great! And I can even join an open mic night, which would be impossible otherwise!

Looking forward to all the possibilities…maybe I can join some other Neil Young fans for a virtual jam session…

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Good to see you starting again Richard. Singing like playing needs practice, just folks don’t realise that they just think they can’t or never will. Been there done there done that, took lessons found a voice !
Maybe be worth whizzing through Grades 1 to 3 along side your jump into Intermediate territory. Justin covers a lot that many other teachers skip or gloss over, you may get some benefit taking a look.

I am sure there a few NY fans here who would love to jam with you but unfortunately network latency makes that impossible, next best thing is the Community Open Mics we started last year online. Next is Feb 19th !

Cheers

Toby
:sunglasses:

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Hi everyone, my name is Phil. I am 56, I have been retired almost a year, which gives me more time to play. As I wrote in my intro have been learning guitar for 2-3 years. I have always wanted to play guitar, but finally got around to it. I have been doing Justin’s lessons, and after reading this thread, have similar experiences. I have been keeping moving rather than taking the time to perfect things. So I may go back to the start and brush up my skills. I also play Rocksmith daily, which builds my confidence and ego, but not necessarily my skills. I need to perfect fast chord changes. In the last couple of months, I can feel myself improving daily, I can play things from the beginners songbook with a bit of effort, but they are not as clean as they should be. Also have been spending time trying to learn some music theory for guitar as I think that will help me to understand this instrument. In general, really glad I picked it up and determined to keep strumming and learning.

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What a great community to belong to! I’m glad to see there are a few women on this group as well!

My name is Micheline; I’m 55 and have been learning guitar online for a number of years.

My husband plays piano and sometimes we play together. So grateful for these courses and for all Justin provides!

Excited to meet some new people and continue my guitar journey!

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Hi All - I started learning at 68, am 74 now and still having fun with this. My sister gave me an acoustic when I was in high school and I stuck with it for a few months, just long enough to stumble through “The Times They Are A-changin”. Then I gave it up and periodically regretted it but never thought of starting over, mainly because for a long time, we’ve lived in a NYC apartment where making noise is a problem (I know, hard to imagine noise can be a problem in this town!). Anyway, I learned about ways to practice silently with an electric and that was the new beginning. Like some have mentioned here, I rushed through the lessons at first and have had to backtrack a few times. I’m comfortable with playing rhythm guitar along with songs I like and now making another attempt at my nemesis, barre chords. Justin’s lessons have been great and I’m going to keep at it.

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I can tell from experience about going to fast because of excitement but slowing down and even going back over the lessons help. Still struggling at times but well worth the extra effort. I’m not ready to perform but fun trying new songs with chords I know. Learning every day. Did I mention that I’m 68 and been playing now for a couple years. Hands don’t move like I’d like and slow at learning but having fun.

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Hi, Dave from Melbourne, Australia here.

At 51 years old (just) and am about 3.5 years into learning to play guitar again after a false start in my late teens. I am into blues, rock and country, but open to any kind of music.

I found Justin’s site early on and it has been very helpful. I’m really enjoying playing now and things are getting a bit easier to learn. Playing guitar helps me relieve stress and the feeling I get when I can play a lick or riff (somewhat) successfully is great. However, I’m still far from what I would call any good. My rythym needs work, I know a lot of intros and a couple of solos - but not really any full songs!

I think the next steps for me are to play with other people and find a good face to face teacher - supplemented with the invaulable lessons here as well.

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Hi Davemac and welcome to the community.

This rings alarm bells for me.

:dizzy_face:

My old mantra is needed here:
Learn songs, learn songs, learn songs.
In the words of Abba: “Without a song or a dance, what are we?”

:slight_smile:

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