New to Forum and Guitar
 

Hi,
Just retired not to long ago. I am wanting to learn guitar for my own pleasure. I have been looking on the forum for about a month now, a lot of information here. I would like to get into fingerstyle guitar, but cannot find a course for absolute beginners. I see that a lot of people here recommend Justinguitar for learning the basics, so I think that is what I will do, then try fingerstyle. Any way, just wanted to say hi to everyone.
DBruce

Hey DBruce. Welcome here. Enjoy your retirement, you'll find yourself wondering how you ever got things done when you worked. I'm no one to give advice on guitar other than it can be a long slow process. Justinguitar gets lots of information but I found taking lessons to be very helpful. Enjoy your journey.

Welcome to the group and your retirement. You don't show where you are but if you enlighten us, someone in that general area may know of a great teacher/instructor you can visit for lessons. Unless you are amazingly self-motivated, I believe most people benefit greatly with in-person instruction.

DBruce....Congrats on retirement and welcome. Lots of info here and elsewhere.....if it works for you financially, play the very best guitar you can afford (IMO) so you can enjoy listening to your sounds while learning, and make sure it is set up well for your playing. I believe it makes a difference.
Many have found Justin to be spot on for their needs. Regards,
Fred

Thanks for the welcome
 

Looking around for a local teacher was the first thing I did. I live out in the boonies, so nothing is even close to me. I've been looking at Justin's site, and I like his teaching method. I also have a younger brother who use to play guitar.. He lives to far away for any help. He said he has some learning materials that he will send me. So I am going to start with Justin and see where that goes.
Thanks again for the wecom.
DBruce

Welcome! As a "senior citizen", you will have your work cut out learning fingerstyle. A real challenge!
Even for young beginners, it's a relatively advanced technique.

I teach guitar to all ages, and it's obvious that the older you are when you start, the longer it takes to develop flexibility and control in the fingers. That's with both hands, of course. So be prepared for that.

On my beginner courses (10 weeks of group lessons) I don't even touch on fingerstyle until towards the end - I start on it properly in the following post-beginner classes. But that's mainly because most of my students just want to learn chords and strum.

It's always the older students who have the most trouble, simply because their hands have grown stiff. The good news is, anyone can train their hands to perform this bizarre new task, given sufficient time and enthusiasm! One advantage you have as an older beginner is that you will (hopefully!) have more patience, a better overview of the whole process - and being retired, of course, should mean you can devote plenty of time to it. (Should be every day, for as long as you can - stop when it starts to hurt, or starts to get boring ;).)

I would recommend some classical guitar exercises. Classical technique is fingerstyle from the start, of course, and there is a long pedagogical history, focusing on best practice for both left and right hands. It will stand you in good stead even if you only want to play folk, country or blues.
You don't need to play in classical position (guitar on left leg), because the optimal hand positions you learn (and wrist and arm angles) are transferable to right leg position.

Right hand exercises:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpZAK9tSkyQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGm...m89Jrh9M&t=279
https://www.thisisclassicalguitar.co...ssical-guitar/

Remember you can be lazier than this for folk styles! But it is all about efficiency and ergonomics. Getting positions and angles right at the start makes things easier in the long run.
As I say, you should be able to do all this with the guitar on the other leg if you prefer that position.

Another welcome to forum.
There's so many ways to approach this - you just need to find the way that works best for you. Given what you said about your access to resources, Justiguitar makes a lot of sense. I think his website is a phenomenal tool to be able to use whenever you want.
Give it a go and just realize (like we all did) that it's not a quick process. You need to persist and practice. When you get your first song or two down, it's an exciting milestone.
Best of luck and hang around here for any advice you may need.
Also - congrats on the retirement. I retired almost 2 years ago and it's tremendous.

BTW, let me say I'm also (semi)-retired (still part-time teaching at 68), but then I've been playing since I was 16 so I have an unfair advantage! :p

But if it helps, my hands are working as well as they did when I was 16 - better in fact (maybe as well as they were by the time I was 18 or 19). So age itself is no bar. You just have to teach those hands new habits. Take it slow - a little and often - and you'll get there.

DBruce,
As someone not yet retired but over 50 and having a blast learning guitar (40 years after learning to strum a few chords as a kid), some suggestions on what I've found useful. I find that people like you and me have some advantages over many students: (a) motivation to learn, (b) time to do it (well more you than me probably), and (c) old enough not to care whether we'll impress anyone but ourselves with our playing, as long as it's fun and enriching.

Youtube and websites like Justin's are great for a start. I also really enjoyed the Eric Blackmon Guitar channel for beginning songs. I like his easy-going, encouraging style. Eventually I wanted something more structured, and found beginning and intermediate courses on TrueFire. These allowed me to work on concepts and techniques at my own pace. There are lots of other good on-line tools like TrueFire, but it's the only one that I know well.

The biggest for me, however, was getting an on-line instructor via Skype. Like you, I live outside of town and also have a problem trying to schedule with work. I really enjoyed the flatpicking/acoustic lessons of one of the TrueFire instructors, Roberto Dalla Vecchia, and have found him even better one-on-one. Again, this is just my own example (there are lots of great instructors out there), but WOW did I start making progress once I had a good teacher.

This is what worked for me, and obviously not fingerstyle, which is where your interest is. But there are some great fingerstyle instructors on TrueFire and other websites. Surprisingly, the costs per 30 minutes or an hour for someone who may be among the most experienced and best in the world is usually surprisingly reasonable, and probably not more or much more than what your local teacher might charge. Why deny yourself a great teacher?

If I were starting over again, I'd sign up for the on-line lessons sooner, even once a month with some homework from someone who knows how to help you build your skills and enjoy the learning. But get someone good! I tried a few guys that some music stores in town recommended, and they were nice guys but really didn't know how to communicate, especially with an older learner like me.

Good luck and have fun!!

Hi Young'un!
Welcome from one of the Brits here, and sometime teacher.

Justin, seems fine and popular.

However, I'd just say - find the method and sound that suits you - some play with thumb and all thee other fingers (four in most parts) but you can play with only thumb and first finger and still sound good, so my point is go for broke but there are always alternatives ...no rules.

And .....whilst us old folk are not hereto teach - many are here to learn and most of us are more than happy to help, so ask questions!

Regards,

ol' Andy

Welcome to the forum. I started playing guitar 6 years ago and the only thing that interested me back then was fingerstyle.

Started with a simple pattern that was thumb on bass string for beat 1 (E or A or D depending on chord), then index on G string for beat 2, middle on B string for beat 3, back to index on G string for beat 4.

Someone then showed me changing beat 3 to pinching middle (on B) and ring (on E) for the 3rd beat.

That simple pattern works well for many songs (anything with 4/4) timing.

I also encourage you to stick with your guitar even when it gets boring. I remember the first few months were a struggle but justin's lessons and only doing 15 minutes a day wasn't really that much of a struggle for me.

Once I could play a song all the way through, that gave me a lot of mental encouragement and being on the other side it's just SO good to be able to pick up a guitar whenever I want and belt out a tune. It's so worth it.

Welcome to the forum! I've used Justin, really appreciate his easy going nature and patience. Great for beginners. Truefire is a paid site with tons of lessons for all levels and styles of play that's been good for me. Like the others say, great to have lessons too.

Happy retirement, happy learning, happy playing! Guitars make great companions in my experience (though hopefully not your only companion!)

Another question.
 

Thanks again everybody.
Another question. I have been doing Justin's beginner course since Monday, and since fingerstyle ( or fingerpicking ) is what I would like to do, should I still learn to use a pick or just use my fingers? I have been using a pick this past week. Should I keep on with the pick, use just my fingers or both?
Thanks,
DBruce

There comes a time when a person can easily transition from plectrum to fingers because they've become adept at both techniques. In the beginning I was strictly fingers and played that way probably 99% of the time. The other 1% was when I'd jam with someone who wanted to play songs that a plectrum suited best (Neil Young, et al), so I'd use one. What I noticed was it took me a few minutes to loosen my hand up for finger picking after a few songs gripping the plectrum. No big deal, but it was noticeable and my hand did need to transition. These days I use a very light grip with the plectrum and transitioning is much more natural. That all said, I pretty much stuck with finger picking so to regiment myself away from falling back on the plectrum I threw them away. My point is it's easy to fall off the wagon when there's a pick handy.

Stick with it and you will be rewarded. Congratulations on your retirement BTW. Yo could not have picked a better instrument to learn to play and relax with.

IMHO learning how to play in time is the most important thing to do and learning to change chords smoothly will take some time.

But your age does not matter. approach it with the right attitude and expectations and you will be fine.