It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar • Hacker News Board

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#71

Post by olivermarks » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #41

As someone who has been playing for 35 years or so, here are some observations... First and foremost, guitar is a pretty straightforward instrument for beginners. There's a reason it's the most popular instrument in the world. If you put in the effort, you can be playing something musical in a few months, and proficient in basic folk/rock music in a couple of years. It doesn't take "talent". It just takes effort. Som…

tldr: buy a guitar whose neck fits the size of your hands.

Excellent points by @beat. One other aspect for new guitarist is neck size: if you have small hands buying a guitar with a 'baseball bat' style rounded neck makes it very hard to play barre chords and difficult stretched chords. Conversely large hands and fingers need a longer fret board and deeper neck.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#72

Post by ibn_ibid » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Warning! If you're middle-aged and thinking of picking up the guitar, you should realize that the public image of guitarists has shifted from "sexy gods" to "annoying hobos" sometime in the last two decades. If you are at least partly motivated by popularity (and who isn't), maybe pick another hobby that actually helps people be popular now, not in your imagined past. So in a sense, yes, it is sometimes too late :-(

It's never too late to not give a fuck what people think

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#73

Post by fhood » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

Inception wrote: post #32

fhood wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree, except that I think starting out on an acoustic teaches a lot of bad habits, and can also be frustrating for beginners, because acoustics are simply more difficult to play.

Can you elaborate on the bad habits starting out on an acoustic teaches?

Sure, the one I was thinking about is a tendency to strum really really hard, and you would think this would be an easy habit to break, but it is surprisingly difficult.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#74

Post by gmarx » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Warning! If you're middle-aged and thinking of picking up the guitar, you should realize that the public image of guitarists has shifted from "sexy gods" to "annoying hobos" sometime in the last two decades. If you are at least partly motivated by popularity (and who isn't), maybe pick another hobby that actually helps people be popular now, not in your imagined past. So in a sense, yes, it is sometimes too late :-(

My guitarist's 14 year old daughter refers to his heavy metal as "old man music".

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#75

Post by dionidium » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:01 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Warning! If you're middle-aged and thinking of picking up the guitar, you should realize that the public image of guitarists has shifted from "sexy gods" to "annoying hobos" sometime in the last two decades. If you are at least partly motivated by popularity (and who isn't), maybe pick another hobby that actually helps people be popular now, not in your imagined past. So in a sense, yes, it is sometimes too late :-(

"maybe pick another hobby that actually helps people be popular now"

I'm trying to learn to unicycle, so I'm definitely doing this wrong.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#76

Post by fhood » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

softawre wrote: post #29

fhood wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree, except that I think starting out on an acoustic teaches a lot of bad habits, and can also be frustrating for beginners, because acoustics are simply more difficult to play.

I think the trick is to start with a good acoustic. One with good action and one that stays in tune. Like a decent acoustic-electric from Ovation or something like that.

Ovation is an exception to the rule. Those things play almost exactly like electrics.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#77

Post by disantlor » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #68

beat wrote: post #41

As someone who has been playing for 35 years or so, here are some observations... First and foremost, guitar is a pretty straightforward instrument for beginners. There's a reason it's the most popular instrument in the world. If you put in the effort, you can be playing something musical in a few months, and proficient in basic folk/rock music in a couple of years. It doesn't take "talent". It just takes effort. Som…

The big thing that's been driving me away from learning is the necessary hardware/Software to create the tones I want. Rather than folk/rock, I'd like something like the ghostly effect of https://youtu.be/mP194XwD2Wc . But audio hardware is expensive and isn't something I can directly research. I made a little jump a month ago and got a condensor mic and a Scarlett Solo mixer, which can do both XLR mic and 1/4 Jack f…

It's a very long reverb, probably with an EQ either in the reverb effect or after to roll off all the high.

Go to a guitar store with a lot of pedals or check out the Knobs videos on youtube. Find one with a long reverb time and a tone control.

This could work too: https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/plugins/pitch-delay-m...

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#78

Post by bluGill » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #42

mattparlane wrote: post #30

If you are interested in learning /music/ and not just learning the /guitar/, I would strongly encourage you to start on the piano. I started on the piano and moved to the guitar later, and I've now realised that the piano gives you such a good musical grounding, so much better than the guitar can. There's nothing quite like having it all laid out in front of you. It's the only way that things like sharps and flats m…

I find the piano quite illogical. Playing a chromatic scale requires to jump from white to black keys. The guitar with its "basic" strings is actually much closer to the underlying physics (and thus mathematics), imho.

A mandolin is probably the most logical in this area. Tuned like the violin, but you get frets and don't have to learn the bow.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#79

Post by fhood » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:03 PM UTC

cwbrandsma wrote: post #59

fhood wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree, except that I think starting out on an acoustic teaches a lot of bad habits, and can also be frustrating for beginners, because acoustics are simply more difficult to play.

If the acoustic is hard to play, get it "setup" buy someone that knows what they are doing. Usually the action is high (which forces you to grip harder), which can be fixed. If there is a bit of buzz in the neck, there should a be a truss rod in the neck to adjust, or raise the action just a bit. If you have an old guitar that hasn't been adjusted in a long time, you might need to do it again. Kind of like getting a…

Yes, but fixing the action involves fairly permanent alterations to the guitar, the fact that setup requires an expert is yet another reason I don't think acoustics are a great place to start for beginners.

Re: It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

#80

Post by H1Supreme » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 3:03 PM UTC

Here's my $0.02: Learn barre chords straight away. Don't waste your time learning all the open chord songs you can before you jump in. Jump right into it. Open chords will be easy down the road.

Training your hand to barre strings with one finger, while moving the rest independently, is the most challenging, and the most rewarding thing to learn. It opens up so many doors to your playing.