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I'm in the same boat as you. Playing guitar was all I did in school. These days my guitar hangs on the wall like an ornament. I think I play it maybe once a year. Just to busy with live and no time.
I second this. It gets me depressed sometimes.
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You don't need to win a lottery to have the time to learn to play guitar (multiple foreign languages - yes you do). It is actually quite difficult to practice more than 15 minutes every day because of sore fingers and frustration. Lottery or no lottery - if you really want to do it you will be able to find 15 minutes in a day.
multiple foreign languages - yes you do Benny the Irish Polyglot didn't. ( http://fluentinthreemonths.com )
Through a combination of formal schooling (besides English etc. in school, I did graduate studies in linguistics that required doing coursework in nearly all the languages in a particular language family, and immersed fieldwork in some of them) and over a hundred thousand kilometers of hitchhiking where I could just practice with drivers all day every day, I have learned most of the languages of Europe to a degree where I can comfortably converse with local people when traveling or in international meetups. However, I am very aware that my skills are deficient in many respects, such as reading classic literature with its immense amount of vocabulary or idioms that native speakers will understand passively, but it doesn't come up in conversation frequently enough for most foreigners to easily pick it up. Learning a foreign language to that degree, which I would consider real fluency, takes an incredible amount of time, time usually spent totally immersed in that country.
To give an example from Romania: Benny might come over and be very conversational in 3 months. Loads of foreigners like Erasmus students manage that if they already speak Spanish or Italian and they are motivated and spend a lot of time in cafes and clubs among local people. But if I then handed Benny a simple work of literature that any local child would read in school like Marin Preda’s Morometii or a Caragiale play, he would probably have to reach for a dictionary a dozen times on just the first page.
I learned to play guitar as a kid, played some classical and jazz as a teenager and in my twenties, then put it down. I have a nice classical guitar sitting in my closet for a decade. My problem is that although I can read music, understand some theory, can play chords and even some can play a little bit of complex music like Villa Lobos, I have absolutely no "ear". I can't even tune the guitar without help. So this…
When you're tuning by "ear", though, the trick is, on an acoustic guitar at least, to feel the body resonating. It's much more a feeling than a particular sound. I think very few people can just pluck an E note out of nowhere. That takes years of practice.
A general "ear" for melody and harmony comes from practice, exposure to different music styles, and playing with other people. Some stuff that sounds awful by yourself sounds much better with accompanying instruments.
I was put off learning to play guitar in high school by more experienced guitar playing classmates (as well as an actual clerk at a music store) who scoffed and sneered that someone would have the audacity to learn guitar so 'late'. The refrain was "you'll never be good, what's the point?"
(Of course, these were high schoolers and I shouldn't have been so easily swayed, but as a shy teenager hearing these types of things make you crawl back into your shell very quickly.)
I bring this up on this site because in many instances this "don't bother, the playing guitar club is FULL" attitude was prevalent when I began to learn programming around 5 years ago with the hope of changing careers (I'm mid-30s).
While seeking out guidance in various forums online it became clear to me that to many experienced programmers it was inconceivable that I'd ever be successful as a programmer while starting so 'late' and I shouldn't even bother.
The reasons were plenty: I didn't have a CS degree, I wasn't much interested in low-level programming (at the time), I didn't have an interest at getting a job at the big 4 and just wanted to write small web and mobile apps to start (the horror!), I didn't much care for committing to memory every sort algorithm in existence, etc. In short, how dare I knock on the door of their prestigious club?
Fortunately I ditched the learning online route and took the bootcamp plunge while it was just kicking off, where I found a similar community of people and some really awesome instructors who were extremely patient and encouraging. I can't speak for all bootcamp students but for me at least it remains, years later, one of the best decisions I've made and has transformed my career and life for the better.
Will I ever be a virtuoso, Carnegie Hall-playing guitarist or a "rock star" engineer at Google working on the most cutting edge AI? No, probably not, and I'm OK with that. Maybe in my next life.
But what I'm doing is making me happy and is a constant source of new knowledge and discovery. I would just hope that in the future, whatever our expertise(s) we are more careful not to be so quick to dismiss new learners as well as other interested people in other industries and walks of life.
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…
> Don't try to learn on a crap guitar! If it has high action and truly hurts to play, or if it has bad tone, it'll drive you away. Learn on a good instrument. This x1000 Far too often I've seen people try to learn on a ghastly cheap acoustic because they were "building up to" an electric, the thing they wanted to play in the first place. There's a weird kind of asceticism around the notion of paying-ones-dues on an a…
When you are just starting, it's really difficult to tell why you sound bad. It is really discouraging that even when you are doing it right, it still sounds terrible.
My rules of thumb:
1. Start with a decent guitar. Good tuners, action, and intonation are much more important than pick-ups, pedals or amps. A lot of times a used $80 guitar with brand new quality tuners is good enough.
2. Before you even learn to play, learn basic maintenance. E.g., how to change strings, how to tune.
3. Buy a tuner. It takes time to learn to tune by ear. Help yourself out by doing this tool assisted. Also, learn to tune all the time. Many beginners make the mistake of only tuning at the beginning of practice. The act of playing detunes your guitar--especially on cheaper instruments. Re-tune frequently.
I tried picking up a guitar this past week, and was overwhelmed. Just playing a basic chord was a struggle. How do you get your figure to press down just right on the string and not interfere with another. Amazed by people who can play effortlessly. The post encouraged me to try again. 15 min a day sounds like a reasonable practicing goal.
I started playing a few years ago, not serious, mostly in support of singing. When I began I thought the A Major chord was witchcraft. How could my three gigantic fingers fit there? I don't know but somehow trying a lot made it work and now it's pretty easy. Muscle memory I guess?
'Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.'
I have been playing for 6 years and am just now getting to the point where I can confidently say that I "play" guitar. Its a long journey and at times painful. But stick with it as the rewards are well worth it.
Here are some tips for the new guitar player from my experience:
1. You don't need an expensive guitar - you just need a good guitar. I know we walk into the guitar shop and dream of owning that Gibson Les Paul 59 Reissue or the Custom Shop Stratocaster or the PRS. But its not the guitar that makes the music - its you!
2. Patience. Give yourself some time to see progress. Practice everyday, even if it is for 10 minutes. Pickup up the guitar and just do it for 10 minutes.
3. Stick with it. The guitar will challenge you. It test your patience, tenacity, discipline, will power and your determination before it will give you anything back.
4. To get the quickest path to start playing and having fun - Learn power chords first, bar chords next. And the minor pentatonic.
5. Learn the notes on the fretboard as soon as you can. In fact start learning them form day one. Do one string at a time. Learn the root notes of the minor pentatonic and where they are in relation to each other.
If you do these five things first, you will be surprised how far you are going to get. These are the basic tools of most blues and rock guitarist and 90% of music of that genre can be covered by that.
If you have started the journey of learning the guitar, remember its is a journey that won't ever end. So enjoy it!
[1]: http://www.cti-home.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Practice-...
[2]: https://www.justinguitar.com/en/PC-502-IntermediatePractice....