[Guitars+gems]

Ok, I'm in my sixties and started playing guitar again almost 4 years ago. I first learned around age 20, from friends who taught like, "Put a finger, here, here, here; that's a G chord." I learned several open chords and played basic rhythm. No musical background. I never learned any theory or even the names of the notes on the fretboard or how the chords were put together. The only books I used were fake books. After about 10 years of listless playing I put the guitar down for the next 30+ years.

In retirement I thought maybe I could try to play guitar again, found that I still had the open chords in muscle memory and could change between them pretty easily. I watched YouTube videos of Marty Schwartz and others who used a familiar teaching style. I bought a book of Beatles songs, chord charts only. My ultimate goal was to hear a song I liked and be able to pick up my guitar and play that song. I want guitar playing to be fun. I am retired. There is no reason for me to voluntarily do anything that is not fun!

After about a year I found a teacher who started me on the Mel Bay Method Book One. I argued that I wasn't interested in learning to read notation. He sold me on at least trying. Playing the songs I wanted to play, he said, was dessert to the main course of learning this book. I found it dead boring, you know - single notes of Molly Malone, etc. It became a drag to practice and I dreaded the lessons and I was not having fun! It's true that I was learning where the notes on the fretboard were for the first 5 frets, and I think it helped my timing, but it seemed so pedantic. To learn a song I'd much rather use tablature than notation, though I know that tab doesn't cover timing etc.

I've learned a lot from The Skeptical Guitarist book, Vols 1 and 2, like how notes make up keys, how chords are put together. Those books teach what I want to learn and are not associated with boring practice. Applying what I've learned to what I hear, I'm finding where to go on the fretboard to find the next note I want. I listen to a song and from the melody notes I try to find the chords. That's going pretty well.

For any serious learning I'm sure I would need to use Mel Bay type books diligently, boring or not. But I tend to forget a lot of what I've learned unless I can use it. No doubt that is age-related. With my goal of keeping the guitar interesting and fun, without aspiration to gain expertise, that style of learning doesn't work.