It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar | Hacker News Reader

It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar

adamharkus.com

264 pointsadamlovesgin227 comments

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.

Something that throws a lot of beginners is that we fret with our "weak" hand and pick with our "strong" hand, which seems backwards. That's only because they're beginners. Picking is much harder than fretting. It doesn't seem that way when you're struggling with cramped hands for your first few chords, but good picking technique is the key to actually being good, and it's very challenging.

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. Virtually any guitar that costs over $200-300 new these days is good. You don't need to spend a fortune. And get it "set up" at a good guitar shop. It makes a huge difference in tone and playability.

If you're playing rock guitar, there's a real temptation to use way too much distortion to get what you think is the sound on records. Most great rock guitar tones are much cleaner than they sound. When in doubt, use less gain.

And finally, the guitar is an incredibly deep instrument. After 35 years, I feel I know less now than I knew after three years. Approach with humility.

> 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 acoustic first, which ends up just discouraging the learner and preventing them from actually enjoying the instrument.

Totally. I ran into this just recently. A friend of mine's girlfriend is starting to learn. Someone gave her an acoustic to learn with. It had: mile high action, old strings, shitty tuners, and the fretwork was awful. There is no way she's going to learn or stick with it. Not with that piece of crap.

There's often an unwillingness to make the financial commitment to a good instrument when "I don't know if I'll stick with it" (or much worse, parents saying that about the child getting their first guitar!). So you're supposed to learn on a "beginner guitar" (i.e. a shitty guitar). It's so much easier to learn on a good instrument.

And good instruments don't have to cost a fortune, either. If someone wanted to learn electric, I'd say just buy a new Squier (by Fender). They're crazy good guitars. And at the $500 or so mark, modern Chinese-made acoustics start getting really, really good.

The higher end squiers are very solid.

Used mexi strat is a pretty great option too.

> I'd say just buy a new Squier (by Fender).

I second this, a buddy of mine ended up selling his American Strat because he was playing his custom vibe so much.

Yes, there's also the (incorrect) assumption that decent gear costs bucket loads of money. In fact, you can get used decent gear (not great, but playable) for about the same cost as a new junk starter kit.

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.

> There's a weird kind of asceticism around the notion of paying-ones-dues on an acoustic first

So true. They are really two different instruments due to the avaliability of much more sustain on the electric, and the dimensions of the neck and frets. Also on the electric the use of a pick is pretty much a given if you want the most speed.

I started on the electric and can play acoustic correctly, however if somebody wants to play electric, should start with electric, and viceversa.

>There's a weird kind of asceticism around the notion of paying-ones-dues on an acoustic first

This is probably mostly financial. Just about everyone knows someone with an old acoustic they can borrow. Picking up even a budget guitar like an entry-level squire and a budget amp is easily a $500+ commitment. Worse, if you end up not liking guitar playing, the resale value is especially terrible. Doubly worse, that 15 watt practice amp isn't going to cut it when you want to jam with a buddy who owns a drum kit or a real bass amp, so now you've sunk $250+ on something you keep in your bedroom and shortly will need to start pricing out 'real' amps and eyeballing pricetags at $1,000 or more with cabinet.

Don't get me started when you outgrow that Squire. Suddenly, $1500+ Fenders go from 'who buys that expensive stuff' to 'I should get one.'

Cool to see a guitar post on the front page of HN, I suppose it makes sense since many of the programmers I know are also musicians.

I'm a guitar player as well, been playing for about 20 years. Completely agree with all your points, especially that it's a "deep instrument". Many people think there's a progress bar for learning it which maxes out, but that progress bar's max is ever increasing (or it should be if you're doing it right).

Shameless plug for my guitar videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFBlI__po2CBLrtynTNbIA

subscribed videos and nice voice man

What is involved in getting your guitar "set up" anyway? I'm looking to get back into learning the guitar I bought a few years ago, and I mean it sounded fine to me when I brought it out to check on it, after a tuning, of course.

Setting it up involves fixing the action (height of strings over the fret), tightening up the neck, making sure the electronics are all still connected

I took mine to a guy that has a Plek machine which is basically a CNC machine for fixing neck issues. It made a huge difference on my (cheap Korean) guitar.

I always thought my string buzz issues were due to my inexperience but since getting the guitar back, I haven't had anywhere near the problems with fret buzz.

Honestly, it is worth it to have a professional set it up for you. Last time I had mt fender dialed in it only cost about 50 bucks.

Yep. And a lot of [non-chain] shops will do this for free when you buy a guitar, regardless of the cost of that guitar. They treat it as part of the cost of acquiring a lifelong customer.

Making sure the strings are the right height, all the way down the fretboard. Making sure each string is intonated correctly - that it plays in tune at every fret. (For mechanical reasons, guitars always have problems being in tune everywhere, even the best guitars. Have you noticed that the bridge is not straight, relative to the frets? That's because each string is a slightly different length, to help get it in tune better.)

A good setup should also make sure the tuners are moving freely and accurately, that no more substantial repairs are needed (fretwork or major neck adjustments), etc. For a beginning player, these differences can be hard to discern, but they do help. For an advanced player, a poorly set up guitar is a pain in the butt to play.

Basically: intonation and action. I'll explain.

Guitars are made of wood, an organic material, which is very susceptible to environment changes (humidity and temperature). So, after time passes, the wood may expand or contract, which changes the physical parameters of the guitar.

There are two forces at play: when tuned, the strings exert force pulling the fretboard "up". In most guitars, there's a long screw inside the fretboard, which pulls it "down".

"Tuning" a guitar means that the strings produce the right frequencies when plucked "open" (i.e. no fret pressed). Correct intonation means that the notes are still "in tune" (producing the right frequencies) along the frets of a same string. "Action" is the height between the string and the fret in different places at the fretboard (so, if you want to be precise, you'd say "6th string action at the 12th fret").

Action is mostly a matter of preference - lower means it's easier to fret the notes, higher means the strings ring out more freely, and therefore the notes sustain better. Can't go too low, or you'll start to experience "fretting" - the strings hit neighbor frets while vibrating for a note, producing an unpleasant metallic buzz.

The actual physical parameters which influence intonation and action are basically neck bow/relief and string length (via small metal pieces in the bridge of the guitar which can be moved, if you guitar has them). This is what the luthier (the professional who sets up instruments) interferes with.

This is a general view - some guitars may have additional factors to consider. For example, in floating bridge electric guitars, you'd need to consider the bridge springs tension as well, for they will influence both string action and the whammy bar travel.

Great post, just to add some info:

The 'screw' that counterbalances the pulling force on the neck exerted by the strings is the "truss rod" which sits inside the neck (on an electric guitar and some acoustics); this rod is adjustable.

This adjustment influences the 'action'. But the 'action' is also set by the bridge saddles' height, which is adjustable. Most often this height is adjustable independently for each string.

Each time the action is changed (raised or lowered), intonation should be adjusted again, accordingly.

It sounds very complex but it isn't, it just takes a bit of patience and experience (for making a good judgement of what an ideal action would be).

To be honest, much more laborious and difficult is to tune a drum set so it sounds great. There are more adjustment points...

Good point, forgot to mention the name of the truss rod and the saddle height - which is arguably the most influential parameter in overall action.

I also second the opinion that it's quite approachable if you're patient and methodical.

Another tip (to _keep_ the setup working) would be to have the guitar professionally set up, then carefully measuring and writing down the parameters, so they can be reproduced later.

The hardest one is neck relief, but even this can be approached in a reproducible way by pressing the first and last frets on a string and measuring space left at the 12th fret with a "feeler gauge" or some other width reference (credit cards, stacked sheets of paper, etc).

Tip: Picks can work as a substitute feeler gauge. Pick thicknesses are often indicated on the pick (i.e. "2mm")

For acoustic guitars, "set up" mostly means turning the truss rod to adjust the curvature/straightness of the neck. Some people adjust it once as "set & forget" while others might change it twice a year (adjust in the summer counteract higher humidity and again in the winter to compensate for lower humidity).

Acoustic set up can also include filing down the nut slots to make it easier to fret. The issue is that a mistake is not as easy to reverse as a truss rod adjustment. If one is not willing to do a DIY nut replacement[1], you'd have to pay a repair shop ~$100 to fix the mistake. Same pitfalls can happen if one tries to polish frets with steel wool and gets over aggressive causing unwanted buzzing.

Electric guitars set up will include individual string intonation, string heights, tension on springs if it's a floating whammy bar, pickup height, etc. It has more hardware machinery to tweak.

https://www.google.com/search?q=acoustic+guitar+nut+replacem...

Something not mentioned so far is a fret dress. This is where the truss rod is completely loosened, strings off, and the neck clamped. The frets are then filed down to make sure they are all the correct height and then polished. Make sure when you ask for a set up it includes a fret dress.

Setting the truss rod to ensure a properly straight neck, setting the action, cleaning, setting the intonation, setting up the tremolo system if the guitar has one

You grab a guitar off the shelf and you can find it has buzzes, or the action is a bit high, or it sounds right open and with chords near the nut but sounds off as you move up the neck.

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 for guitars. So far I've gotten it to play-back in realtime with effects in Ableton lite, but no idea on the guitar or other hardware needed to make that sound good.

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...

That's just a big long reverb and delay, maybe a bit of chorus, a nice guitar (a moderately nice guitar will sound very nearly as good and can be had for a few hundred bucks...a used Made-in-Mexico Tele would do the trick for $300-$400), and a soft fingerstyle playing technique.

The playing style is at least as responsible for the gentleness of the sound as any of the effects or the guitar itself. The spacey/shimmery sounds come from the big reverb and maybe chorus.

You can replicate those effects with lots of free or low-priced VSTs. Ableton probably includes reverb, a delay, and chorus plugin, as they're very simple to implement and pretty low overhead.

I looked through the YouTube comments on that one, and someone tracked down an interview where he describes his setup:

http://www.metalsucks.net/2011/10/07/rigged-devin-townsends-...

Though at the very end, he says:

"At home, I use a Blues Jr. and a delay pedal. :)"

In terms of software, I'm not sure if reverb VSTs will help for that sound, but I've heard rave reviews for the Valhalla Vintage Verb (and Room Verb). They're $50 each, but often favorably compared with expensive reverbs on professional recordings like the Lexicon 480L. There's a free demo so you can try it out.

https://valhalladsp.com/shop/reverb/valhalla-vintage-verb/

FWIW even several free (or those included with popular audio programs) reverbs are on par with professional units of just a few years ago. The quality:cost ratio of audio recording and mixing has experienced a revolutionary change in the past decade.

Watch some YouTube videos about working with reverb, delay, and other time domain effects, as well as general EQ and mixing techniques, and you can get great results without spending a dime. (Training your ear to recognize good results and getting familiar enough with the tools to achieve the sounds you want can take a lot of practice, though. No YouTube video can hone your taste...you have to listen critically to a lot of great recordings and learn to discern how they were made, by ear.)

I've been using Valhalla reverbs for recording for years now. I started with Valhalla Room, but mostly use Valhalla Plate now. The sound and simplicity are huge wins.

You probably want Bias FX. It's designed specifically for guitar processing and is very easy to use. The standard version costs $79 and there's a 30 day free trial.

https://www.positivegrid.com/bias-fx/

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.

I'm not convinced that small hands need a small neck, or that big hands need a big neck. It's all about what feels comfortable to you.

A tradeoff I've noticed is "fast" versus comfortable. Fatter necks tend to be more comfortable to play, as are necks with more pronounced fretboard radius (like vintage-style Fender necks). Flatter, thinner necks are easier to play faster on, but make my hands sore after a while.

I was referring to the beginners dilemma, not accomplished players. I used to teach guitar long ago last century, and it was amazing how many people showed up with necks they couldn't get their hand around comfortably. When you are starting out the basic physics and mechanics of pressing down on strings and snapping into chord shapes seems impossible - having a neck that is a sympathetic shape to the arc of your thumb to first finger/hand, frets that fall to your finger size, and probably most critical a fretboard width that works with your fingertip size can make a big difference. Your hand gets sore on a flatter, thinner neck because you are using way more hand muscle strength. For a beginner who doesn't have that muscle memory or strength, this equals impossible. Once you get some basic motor skills down through practice a whole new world opens up and all the different playing qualities of playing different style s of guitar open up.

I'm not entirely sure about that. I have very small hands, but like most jazz guitarists, I have a strong preference for a relatively fat neck profile. A guitarist's fretting hand is effectively a class three lever, with the thumb as the fulcrum. If your technique is even remotely correct, a very thin neck gives you less mechanical advantage when fretting.

I think that the key beginner mistake is gripping the neck like a baseball bat, rather than simply using the neck as a place to rest your thumb. The wonderful Toone/Strandberg trapezoid neck profile suggests that the conventional wisdom on neck profile might be utterly wrong.

I do strongly advocate short scale lengths - most women and teenagers should at the very least lean towards a Gibson-scale instrument and may be better off with something in the 22" to 24" range. IME a lot of female guitarists gravitate towards using a capo on the 3rd to 5th fret, partly because it brings the guitar into a more appropriate register to accompany the female voice but primarily because it gives them a shorter effective scale length.

+1 on getting good gear from day 1. Being a "guitar guy" people always ask me to recommend a starting kit when their kids are starting to play. I always tell them, look, spend twice as much as a crappy beginner set on a decent used Fender + decent amp. This will make playing much more fun and the chance that they will continue to play is much higher and if they don't catch the bug? No biggie, sell it for the same amount as you bought it for. They ALWAYS go "yeeeeeah I wasn't looking to spend that much" and lo and behold the kid gets bored of it in three months and the parents are stuck with an usellable guitar.

To add to this: If you have a friend that plays guitar (preferably one who plays well), ask them to go to the music store with you to pick out a low cost, high quality, instrument.

I've gladly done this for several friends over the years. And, it's surprising what you can find on the very low end of the market these days. Yamaha has some fantastic cheap guitars, for example. $200-$300 will get you a new, entirely playable, acoustic or electric guitar. I have a $2000+ Gibson J45, and I often play my girlfriend's $250 Yamaha...it's really not a bad guitar, at all. I have no real complaints about it; it obviously isn't as nice as my J45, but hell, it cost a 9th as much (she actually got it free...someone who moved out of an apartment left it behind).

Having an experienced friend with you will help make sure the instrument is setup correctly (that can be an issue, and you shouldn't buy a new instrument that isn't), that it sounds nice and plays comfortably, etc. There is some variability in quality across instruments, and they're made of natural materials with variable densities and characteristics, so even if you read a bunch of reviews and go buy the best reviewed one, an experienced friend can help pick the best one of that model in the store.

I have a different take, I always advise people to get the cheapest guitar they can find, a second hand one if possible (because for the price you'll get better quality). I've bought guitars for 50$ that were really good guitar for myself, so I can't see why you wouldn't be able to start with that.

Not sure that's great advice for someone who doesn't know how to play. Sure you can get a decent guitar for that price, but if you don't know how to play it, it's hard to tell. I would wager at least 60% of those guitars in that price range need to be sent to a tech to be set-up so that a beginner doesn't get frustrated.

Ugh, no! I love a good bargain guitar myself, but I can also tell what's a diamond in the rough, versus what's just bad. I can tell what repairs are needed, etc. A lot of cheap guitars are unplayable, and can never be made to play well and sound good, no matter how much effort you put into them. Just because usable cheap guitars exist does not mean that all, or even many cheap guitars are usable.

> A lot of cheap guitars are unplayable

I don't think that's true for a beginner who can't really tell the difference, and I think that's also a discouraging sentence for people who are wondering if they should try learning guitar.

> I don't think that's true for a beginner who can't really tell the difference

Yup. My first (and only!) guitar is an Ibanez Gio. I paid $55 for it and a practice amp. The amp sounded like garbage, but piped through a $100 Peavey Vyper or through Rocksmith and it sounds pretty good.

But I'm an extreme noob. I imagine an experienced player could pick up on all the shitty sounds it produces. The only time I ever notice it sounding bad is when the strings need replacing and the pitch of a note wobbles all over the place and they go out of tune in 15 minutes of playing.

Data point: I bought a used mandolin on craigslist for my first instrument; it had such a high action that it was literally unplayable unless you were a robot with clamps for hands, but I didn't know know that because I was a newbie.

My $90 Ephiphone Les Paul Jr. is still one of my favorite guitars (and I have a Gibson Les Paul Jr.).

If you're a novice (or a well meaning parent), it's difficult to know the difference between a functional instrument and a 'toy' version, and it's easy to end up with something that's barely functional that causes you to discount the entire sport/instrument as "not for me."

This happened to me with skating. $35 Wal-Mart board, 2x as thick and heavy, junk bearings and wheels. When I stood on it and it barely rolled, I decided skating wasn't my thing.

So I suppose the lesson is: if you're serious, have someone who knows what a guitar is supposed to feel and play like if you're going to pick one up used. I've bought a 30$ electric that I still own and play, and a $100 one that was total junk because I hadn't handled enough guitars at the time to know better.

"If you're playing rock guitar, there's a real temptation to use way too much distortion to get what you think is the sound on records. Most great rock guitar tones are much cleaner than they sound. When in doubt, use less gain."

So true it hurts. I'm a guitarist of three decades and I worked as a recording engineer through college and occasionally as a hobby since then (I went to school for audio engineering). The number of times I've had to beg, plead, cajole, and threaten a guitarist to cut the distortion is huge.

The hallmark of an amateur guitarist is mosquito tone. There's a belief that it masks errors, and it does, but it's such a glaring error in and of itself that it's not worth the trade-off.

mosquito tone?

This is a pretty good video abut the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYtXBUS_kwY

"Mosquito" just means buzzy and lacking clarity.

In the video, he's using good quality gear and is a pretty good player, so even when he does everything wrong it doesn't sound as bad as this problem can sound. Then again, his "good" example is still too distorted to record well even for the style of music he's playing (metal uses much more distortion than any other genre), and if I were recording him, I'd be begging him to take it down a couple more notches.

Over-distorted, i. e., buzzy, like a mosquito.

> First and foremost, guitar is a pretty straightforward instrument for beginners.

I agree with your assessment and comments! I play drums, guitar, keyboard and some bass. Guitar is the easiest by far. From the list, drums is the hardest. With regards to technique, bass is straightforward if you know how to play guitar; however the mindset or approach to bass playing within a band is way different than guitar's.

> There's a reason it's the most popular instrument in the world.

... also because it was way cheaper (and portable) than a piano or a drumset. It is cheaper than even a trumpet or sax.

Drums are hard! I occasionally noodle at them, but I'm a crap drummer.

My favorite hard, hard instrument is the tambourine. It's amazing something so small and simple can present such challenges, but it does. And played well, it's extremely expressive.

The only instrument that ever actually defeated me was pedal steel guitar. I quit and sold it. Becoming an accomplished player on pedal steel would have taken about three years as my primary instrument, in bands so I could get lots of stage time. This, after decades of guitar! On the other hand, there are things that can be played on pedal steel that cannot be played on any other instrument! The ability to change a chord to another chord by bending the pitches of some, but not all of the notes - wow. It's glorious.

> My favorite hard, hard instrument is the tambourine. It's amazing something so small and simple can present such challenges, but it does. And played well, it's extremely expressive.

There's the brazilian "pandeiro"; it's amazing. I've seen some demostrations of skilled pandeiro players and they can sort-of emulate a full drumset with that toy-like instrument.

Not sure how many kids in high-school would spend 200 on a guitar. Not saying that they don't spend more on phones or clothes, but those are easy to see the immediate benefit for (even if that analysis is flawed).

> Picking is much harder than fretting.

Is it? I've been playing classical and folk for a long time and I think picking is far, far easier.

Maybe picking is harder in other styles, like electric guitar?

It definitely is. Classical picking is hard, too. It's about generating a good tone and keeping good time, and also about muting to control rhythm and tone as well as unwanted notes. Picking is an endlessly deep well. Chords and scales are quite straightforward by comparison.

Very strange to hear that. Fretting is far, far harder in my experience, especially the more sophisticated chord formations.

I guess for different people it's different.

> Picking is much harder than fretting.

Is it, really? I'm a lefty who plays righty guitars and found I had a small advantage with learning and playing because my dexterous hand was given the 'hard' part already. I never learned classical and stay with rock-ish music so picking never got terribly complex for me.

I also wonder at the reasoning for hand placement is. We're talking about a 2,500+ year old instrument and I imagine there's a lot of arbitrary decisions and tradition we just carry through. These ancient guitars had much, much simpler fretboards so it probably made sense to focus the dominant hand on the strumming/rhythm part. Nowadays its probably a wash, if not just a little wrong.

That said, its not remotely an ergonomic setup and fret handling is going to be a challenge for just about anyone at first. Guitar is an "easy" instrument but that first month or two is a real pain.

I’m left handed but also in the possession of a regular guitar, I’ve half gotten into it a couple times and can play the basic letter chords and do some progressions etc.

Is it worth while to get a lefty guitar? Will picking ability limit me in a big way? I have noticed that being rhythmic in licking with my right hand can be tricky, but I figured it’s something I can learn through...

> Is it worth while to get a lefty guitar?

If electric, you can just use the regular "righty" guitar, just fit the strings accordingly. Jimi Hendrix, probably the most famous electric guitar player ever, did this way. He was a lefty. If you haven't seen him on video, please do it right now. Your mind will be blown!

If acoustic, they are often totally symmetrical, so no difference.

> I have noticed that being rhythmic in licking with my right hand can be tricky, but I figured it’s something I can learn through...

I think lefties are more likely to be able to play guitar "ambidextrously", an impressive sight.

The rhythmic hand (strumming hand) is the most difficult to train, IMO. Pressing the frets is learned way quicker than picking properly.

I learned on a cheap (sub $100) strat copy. I was only 14, so I didn't know any better. What I did know is that I wanted to learn to play Iron Maiden songs, and it worked.

Re: "If you put in the effort, you can be playing something musical in a few months..."

Months?! With an auto-harp, one can be playing in an hour. Auto-harp is instant gratification; I just wish it had a fuller sound. Inventors, work on that.

I tried learning guitar from Youtube vids, and my fingers were sore. They don't bend that way, at least not without pain. Will the pain go away? I'm not young.

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 :-(

Great! Now I can feel less guilty about not having picked up any guitar in the last 10+ years after playing for 15 years as a youth. Although it was never about external adoration as much as one possible tool for music creation.

Much like programming, or any form of writing, it's not as much what language or style you choose, but enabling you to express or create something in a space.

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

For example?

The most obvious examples are becoming a star on youtube or instagram.

By playing what instrument?

Electric Triangle

I googled Electric Triangle. Urban Dictionary did not leave me dissapointed.

MicroKorg, probably. Maybe an Ableton Push.

The Theremin is probably really Instagram friendly (not sarcastic).

That's not a hobby -- that's a job that requires you to shill out to brands while being as loud and obnoxious as possible...

A hobby isn't usually about being popular, it's just something you like doing on your spare time. I'm fairly sure nobody on here who codes in their spare time does it to get laid, but because it's just an interesting way to fill out spare time to them.

If you're middle-aged, and still all that "motivated by popularity", then you're not doing middle-age right.

A 50-year old playing guitar is 1,000x cooler than a 50-year old mixing EDM tracks on Ableton, because he thinks it'll help him score 20-year old chicks or impress HN.

No matter what age you are, "adulthood" is pretty much another word for finally having enough self-confidence to do your own thing. It's pretty much always better than "childhood", which is the lack thereof.

Agreed. My dad (70) says he's too old to be "young at heart" any more. He says he's going to try "immature at heart" for a bit.

Hah, your dad sounds like a cool guy. Taking everything dead serious and weighing it on the outcome and effort required is a quick way to a boring existence.

>A 50-year old playing guitar is 1,000x cooler than a 50-year old mixing EDM tracks on Ableton, because he thinks it'll help him score 20-year chicks.

Corollary: A 50 year old mixing EDM tracks on Ableton because he likes it is just as cool as the first guy.

A 50 year old mixing vinyl with turntables and an analog mixer is cooler.

Tell that to EOTO[0]! Two of the guys from String Cheese Incident have a pretty killer EDM band that I've seen melt the face off 20 year olds.

[0] - http://eotomusic.com/

>If you are at least partly motivated by popularity (and who isn't), maybe pick another hobby that actually helps people be popular now

There's a hell of a lot of people doing a hell of a lot of things for hobbies that aren't motivated by popularity at all.

For example, reading for fun wasn't a way to be popular growing up - your peers expected you to be involved in sports, or be doing the garage band thing. Being a bookworm was like hanging a "bully me" sign on your back. But I'd wager that many on HN did (and still do) read for fun.

I've learned to play a few instruments, although I was never successful with the guitar (no one wants to teach what I want to learn - they all assume I want to play rock or gospel and are incapable of teaching anything else, and I want to learn flamenco guitar). The only people who have ever heard me play anything are my teachers, and my immediate family.

I suppose, if I decide to give the bagpipes a try, that the neighbors might have to hear me as well. I expect that won't improve my popularity, but I don't, and never have cared about that.

I only think this applies if you start playing at social gatherings unprompted.

Honestly, I think if you're looking for popularity, you won't keep up with guitar. It is too hard for that. I think the main motivator needs to be an inherent interest in guitar.

If you're worried about being unpopular at all, my advice would be to not start trying to learn.

^This exactly

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

Or too early!

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

"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.

Far from annoying, I am reminded of Seasick Steve.

href='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a33sB3ck28A'

Edit: url

Rock music is profoundly uncool, but the guitar is having something of a resurgence amongst young people thanks to Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. Their signature model guitars are selling like hotcakes.

Eh, I've been playing guitar for a decade and I have no desire to perform. I largely play on my own, and occasionally with friends. So any semblance of public persona or what I look like playing guitar has zero relevance to a hobby that I greatly enjoy. But I guess I'm somewhat opposed to picking hobbies based on "how cool" they are. Hobbies should be fun.

Also, "sexy gods" generally applied to 20 year old guitarists anyways. The middle aged guitar gods didn't _start_ as middle-aged. Their fame carried them.

If you're middle-aged and picking up the guitar for the first time in the hopes of getting chix, you've got other issues that need to be addressed first. You can still learn the guitar, but hopefully your therapist can help steer you such that you're learning it for the right reasons.

If you are at least partly motivated by popularity (and who isn't)

Umm, me? I picked up the mandolin in my 50s because I wanted to learn how to play it. To date, I've not had one woman throw herself at me as a result. I'm perfectly okay with that. That brief flirting with the hammer dulcimer wasn't any better. Perhaps I'll try accordion next.

what an odd comment.

I decided to start teaching myself guitar about three years ago, at the age of 24. I had always wanted to learn to play an instrument, but before guitar, nothing ever really stuck.

When I picked up the guitar, I approached it from a different angle. The key for me was realizing that I could treat this like a 20 year project. I bought myself a guitar book[0] and started working through it page by page. I stopped worrying about whether I was good good or not – instead, I began to find great satisfaction in simply getting better.

Three years later, I've made a ton of progress. Practicing has become a kind of meditation for me; it helps clear my head, and keeps me from getting burnt out with work.

[0] William Leavitt's "A Modern Method for Guitar." This book is a pedagogical tour-de-force, though it helps to have a little bit of music theory under your belt if you are going to learn from it without an instructor.

Great job! Here are some other great books for you: J.S. Bach - Six Cello Suites (transcribed for guitar) Jim Hall - Exploring Jazz Guitar Joe Pass - Virtuoso (find transcription(s) or do it yourself) Gene Bertoncini - Approaching the Guitar

Thanks! I'll be sure to look for these.

There's also Mick Goodrick's masterpiece, "The Advancing Guitarist". which is still probably the single most inspirational guitar specific book I've ever read. I've had it for 25 years and still find it inspiring to look at.

The key for me was realizing that I could treat this like a 20 year project.

Gawd, I wished I had that realization when I was 20. Or 8. I wanted to learn everything now, and grew frustrated when I didn't. Took shortcuts that I'd pay for later. I'd be a better guitarist today had I taken your mature outlook.

Thankfully, I grew up and when time came to pick up the mandolin, I now have an outlook similar to yours. Not as explicit as "20 year project", but I knew I needed to be in it for the long haul. So I haven't skipped things, I practice the mechanics (scales and the like) nearly daily, and sometimes I save something for later (like cross-picking; I'll get to it eventually after I get those arpeggios down). I've made more progress more quickly on the mandolin than I ever did on the guitar, even discounting the headstart of knowing another fretted instrument first.

As someone who learned guitar recently in my late 20s, I can say don't overlook basic theory and the value of soloing/coming up with melodies.

For me, the creation aspect helped keep me interested. A lot of the beauty of programming is creating new stuff. If that's what you love about programming, try to create your own music as soon as possible.

You may want to start on ukulele first (4 strings/requires less pressure) to get the concepts down and start creating your own music faster.

I'd have to argue against starting with a ukulele. You miss out on the unusual tuning quirk present 6-stringed instruments tuned to thirds, where every string but one can match the tuning of the string above it by phrasing at the 5th fret, that string being the 3rd string (G) and the one above it (B,) you have to phrase at the 4th fret of the 3rd string to get the matching B of the string above instead of at the 5th fret.

I'd also say go with 6 strings because the typical chords can have more than 4 notes.

"miss out on the unusual tuning quirk present 6-stringed instruments tuned to thirds"

A ukulele is tuned to thirds as well. It is basically the same as a four string guitar with a capo on 5th fret (with the typical quirk of having the lowest string being an octave higher)

"I'd also say go with 6 strings because the typical chords can have more than 4 notes."

Typical chords for a beginner are minor and major chords which uses only 3 notes. And the augmented 7th have 4 notes which leaves you with quite some chords to play.

You will be limited by extended dominant 9th,11th and 13th but I wouldn't call those typical.

I think a ukulele can be fine to start as you'll get some very quick progress, but its limitations will come very quick as well.

"It is basically the same as a four string guitar with a capo on 5th fret (with the typical quirk of having the lowest string being an octave higher)"

5th fret represents going up at most 3 whole notes, not 8.

"Typical chords for a beginner are minor and major chords which uses only 3 notes."

Those are 'power chords' and not your full basic A-G chords. Your basic base E-chord is E-B-E-G#/Ab-B-E on a regular guitar and on a uke it's E-B-E-G#/Ab. Not even a major or minor, just the basic full chord itself runs at least four notes.

"I think a ukulele can be fine to start as you'll get some very quick progress, but its limitations will come very quick as well."

The limitations become apparent around day two when you realize the E you're playing on a uke doesn't sound as full or bright as an E played on a guitar. I put mine down after a week and never looked back. That was... 23 years ago.

Powerchords are usually only fundamental + fifth. you can play those on 2 strings only.

As long as you have 3 notes available you can make a full major or minor chord as it only involved a fundamental, third and fifth.

It will sound different on a ukulele especially because of the bourdon and wont sound as rich as it will hold less harmonics (no additional higher/lower strings to repeat the note) but that's still plenty of possibilities.

Too bad you had a bad experience with it but it still is a full fledged instrument capable of playing decent music. Of course trying to play guitar songs on it will sound disappointing most of the time.

You can think of the ukulele as a way to get more comfortable with alternate chord voicings for guitar (from 5th fret up). There's not much more to it than that. Play a "D shape", get a G chord; play a "G shape", get a C chord etc.

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.

> How do you get your figure to press down just right on the string and not interfere with another

Place your thumb on the back of the neck in the middle, and have your fingers curl round to press down on the strings using just the tips of your fingers.

See how that hurts more? Well, once your fingers have developed callouses, and then healed over, you're well on your way to guitaring superstardom :)

This hurts alot more with acoustic guitars than it does with electric, but it can help a lot when you first start out to buy a lighter guage string.

Find someone (or a YouTube video) that can teach you three or four basic chords that sound good together. Nothing too complex, maybe look up C, G, A minor, and E minor. Play them very slowly at first, not worrying about any kind of melody. It won't take very long before you can differentiate between the strings and hold a basic rhythm. Believe me, everyone starts out feeling like you did!

You can play a ton of songs with like 5-6 open chords. Find a song you don't hate that just uses G, C, and D majors, and drill the hell out of it until it's easy to transition between those. Way more fun to practice with a real song. You may pick up A-minor or something on the bridge of that song, which is nice. Pick up open A and E majors and E minor on top of that base and you can play rhythm on like 50+% of all guitar-heavy popular music ever written without going any farther. Then start working on barre and (relatedly) power chords and you'll get that number up to 90%. Wait to do that because barre chords require different hand muscles than open chords, so you'll hit trouble again when you start on them and no sense in tackling all that difficulty at the same time.

Take heart: once you get over the initial how-the-hell-can-my-fingers-even-do-that hump, learning enough guitar that it's pleasant to listen to is quick. You can hit that mark with casual practice inside 3 months, easily. By contrast, I spent years playing Alto Sax and got way (way) better at it than I ever was at guitar, but that was never pleasant to listen to solo—most instruments you've got to be really really good at them before they're tolerable solo, but guitar's about as far the other direction as you can get.

My experience with barre chords is that I thought I could never get them right, but I kept trying them with very tiny variations, until one day I just got them. Never thought that I could play them correctly till the day before I got them right.

My realization with barre chords came from asking my instructor about how to play a barre A major chord. Seeing his finger bent slightly upwards at the last knuckle was the missing ingredient.

I started learning a few years ago, and instantly gravitated towards barre chords.

The "consistent policy" of barre chords made a lot of sense to me, and still does.

It was mostly due to the rhythm technique of most of the guitarists I like (John Frusciante, Omar Rodriguez Lopez, Jimi Hendrix, etc) being very embellished. Much easier to do when the shapes are always the same.

May I suggest concentrating on playing scales first, your fingers have to get used to putting enough pressure on the strings that the notes are not muted and you can slowly build that strength by playing individual notes first :)

Also the perspective that helps me learn an instrument is that it's like you are developing a friendship with your instrument. One day you will be so comfortable that playing an instrument would feel like talking to a friend but making a friend takes time :) You have to have some awkward conversations first, feel like this is going nowhere and someday it won't feel awkward anymore and you would pick up your instrument and it would understand you like a friend does :)

I used to play a guitar and now often spend my time playing the mandolin so this perspective has definitely helped me, maybe it would be of some help to you too :)

Here's a tip for learning hard-to-reach chords: Hold the guitar like a classical guitarist. You'll have just a little bit more leverage to give your hand/wrist/muscles a chance to get used to the new position.

It's just a bunch of tiny little details. It's like riding a bicycle, or typing. Once you figure it out, it's easy and effortless. Keep trying!

What I find harder for beginning guitarists than fretting, is moving from one chord to another. Once you can finger a couple of musically related chords (pairs I recommend learning - G and C, G and D, D and A, A and E), learn to move back and forth between the chords without stopping. Don't "correct" yourself. Keep your strumming rhythm going, uninterrupted, even if you miss a chord!

It is better to play the wrong note at the right time, than play the right note at the wrong time. Always.

The true sound of a beginning guitarist is the sound of a song stopping for two seconds while they fumble to the "right" chord, because they played something wrong. Don't do that. I recommend playing along to records, because records won't stop just because you did. They'll teach you to keep going.

I've been playing mandolin for 12 years. I still like to look down and watch my fingers move in awe that it is possible for them to move that way that fast. It doesn't seem real that my fingers can move that fast even while they are doing it.

15 minutes a day is a good goal when you start. When you first start that is all the longer you can stand listening to a bad rendition of trivial tunes. When you get better you can stand listening to yourself play longer and longer, and your practice time can increase. Don't push too fast.

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?

Barre chords are the magic that I can't comprehend. I see people barre those three strings and I can't figure out how to do that and play the chord cleanly.

There's not really any magic to it. Just keep doing it, and after a while it'll start to sound right. And eventually the pain mostly goes away.

I can barre some chords but barring in the A major pattern is rough. Then my guitarist said "no one does it that way" and he showed me you press the three strings with your third finger while kind of hyperextending the joint...but my finger doesn't work that way!

One thing that helped me greatly with the frustration was recording my practice sessions once every week and compare them. You'd be surprised how much you progress without realizing it.

> 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.

I've spent ~2 months trying to learn guitar a few years ago, and I'm 2-3 months into my second attempt.

This is going to be incredibly unhelpful... But the answer is more practice. Practice playing chords, practice switching between two chords slowly, quickly, etc.

After ~5-10 hours of practice over a few weeks, beginner chord shapes will magically get much easier.

Your fingers will also toughen up and callus, which will make it easier to press strings down without interfering with other ones. The second time I picked up guitar, I made a goal of getting calluses as quickly and painfully as possible. Playing without them is an exercise akin to pulling teeth.

Keep at it. Absolutely everyone started where you are now. 15 minutes is more than enough to start seeing improvement from day to day.

Being relaxed and having a light touch is key to playing effortlessly. Beginners tend to press down way too hard. But don't worry too much about that for now, it'll develop automatically. If you're having trouble angling the fingers right, try moving your thumb around instead.

> How do you get your figure to press down just right on the string and not interfere with another.

The main secret is: Press just behind the fret. This will give the cleanest sound with the less amount of pressure.

Also, you need good ergonomics. Your wrist should never feel ackward; it should be as straight and relaxed as possible. This often needs wearing the guitar with a strap, and with the guitar hanging high (as most bass players do), rather than low as in most music videos (because it looks so cool to have the guitar hanging low...)

Thanks for those quick tips.

As the late great Jimi Hendrix mused:

'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!

Here's something I wish I'd realized when I first started playing. If you know the right set of chords you can play them in basically any order and they'll sound nice.

If you take scale like C major, there's a chord that goes with every note of the scale. On a piano this would be mean playing three note chords on the white keys only, all the way up. So for the key of C that gives you

C_major D_minor E_minor F_major G_major A_minor B_diminished C_major

Now here is the cool part: you can play those chords in virtually any order and they are going to sound good (although probably better to skip the B diminished chord, and also helps to start or end on C). It also works in the relative minor key, in this case A minor (still just white keys on the piano, essentially):

A_minor B_diminished C_major D_minor E_minor F_major G_major A_minor

Those chords are all easy to play on a guitar. It would also be easy to do this in the key of G major (E minor) on the guitar. They key doesn't actually matter, but those are easy for beginners. You can just number the chords 1 to 7, then pick any sequence of numbers, eg. 145623, or 4545261, and play it, and it will sound good, and you can make up a melody or a finger-picking pattern to go with it. For some sequences you might need to get a bit creative and vary the timing (eg. some chords will work better if you move through them faster than average, some you can linger on for longer than average), but you could make lots of good music from that alone.

> C_major D_minor E_minor F_major G_major A_minor B_diminished C_major

A good way to see where this comes from is to note that the major scale with C as the tonic ("root") note is

    C D E F G A B

(the white keys on a piano), and starting at any note in the sequence and taking every other note (for a total of three) gives you three-note chords called "triads":

    C    = C E G (skip D, take E, skip F, take G)
    Dm   = D F A
    Em   = E G B
    F    = F A C
    G    = G B D
    Am   = A C E
    Bdim = B D F

The intervals between successive notes are (major or minor) thirds, hence these chords are constructed by ascending (moving up the scale) in thirds. The Wikipedia page does a good job of explaining how you can construct chords like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(music)

You can take four notes at a time instead of three to get seventh chords.

I've been playing for quite some time, and have also known bits and pieces of theory for about the same amount of time, but I've never really applied the latter to my playing until recently. I'm getting into playing Bach and so on and find that I'd really like to understand, e.g. Roman numeral analyses, and being fluent in basic theory and how it "looks" on your instrument is key to this.

People looking at this should also look at the Circle of Fifths (google away). It shows intervallic relationships between notes and chords, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. Most folk and rock music is built on the Circle of Fifths.

For example, for a G, the adjacent notes on the circle are C and D. If you're playing in the key of G, you will probably have C and D chords as well. Millions of songs consist of just G, C, and D. Likewise, A/D/E, C/F/G, etc. So the basic 15 "cowboy chords" are enough to play countless songs in several different keys.

More importantly, once you get the sound of Circle of Fifths changes, you'll find that you can easily play most songs entirely by ear, in any key!

Tycho as in the Scott Hansen Tycho? If it is then I would like to say four years ago I listened to your music in a depressed slump, a week later I picked up the guitar and never looked back.

Either which way, that's some good advice and as a beginner it's hard to realise these things if you're self learning. Scales can feel like a practice routine rather than a palette.

Not Scott Hansen Tycho, although I'll need to check out his music now that you mention it.

Theory can be very dry and confusing and frankly off-putting, but the above I think is something anyone can absorb and then start using. If you play chords from that set you can sing and make up a tune with the comfort that any of those chords is going to be a good option to play next, so it's very liberating and you can quickly try different things.

Can't you ditch all of that and use one of these cool new programs where they show you where to play on the guitar, you play in there, and the mic detects if you played correctly then proceeding with the next note?

I think RockSmith is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaHsqGSetVo

I think there are others that might look more pedagogical.

Rocksmith works with Bass and Guitar and is a lot of fun. Its basically rock band with real instruments.

It has some basic video lessons too.

The guitar <-> usb cable works with other programs too, though the reverse is not true (you needed to use the rocksmith adapter cable with the program).

melodics is the software to learn finger drumming (though they're adding real drums to the software).

> you needed to use the rocksmith adapter cable with the program

There's a nocable patch for PC, and for Mac you can create an aggregate audio interface named "Rocksmith USB Cable" so you can use any interface you like - it's much funner with Apogee gear than the toy cable!

The best "app" I've tried is a digital recorder and a metronome.

My process: Play slowly until you think you've nailed it. Listen to the recording, realize you didn't. Fix the parts that sound bad. Repeat until you actually nail it. Increase the metronome by 10%. Repeat until you're slightly faster than performance speed. Back off and playing at performance speed will sbe easy.

RockSmith is a fun tool to practice with but I'd be very hesitant to recommend someone use it as a method to actually learn the guitar.

The biggest problem is that by learning differently, you create a real barrier between yourself and other musicians. Most guitarists learn to play in a somewhat similar manner. You learn to follow along with music and play by the tab or sheet music. The feedback you get is solely from your own ear. You learn how to stay on tempo and key from auditory cues, not visual ones. RockSmith changes all this.

RockSmith is useful to practice really difficult passages, but it becomes a major crutch at all other times and I really can't imagine someone become a well rounded guitarist while depending on it.

I don't think the goal of most people is to become a well rounded guitarist. Otherwise the route I would advise is to learn solfege.

I've been a professional guitarist since I was a teenager, and switched to upright bass about 3 years ago (I'm 40).

The biggest advantages to learning as an adult is on average you are going to have money to pay for lessons and a decent instrument, and are probably going to be more organized in terms of practicing and all that.

The disadvantages are that it's harder to network and find others at your level to play with. And, to be clear, the way to get good at, and enjoy music, is to play with other people. Even one-on-one lessons are a form of playing with others, and many adults use lessons as a proxy for playing with others.

Playing with other people was a very easy thing for me to do when I was coming up, and I'd imagine it would be significantly harder for an adult. But, I believe it's critical to enjoyment and success in music.

Yeah it's been a real struggle for me to find people to play with as an adult. It's hard to find adults who aren't either

A. really good, B. really bad, or C. too busy

I honestly think the best thing to do is to take lessons, and ask your teacher if they have other students who'd like to play with you.

You can also go to jam sessions if you live in an area that has a good music scene; I live in SF and there are regular jam sessions for bluegrass/jazz/folk/country/blues nearby. But, the thing about jam sessions is that you have to be able to play at a certain level to really enjoy them.

I think honestly the best solution is one that almost no one takes: hire really good musicians to play with you. When I was in music school, I had a professor that would literally say: "For all the money y'all pay in tuition, you would play better if you took that money and hired $famous_drummer and $famous_bassist to come play trio with you at your house".

Obviously if you are a beginner you don't need to hire the best people in town, but most professional musicians in this day and age are going to be happy for a gig like this.

Straight to upright or did you play bass guitar first? I started playing upright in addition to bass guitar and it's a lot of fun but a lot of relearning as well.

I played electric bass for 6 months or so, then rented an upright for 6 months, and then bought an upright. I've been playing about 3.5 years, there's a recording of me here: http://paulsanwald.com/music

Definitely a lot of learning for me, particularly regarding the bow. I went through the George Vance books and they were helpful with the basics.

I was able to start playing professionally on it pretty quickly, though, played my first gig on upright after 6 months of playing. But things like higher thumb positions and soloing with the bow (I'm a jazz musician) are very much a work in progress. Luckily, in jazz you can get a long way just knowing a couple positions.

I love the song you linked, thanks! Awesome recording, too.

thank you very much for listening! it's from an album I'm releasing in the fall.

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.

Wow, I wish I had known before I started learning. Moving up and down the fret with barre chord is cool and easy once it is mastered. However, Barre chord is also the hard to learn to play, requiring a lot of finger contortion, and also probably most painful for players as the finger presses down on all 6 strings. A lot of beginners either skip or avoid barre like the plague. I've found that it is easier to do barre on either light string and/or electric guitar.

I hardly ever play full barre chords. I can, but I don't. (I was subjected to practicing all the CAGED chord shapes as barres in circle of fifths up the neck, which is great for the hands and the brain.) I don't like the sound of six-string chords generally. So I mostly chord two or three strings at a time, and move what's getting picked from strum to strum to mix the low and high notes. It's much more dynamic and interesting, and sounds a lot less cluttered. But that's me.

The result is that my barres are lazy. Since I'm only trying to get three notes at most to ring clearly at once, I'm just muting the rest, which is a lot less effort. Muting technique is everything!

The "What Musicians Can Learn about Practicing from Current Brain Research" article[1] linked to in the practice section was interesting. The Mental Practice experiment mentioned is pretty amazing. I'm curious, what do people's practice schedules look like? I've been trying to regiment my practice schedule but it's not easy and the only resource I've used is Justin Sandercoe's intermediate practice routine[2] but it tends to lean toward a longer 1-hour workout. Has anyone found an effective method for 15-30 minute practice schedules?

[1]: http://www.cti-home.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Practice-...

[2]: https://www.justinguitar.com/en/PC-502-IntermediatePractice....

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 make sense, it doesn't make much sense on a guitar and that makes musical theory difficult to learn.

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.

This might be true from a physics standpoint, but it's not from a musical standpoint. The vast majority of all western music was composed on a piano first. It really does help to know it when learning any western music. Even the chromatic scale on a guitar doesn't accurate represent the physics. It's still based on sqrt 2^12 mathematics, not natural waves. If you want true temperament it looks more like this:

http://www.truetemperament.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/sl...

In my view the "logic" of any historical instrument emerges as you gain experience. You eventually reach a stage where you can think and hear the music in your head, and it comes out of the instrument. At this point, the pianist finds "shapes" of their hands, that correspond to what they want to play. So in a sense the arrangement of the keys is a kind of memory aid.

Yes and no imho. The piano is a beast of an instrument. It's an accommodating instrument to play something fairly simple fairly fast, but then there's an enormous wall to climb up on. It's really difficult to be a good self-taught piano player, the learning curve is steep beyond the basics.

Also, playing beginner piano doesn't practice your hearing as much as a stringed or wind instrument. I think it's important for beginners to learn to listen to what they play and adjust their intonation accordingly. Guitar, even though fretted, really does requires players to listen intently to pitch and tone from day one.

I'd say music theory and harmony - broadly speaking - makes more sense on a guitar, than it does on a piano. Solfege, yes, that does make more sense on a piano, but imo most amateur musicians really don't care about that particular approach to music education. And for rock&roll and country/blues, it's really not all that important either.

Apart from all that, yes, of course, piano is an amazing instrument, but much harder than guitar in the mid to long run.

I've taken lessons when I was in kindergarten and when I was in High school, but it has never been an easy instrument to learn. I'd say piano/keyboard easier than violin, but much much harder than a guitar. The 10,000 hours might not be enough to master piano, if you're starting as an adult beginner. However, you can definitely learn to play chords and simple melodies on piano. One thing to note, if you are a developer/programmer, be careful as piano has the same risk of getting carpel tunnel syndrome, so consider the ergonomics, and also don't overplay on piano. PS: I wish there was an ergonomic piano.

Glad to see this on here. Really, it's never too late to learn anything, but I can offer context here as I have been playing for 25+ years.

I can say without a doubt that picking up a guitar is one of the best things I've ever done in my life. It is just so rewarding. There are no barriers to your level of achievement. Want to get better? Just play more. In fact, the first thing I do after a bad day at work is pick up my guitar. I know that I have at least something in my day that I can do better at than I could have the day before.

It's also tremendously rewarding to be able to kind of level-up to your heroes. I can play things now that I only dreamed of when I was a kid. Iconic solos and riffs that I thought required some kind of superhuman level of skill. Turns out it just takes a lot of practice. The difference being that those heroes wrote those solos in their early twenties, while I'm merely mimicking them in my late thirties. But I still get to hear those sounds coming out of my amp, created by my fingers.

What other hobby or activity could offer that? Most of us could spend 12 hrs a day in the driveway shooting hoops but could never even dream being the worst player in the NBA.

Since there are so many guitar players in this thread, I'll go ahead and ask The One Question that pushed me away from playing (and keeps me away):

How do you know what to do with your right hand?

Most books I've (admittedly, casually) read and most tabs on the internet are surprisingly silent about this.

That's a great question and one that I've struggled with myself. Best I can do is tell you to find a guitarist who you respect and appears to play without effort, find videos of them playing and try to emulate what they do. Practice with a metronome at very slow speeds and really focus on the motions and positioning required as you move from note to note and string to string. Arpeggios work really well for this type of practice because they're going to require you to hybrid pick and sweep to play them really fast.

The jazz guitar form of bikeshedding is discussing right hand picking technique. There is endless amounts of discussion on consecutive picking, alternate picking, sweep picking, gypsy picking, benson picking, etc.

Have a look at Tuck Andress' take on this to get a flavor: https://www.tuckandpatti.com/pick-finger_tech.shtml

I say do it for fun. There are plenty of hobbies available to the middle-aged, and let's face it, one can spend a lot of money being mediocre (i.e., not dominating) at any of them - e.g. racing cars.

Those who have sore backs from time to time might want to avoid "traditional" Les Pauls.

Les Pauls are light. Here, hold my Steinberger Spirit headless 5-string bass. Let's see if you can even remain upright!

Guess nobody here knows the weights of either guitar. Here: Les Paul weighs generally 9 pounds. Steinberger XT-25 (the model I'm talking about) is 13 pounds. It will give you back problems playing it standing up for too long, this is why it comes with a built-in lap bar.

I played the piano growing up, but pretty much stopped when I was 16 - i discovered sports, computers, girls

When I was 30, I decided to pick up the guitar.

Knowing how to read music was certainly a jump start, but it's certainly doable.

JustinGuitar.com is a fantastic resource, but finding a teacher is the best.

What do experienced guitar players think about apps like Youcisian (which are basically interactive tabs with timing assistance and learning feedback)? Do they actually help in understanding the instrument and music composition?

Whatever helps you get over that initial hump of pain and frustration is a great asset to use.

I've found when learning guitar (and therefore music), that any holes you encounter seem to get filled in later; at one point or another.

Surrounding yourself with enough resources to close these holes is only good for you.

I have been playing guitar on and off since college and it is one of my biggest joys and a great way to relax. I am self-taught so am missing a few key ingredients to really master the instrument but it remains one of my favorite hobbies.

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.

ok, so i have guitar but never use the thing, what are some resources to learn?

Justin Guitar[1] is a great place to start!

1: https://www.justinguitar.com/

Edit: ignore this, it's false. Proof:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1cgrdq/ama_this_is_...

I don't know how this stuck with me for so long, I've practically known it to be true for as long as I've been playing. Huh.

---

Interesting bit of trivia I learned long after I stopped using his resources: Tommy Emmanuel is his father.

I can find no reference to this; it appears he may have three daughters but they all share his surname. Source?

You're right, thanks for catching this. See my edit.

Yousician (https://yousician.com/). It's like an interactive guitar teacher, offering backround tracks, and evaluating how you play. The really surpsising thing is how well it works.

For me it's like guitar hero (lessons are games) + duolingo (for lesson progression).

It identifies correctly the notes you play, even 1 meter from your laptop's crappy mic.

The free 30 minutes a day roughly corresponds to your fingers' daily tolerance as a beginner.

Rocksmith is good fun, if you like that sort of thing.

cyberfret.com

No other site compares.

Like with many things, to get really good you need to put in the time.

I'm playing for 14 years now, started with 18, and I'm a pretty mediocre player.

I know people who also started with 18 and got really good in under 4 years.

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 means I basically need to memorize or play from sheet music, which kind of got boring after a while.

You don't really need a good ear for tuning. Pick up a tuner, they're pennies nowadays.

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.

Try singing the melodies while playing. I never really wanted to be a "singer" but found that practicing voice has improved my ear and more intuitive side of the instrument.

I'd highly recommend the "singing against a drone" exercises in "the harmonic experience" by W.A. Mathieu. You can do them with an acoustic guitar, and they will improve your ear immensely. The first exercise is simple: singing exactly in tune with an open string.

The last time I thought about getting serious about practicing was after I had read Anders Ericsson's book Peak. I was trying to come up with a practice routine that fit the deliberate practice model.

If you've gone down the same path and worked on optimizing your practice time, what did you come up with? I bought my first guitar in the mid-90s and have worked at it off-and-on since then and still can't play a single real song.

As much as I love guitar, these principles can apply to any instrument, so don't think you're pegged into learning guitar because you started late.

You can pick up the bassoon or piano just as well.

Isn't that a guittaron (fretless guitar/bass combo) in the image at the top of the post. I've been wanting to get one of those but have too many instruments already...

This is an timely write up, bought a brand guitar way back 1 years back and still thinking if this is the right age to learn. This write up changed my prescriptive.

Thanks a lot. Start. Now!

Instead of a private lessons, I use ArtistWorks.com. I am enrolled in the banjo course and have found the video lessons really effective.

I started guitar in my mid forties.

Four years later, I've reached the point where (some) non-musicians are envious, and actual musicians categorize my sounds as “music” more often than not.

There's lot of great advice on this thread. (Especially about deliberate practice; and about avoiding instruments so cheap they'll just increase the difficulty while making you sound worse than you are.) I'll fill in a few notes from my own journey. YMMV.

Choosing a guitar:

* Steel string is hell on the fingers for a beginner. It is effective altitude training for nylon and electric. I love the tone and I'm really glad I started with steel string. However, had I known how hard it would be, I don't know that I'd have advised myself to start with it.

* Electric is easy-peasy (callus- and finger-strength-wise). I think a decent electric is cheaper than a decent acoustic too. Con: (1) you're less likely to pick up the instrument for two minutes of spontaneous practice when you walk past it on its stand. (I've probably got a lot of practice in from two minutes that turned into fifteen that turned into fifty.) (2) If you're a unmusical nerd like me, it's easy to get distracted from the hard work of making cleaning notes, by the comfort zone of playing with electronics.

* Nylon (classical) is easier on the fingers than steel but more difficult than electric. It might represent a happy medium between beginner fingers and practice activation energy, even if you don't play classical. Beware: new nylon needs to be tuned again every five minutes. After a month, it finishes stretching out, and holds its tuning about as well as steel.

* You can play any style of music on any guitar, except: (1) you can't really bend (a blues staple technique) a nylon string; (2) electric guitars have much greater sustain than any acoustic guitar: if the music you want to play sounds more like a violin or voice (sustained, tonal) than like a piano (percussive), you need an electric; (3) let's not talk about slide.

* What everyone else says about too cheap a guitar (or, “guitar-shaped instruments”, such as acoustics available for <$150-200). Specifically, you're looking for (1) “low action” (don't have to press a string too far for it to reach the fret), (2) good intonation (fifth fret low E is the same pitch as the open A, etc.), (3) stays in tune. Depending on your tolerance, you may also require (4) good tone (timbre). Cheap instruments are generally deficient on all of these, and this can really kill your motivation.

Decide whether you want to strum (harmony) or play individual notes (melody, or “lead”; also most of classical). These are almost different instruments. (For the beginner. A lot of melody is playing off of chord shape hand posiitons; and, coming from the other direction, embellished chords get to sound a lot like lead.) If accompanying (you sing or play harmonica, or can play with in a band), strumming is a valuable contribution. If you're playing solo, you probably need to play lead in order to have music that can stand its own.

Decide whether you want to play with a pick or finger style. It's easier to be loud with a pick, and it's especially easy to be loud strumming with a pick. If you're playing acoustic with a band, this may matter to you. Classical, on the other hand, is always finger style. Otherwise, don't make too much of this decision – there's a fair bit of technique to each, but most of what you need learn as a beginner applies to both, and if you continue with guitar you'll probably want both under your belt anyway. Just find some musicians or music that you want to sound like, and do what they do.

Choosing a learning style. Try each of the following; see which one(s) seem effective for you.

* Learn from an instructor. If this is how you learn best and you have funds and access, find someone you can trust, and then ignore everything else I've written.

* Play by ear. Listen to something, try to make your guitar sound like that. Many of today's older guitarists wore out vinyl records this way. Man I wish I could learn this way.

* Jam with friends. This may work if you're musically talented (I'm not), and/or coming from another instrument. Ditto.

* Learn by watching. Watch people's fingers, do what they do. If this is your learning style, YouTube is the golden age. My pseudo-science theory is that if you're good at learning from watching (e.g. sports, dance, watching people's hand motions when they sew, cook, juggle, drive, etc.), maybe you have a well-functioning mirror neuron system and this will work well for you. Yet another style I aspire to but suck at.

* Play from tab. Learn to play tab, and get some pieces under your belt. I kind of feel like this is the least-musician-y thing to do, but it matches my strengths so much better than the others that I went with this. At this point the road forks: (1) Classical: now learn the (newer!) standard staff, and leave tab behind – that was your starting wheels. (2) Folk/pop/rock/etc.

* Play from standard notation. This is really only used in classical repertoire. Even for classical, tab (which is the older notation) is still easier as a stepping stone, and has the advantage of building in performance notes about fingering, but if you're working with an instructor or you're not going to be put off by learning several hard things at once, then skipping tab gets you to the endpoint more directly.

* Play from chord diagrams or lead sheets. This is good for strumming (harmony). I'm not a strummer; don't have much to say here.

Practice:

* “What you do is what you do every day.” 15 minutes / day beats two hours once a week

* “The journey is the reward.” Find a way to enjoy the practice itself.

* Allocate some time each day for (1) skills, (2) repertoire, (3) noodling around. When you're starting, you won't have any repertoire (2), and there may not be much distinction between (1) and (3) (“I'm just trying to get any single note to sound clean.)

* At any particular point, have one or more skills you're working on. I've iterated through: play without fret buzz, use each finger without fret buzz, finger adjacent strings, finger non-adjacent strings, chromatic scales, blues scales, various chords, various chord alternations, making a barre, hammer-ons and pull-offs with various fingers, flat picking at tempo, flat picking alternate strings at tempo, finger picking a chord, bending a note, banjo rolls. Spend fifteen minutes a day on each active skill. (Exception: when you're starting, you may only have strength or callus for five minutes. “It's a marathon not a sprint.”) I probably spent fifteen minutes a day on barre for a week or two before hearing anything that even vaguely resembled success; eventually, it locked in.

* Learn to play at higher tempo by (1) playing as fast as you can with zero errors. Drop the pace until you can do this. There's a theory that you can learn even faster by (2) playing even faster, with errors, so long as you also do (1). This has worked for me.

* Some great musicians swear by practicing with metronomes; some advocate doing without them so that you develop your own sense of rhythm. If the latter, record yourself and play it back against a metronome, so you can tell if your tempo is as good as you think is is.

* Isolate and repeat difficult sections. Spend a minute, or five, or fifteen, on the smallest problematic section (maybe a single chord, or chord alternation, or four notes from a melody); don't play the whole piece and only hit the problem spot every few minutes.

that's a guitarron in the picture which, coincidentally, is the instrument I am trying whether to decide I am too late in my musical career to bother learning :)

I'm 29 and have been playing guitar for at least half my life at this point. It's a great stress reliever and just fun in general. I'm not good by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying myself.

These are some of my personal recommendations for starting out:

- Use an acoustic, you don't want to have to carry an amp around with you.

- Learn to sing while you play early on. I think it's harder if you try to learn later.

- If you learn a song, make it your own. Throw notes and rhythms in that don't necessarily belong. It's no fun being a robot.

- Learn the pentatonic scale.

- Don't be afraid to just try things. You're in the middle of a solo and don't know where to go? Jump up the neck and hope you land on something that sounds good.

- Try to learn songs by ear. Even if you end up looking up the tabs, at least try to play by ear first.

- Most of all, don't try to be perfect. Just try to have fun.

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.

I'd recommend starting on acoustic too. It's the quickest and cheapest route to entry.

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

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.

Thank you. I've been debating trying to learn guitar and this is helpful information if I decide to learn on acoustic.

Plenty of people start on acoustic. It doesn't teach bad habits in my opinion. Acoustic teaches the good habit of more precise fingering, because when you fret a chord slightly off it sounds worse on an acoustic vs an electric. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter much which one you learn on. For me acoustic wins because you can pick it up any time and start playing immediately. There's no fiddling with amps and cables, no power cords or batteries to worry about, and I can wander around the house to different rooms while playing if I want.

I don't think of hitting the strings hard as a "bad habit" in and of itself. Being able to play with a broad dynamic range is very useful, but not necessary to have fun and make good music.

I remember seeing a Paul Gilbert instruction video a while back where he talked about the importance of being able to play a single note, while hitting it with a full on rock and roll windmill arms technique. This is mostly a matter of muting the other five strings effectively. But hitting a note like you mean it really matters.

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 piano tuned once a year.

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.

You're lumping all acoustics into the same category. You can can certainly have a horrible learning experience on an electric guitar, due to poor quality / action / setup.

And you can have a great learning experience on an acoustic. There are a number of advantages in terms of learning on an acoustic:

1. It's portable - you can take it anywhere

2. You can easily hear it without headphones or an amp

3. Well suited for chords and melodies (typically the first things you learn)

4. Slightly heavier strings means that your fingers get stronger, and playing an electric guitar later on will seem much easier

5. Great for collaborative learning, easier to play with other people

6. Light weight compared to most electric guitars

7. Acoustic guitar "covers" of popular music (eg. Bieber etc.) are a "thing" all over YouTube and make it easy to learn songs people will recognize

8. If you appreciate classic rock, folk, blues and 90s alternative, these genres are typically chord-based, and easy to learn on acoustic too. Any Beatles song. Nirvana unplugged. Think Layla electric vs. Layla unplugged.

9. Fingerstyle is very rewarding. Eventually you might even get as good as Tommy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPkQn5nDTZs

Acoustic is a great way to get started, and learn, and most importantly a great way to develop GOOD habits.

I completely disagree with the acoustic recommendation as well. They're harder to play, which means it's much easier to give up on. You can get a 1w belt-clip amp if you really need to plug in, or you could just get a semi-hollow and play it unplugged.

Learning to sing is unrelated to playing guitar. I'd argue most guitar players do not also sing whilst playing. If someone wants to sing AND play guitar, I'd actually argue that it's easier to learn one before the other, not both simultaneously. When you know how to play guitar (and a song), it becomes almost mechanical and singing on top is much easier.

Instead of just learning the pentatonic scale, try to learn basic music theory and learn the fretboard. If you know where notes are on the board, it's much easier to land somewhere that fits musically with what you're playing. Not to discourage people from experimenting, but if you're just noodling around randomly with no idea of how notes work together, it's going to take you much longer to figure things out than if you just took a few weeks to learn super basic music theory.

Acoustic guitars are only a little harder to play. A decent acoustic guitar (which can be had for ~$250 used, or $500 new) with light strings is a fine learning guitar. If it's got reasonably comfortable action, it's not going to be an impediment to a beginner.

Acoustic light strings are 12 gauge though, compared to electrics which are 9 or 10 gauge. There is definitely a large difference between those to a beginner.

For what it's worth, I actually use 8s on my electrics, so the jump from electric to acoustic is kind of annoying.

Strings for acoustic guitar can be found smaller than .012. Martin Extra Lights are .010, Earthwood Extra Light are .010, etc.

There are extra lights on electric that go down to 7s. The fact is that the standard strings for acoustic are 12s and the fact that a usable acoustic starts at $500 new kind of shows how much of a misfit it is for people who are looking to try something out. My first guitar that I spent that much ($500+) on was 22 years after I first started playing.

There are tons of great $100-200 new electrics that are great for playing from almost every single brand now that a beginner isn't going to be forced to restring immediately (and remember that beginners don't know how to tune guitars, let alone string them).

>- Don't be afraid to just try things. You're in the middle of a solo and don't know where to go? Jump up the neck and hope you land on something that sounds good.

I think Jimi Hendrix said something like 'You're only ever a half-step away from a note that will sound good.'

I don't think the amp is an issue these days. I've got a mini amp I plug straight in to the guitar (gives about 8-10 hours of playing time between recharges), and has headphone jack for when I'm playing but don't want to disturb anyone else (for example when playing late at night).

My recommendation is to buy the instrument you are going to want to play.

I keep a guitar in my office and it's a nice way to disengage from a problem for a few minutes. An acoustic would be far too loud.

Another nice thing about electrics for me is that I love playing with the sound through my crappy little effects box (I bought an old Line 6 Pod device - it looks like a big kidney bean).

Plus, you can plug an electric into Rocksmith which I've found to be a fun way to spend more time playing.

is classical guitar a good beginner choice? I heard most people recommend electric guitar, but I want to learn to play fingerstyle.

If you want to play finger-picking in the folk style, you would be better off picking up a steel string guitar and learning on it, I think. Classical guitars have wider necks and higher action (more space between the strings and the fret board), so you would be acquainting yourself to differently configured guitar if you went with a classical. The only advantage to a beginner on a classical guitar is that there is less tension on the strings, so they are easier to press down. I think it is better to develop the finger strength on a steel string, and doing so is certainly not detrimental. With regular practice you adapt to it in a few weeks.

That said, playing any guitar is great when you are starting, as opposed to no guitar at all.

If you want a great guitar for the price, check out Monoprice.com. I have been playing for years and recently picked up a steel string cut-away for less than $100 (on sale) and it plays like a dream.

Fingerstyle is easier on a classical guitar because of the spacing between the strings. However many guitar players play the electric fingerstyle as well. A really accomplished player, like Jeff Beck, can be equally proficient with fingerstyle and pick playing.

But, with regards to your question: The classical guitar sounds different and feels different. Play the classical guitar if you're in love with its sound!

> Use an acoustic, you don't want to have to carry an amp around with you.

If you want to play an electric guitar get an electric guitar. Get a small amp that you can carry around.

> - Use an acoustic, you don't want to have to carry an amp around with you.

Considering I want to learn how to play Avenged Sevenfold, Judas Priest, Offspring, Rise Against, etc., this is not useful advice.

If I ever win the lottery, I'd love to learn to play the guitar, learn a few foreign languages, contribute to open source software, make a bonsai tree, read all the books I have in my apartment that are collecting dust, [a long list of other stuff I'd like to do].

I don't want a big house or an expensive car or "bling". I just wish I had the money to buy time.

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.

>because of sore fingers

Maybe in the beginning, but after having developed calluses you can basically practice for an undefinite period of time.

You need some skill as well, and that takes longer to develop than calluses. 8 hours of "twinkle twinkle little star" will drive anyone insane.

multiple foreign languages - yes you do

Benny the Irish Polyglot didn't. ( http://fluentinthreemonths.com )

Like many of the personalities in the internet's polyglot scene, Benny is a self-promoter who hypes his skills but lacks third-party verification that he is truly "fluent" in those languages. Furthermore, “in three months” assumes that he was banging away at picking up that particular language during that time, so even his method assumes more dedication than a lot of random HN people with stressful jobs can devote.

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 accept your definition of 'fluent' as valid, and your discussion as interesting.

(Benny has stated "When I learn a new language, I aim to reach a level where I speak confidently and comfortably in the language. I call this “social equivalency”. For me, that’s fluency. [..] not an academic pursuit; it’s a practical one. I aim to be able to use the language effectively in everyday conversation [..] I generally don't place much importance on my writing skills or ability to analyse and discuss printed text in a foreign language")

So it is completely fair to say he's not fluent to any near-native level - particularly after three months - but it's not entirely fair to say he has no third-party verification - from what I can tell on his rather hyped blog, he has passed CEFR C2 level Spanish, C1 level French and narrowly missed passing C2 level German exams.

It's a matter of where to draw a line, but in a comment "win the lottery and learn multiple foreign languages", I'd expect someone saying that to consider "passing advanced formal exams in French, German and Spanish" to count, rather than meaning "can read classic plays without reaching for a dictionary".

But maybe not.

It's hard enough to get people to agree on whether a good programmer can work in 'any language quickly', or whether it requires spending a good chunk of time to become familiar with idioms, warts, surrounding ecosystem and famous works and references.

TBF, as a native English speaker, you could hand me classic Shakespeare or works of poetry I actually did read in school, and there's a good chance I'd still be reaching for a dictionary on page 1.

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.

How do you even keep that much in your head?

Maybe it's just me, but after 15 years of guitar, I find 15 minutes to be only enough for the barest of skill maintenance. I've definitely hit a plateau in the last few years, and I think a major factor is the relative scarcity of available time to practice, drill, and learn new stuff.

It was much easier to make progress when I was a feckless teenager.

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.

I third It!

I'm in the same boat, played since I was 14, absolutely love the instrument, but just don't have the time to practice any more.

Even if you had a billion dollars you couldn't do all of that. You can do a few of them, but each of the above takes enough time that you cannot do them all at once.

My todo list will take me to my 3000 birthday.

maybe then you need a job that lets you do those things

Life is too short to wait for the lottery. You will regret on your death bed never making that bonsai tree or learning to play guitar. Make the time.

> The best guitarists practice for hours every day

This is why I suck at guitar after 15 years (although I stopped for several). I just don't stick with it enough.

Thanks for the comments everyone, and glad you enjoyed the article!

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