Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

[Acoustic Voyage]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the forum and new to acoustic guitars. However, I am not new to this world. I'm over 55 and I am looking to learn the guitar. Any good resources for older persons who are learning? Thankfully, I do have a basic understanding of standard notation for music and tablature.

I appreciate any support. Thanks in advance!

[Rosencrantz1]

Hi there! I'm relatively new myself, and also in my mid-50s. Although I have owned a guitar since the late 80s, I'd really spent almost no time learning to play - until last fall, that is. I started in with the free courses at JustinGuitar, and completed the Grade 2 program about 6 weeks ago. The bulk of what Justin offers is free, and, IMO, very high quality. It's a great place to start, if only because there is no cost to give it a try.

[Acoustic Voyage]

Thanks for the input. I've seen the Justin Guitar books and content. I'll give it a look.

[Glennwillow]

Hi AV!

Welcome to the AGF and to the acoustic guitar world.

I agree that Justin Guitar is a great place to start learning.

I do have a fair number of tutorials on my YouTube channel listed below. They may be helpful to you once you get going. But my orientation is not towards those just starting out on the guitar. Justin Guitar is a good starting place.

Best of luck to you. By the way, I am a little more than 20 years old than you.

- Glenn

[Acoustic Voyage]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Hi AV!

Welcome to the AGF and to the acoustic guitar world.

I agree that Justin Guitar is a great place to start learning.

I do have a fair number of tutorials on my YouTube channel listed below. They may be helpful to you once you get going. But my orientation is not towards those just starting out on the guitar. Justin Guitar is a good starting place.

Best of luck to you. By the way, I am a little more than 20 years old than you.

- Glenn

Thank you for your welcome. I'll definitely give your channel some attention!

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Acoustic Voyage

Hi Everyone,

Hi, Voyager! Welcome!

Originally Posted by Acoustic Voyage

I'm new to the forum and new to acoustic guitars. However, I am not new to this world. I'm over 55 and I am looking to learn the guitar. Any good resources for older persons who are learning?

You can't do better than Acoustic Guitar Forum.

Originally Posted by Acoustic Voyage

Thankfully, I do have a basic understanding of standard notation for music and tablature.

I appreciate any support. Thanks in advance![/QUOTE]

I learned by (a) opening song books with chord diagrams, (b) listening to records, and (c) getting my more guitar-proficient friends to show me thing.

But really, any method will do. Most important are the three rules of learning guitar:

1. Woodshed.

2. Woodshed.

3. Woodshed.

Drop in with questions anytime. Operators are always standing by!

[Acoustic Voyage]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

Drop in with questions anytime. Operators are always standing by!

I always appreciate good customer support!

[rllink]

I certainly hope you can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm 73 and I took up the banjo in January to fill a hole in our less than prime time country/bluegrass ensemble. So here's hoping. I think a lot of us got serious about our guitar playing at an older age and we had more free time on our hands.

[Mr. Jelly]

I'm a hack so take this with a grain of salt. Use the internet and YouTube to learn how to play songs. Learn some music theory and the major and minor scales and you are there for the most part. As a person goes along many holes will be filled along the journey.

[AX17609]

Originally Posted by Acoustic Voyage

I'm over 55 and I am looking to learn the guitar.

This is the key part of your question -- age. Older people learn differently than younger people. Older learners benefit from structured courses that logically build competence. Younger learners enjoy a more scattershot approach. Older learners tend to want to know why something is the way it is. Younger learners don't much care why, they just want to know how. Older learner benefit from leveraging prior experience, while younger learners don't have any experience to leverage. And so on. Very different brains; very different educational approaches.

So, my advice is to find a structured program. Justin Guitar has been mentioned and receives very positive reviews. Whatever you do, do not just jump around YouTube or TrueFire. You'll get lost in a hurry, and adults need the reinforcement of steady improvement. If you have to spend a little money, spent it. Guitar education is comparatively cheap.

[Acoustic Voyage]

Originally Posted by AX17609

This is the key part of your question -- age. Older people learn differently than younger people. Older learners benefit from structured courses that logically build competence. Younger learners enjoy a more scattershot approach. Older learners tend to want to know why something is the way it is. Younger learners don't much care why, they just want to know how. Older learner benefit from leveraging prior experience, while younger learners don't have any experience to leverage. And so on. Very different brains; very different educational approaches.

So, my advice is to find a structured program. Justin Guitar has been mentioned and receives very positive reviews. Whatever you do, do not just jump around YouTube or TrueFire. You'll get lost in a hurry, and adults need the reinforcement of steady improvement. If you have to spend a little money, spent it. Guitar education is comparatively cheap.

I would agree with your viewpoint. I tried to learn 12 years ago and it was scattershot. After a month, life got in the way and I abandoned the effort as progress wasn't being made.

[Bluenose]

I tell everyone to do this mainly because I learned so much from using it.

Download the free demo version of TablEdit and load some beginner tunes in it and it will teach you so much about tab and notation. It has a playback feature so you can actually hear and see the tab and standard notation as it should be played. It was an invaluable learning tool for me and I still use it for transcribing.

There are literally hundreds of free tabs in every genre and style available for download in the TablEdit format.