Learning the Guitar For Coffin Dodgers
Discussion
Anyone learn later in life, mid sixties for example? Mrs O'Rourke bought me a fifteen quid kids guitar for Christmas as a joke (I bought her an Origami kit, we always do one stupid present each) and much to my surprise I quite like it and would like to learn, despite never having played one before. As you can imagine a tiny guitar is not the best thing for someone with shovel hands so I've ordered myself a full size on ebay (Fender Squier Dreadnought, SA-105 acoustic) for eighty cigarette vouchers. I don't know if it is any good or not, but it doesn't matter because neither am I.
I was wondering if anyone else took it up later in life and how they found it, maybe lessons would be worth while?
I was wondering if anyone else took it up later in life and how they found it, maybe lessons would be worth while?
Good for you - once you're over that initial hurdle of getting a tune or some scales out, I'm sure you'll love it. Acoustic guitars are warm and mellow, unlike a screeching violin or a wailing trumpet (during the learning period).
Practice is your friend.
Practice is your friend.
Edited by developer on Wednesday 28th December 19:38
What type of music did you intend playing.
Do you just want to learn the chords and sing along.
You are going to have to tune the guitar...use an electronic tuner.
You are going to have to make a choice on what type of strings you want to use. Decide this later.
Get on YouTube and find someone showing you the chords to a Beatles song and start there.
Get a book of chords so you can refer back to that for finger positions when necessary.
Get the sheet music for the song so you follow that or write the chords down.
Practice chords at least 1 hour per day...
Then practice the Beatles song you select 1 hour per day.
Depending on how it works out you might or should be able to move on to more songs after maybe 6 months but not until you know the first song forwards backwards and sidewards.
At some stage you might if you are keen tackle reading music...you might need help with this. It's not as hard as it sounds.
Your ultimate goal if you are serious is to be able to tune your own guitar and know about 20 songs without looking at sheet music.
If you are just going to fool around scrap the above.
Do you just want to learn the chords and sing along.
You are going to have to tune the guitar...use an electronic tuner.
You are going to have to make a choice on what type of strings you want to use. Decide this later.
Get on YouTube and find someone showing you the chords to a Beatles song and start there.
Get a book of chords so you can refer back to that for finger positions when necessary.
Get the sheet music for the song so you follow that or write the chords down.
Practice chords at least 1 hour per day...
Then practice the Beatles song you select 1 hour per day.
Depending on how it works out you might or should be able to move on to more songs after maybe 6 months but not until you know the first song forwards backwards and sidewards.
At some stage you might if you are keen tackle reading music...you might need help with this. It's not as hard as it sounds.
Your ultimate goal if you are serious is to be able to tune your own guitar and know about 20 songs without looking at sheet music.
If you are just going to fool around scrap the above.
There are many different styles of guitar playing so you need to decide what type of music you want to make with it.
For many of us (i.e. people like me
), learning basic chords was really what I was after when I picked up the guitar so I could strum along and accompany myself singing.
I was always a fan of Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel etc and you can sing a long to many of their songs with a repertoire of basic chords.
Obviously, there is a lot more to guitar playing than that. It's up to you to decide how far you want to take it.
For many of us (i.e. people like me
), learning basic chords was really what I was after when I picked up the guitar so I could strum along and accompany myself singing.I was always a fan of Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel etc and you can sing a long to many of their songs with a repertoire of basic chords.
Obviously, there is a lot more to guitar playing than that. It's up to you to decide how far you want to take it.
benny.c said:
That is brilliant, thanks.thenetwork said:
You are going to have to tune the guitar...use an electronic tuner.
Loads of good advice on this thread, but this stands out for me; I can't imagine how many hours as a kid I spent/burned trying to tune my old Sunn Mustang These days most tuners including apps are pretty good. For a tenner, grab a Snark and you'll never look back.Enjoy the rocking out
I'm relearning - I played reasonably well in my late teens/early 20s, did the band and small club scenes gigging but didnt really do much for 15+ years after that.
I guess I come from a fairly old fashioned way of playing guitar compared to what people are doing now. For me, I'm more used to sticking a lead into an amp or effects pedal, putting that into a loud'ish Marshall and just playing for a while
Then I discovered Amplitube and absolutely love it. I've got access to pretty much any tone I want, I can quickly plug my guitar into my iPad and have a practice session for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour - just learning something new every day at my own pace without disturbing anyone. I tend to look at youtube when I cant work out how to do something, I dont like getting too bogged down in theory though
I guess I come from a fairly old fashioned way of playing guitar compared to what people are doing now. For me, I'm more used to sticking a lead into an amp or effects pedal, putting that into a loud'ish Marshall and just playing for a while
Then I discovered Amplitube and absolutely love it. I've got access to pretty much any tone I want, I can quickly plug my guitar into my iPad and have a practice session for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour - just learning something new every day at my own pace without disturbing anyone. I tend to look at youtube when I cant work out how to do something, I dont like getting too bogged down in theory though
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