47 Year old beginner

I have a nagging question due to starting late in life... Should I learn to read music notation?

I have learned the basic open chords, basic travis picking, and am struggling to get bar chords down. I have the Gibson home study course, which is really nice but it seems like I will really slow my progress down if I go back and start learning to pick notes to sheet music.

BTW... I love this site! I decided to learn guitar about 3 years ago. My wife bought me one of the Esteban packages which came with a cheap acoustic and several videos. That lasted for about 3 months until I got too busy to keep up. A year ago this month I decided to give it another go. This time I am a lot more motivated! I practice an hour a day, every day. My biggest problem is that I tend to jump around too much. I am an extreme type "A" personality so I tend to get the basics of a skill down then move on to the next without really mastering it. I NEED STRUCTURE! Then I discovered Guitar Tricks. Voila... just what I was looking for. Now the challenge is forcing myself to go back and master the beginning fundamentals.

Welcome To Guitar Tricks.i Was The Same Way Jump From Here To There And So On,not A Good Idea I Soon Realized.its Not How Long You Practice,but How You Practice Is The Key To Improvment.i Would Pick A Song I Want To Learn,learn Some Of It Then Go To Another Song Ect.so Now What Ever It Is I Finish It Untill I Can Master It.theres Nothin Wrong With Thumb Nailing Gt,but Stick With What U Had Started.goodluck.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for sharing your story!

You don't need to read notation to play guitar well. If you want to avoid added frustration, but still learn to play well, I would save the learning notation task for later. But tabs are helpful and easy to follow.

An hour a day is a good practice schedule!

Hello. I am in the same situation. 49 and began about 1.5 yrs ago. I want to do it all. Used to be type a. I realized that I needed to step back and reevaluate my situation. I did and wow what a relief. I don't have to do it alone. Personally, I found faith,but use whatever it takes to sloooow down. This has really brought me more joy and of course guitar. With time moving so quickly, I will go through this course among others and we will see what will be. Sounds like I need to go write a song. Anyway, welcome to the journey.

Hello Paulh4,

I had to grin after reading your post as I too have had the same question. I began playing three years ago (age 47) and like you, I have the Gibson L&M course. It wasn't until later that I found Guitar Tricks. Anyway, in my humble opinion "yes" you should learn to read the notes as you progress. Is it required? No, but in my case it has really helped to know the basics of note reading and the other parts of reading music. Now, when a friend comes over or I am someplace (like church) and someone asks me to play with them, I can use their music and have a blast. I have found it useful for playing the melody to simple songs even if I don't really know them. So, my .2 cents worth says yes, learn to read music as you are progressing.

Jim

Thanks for all the great advice! It's nice to know that I have so much company in picking the guitar up late in life.

Originally Posted by: Paulh4I am an extreme type "A" personality so I tend to get the basics of a skill down then move on to the next without really mastering it.

Not sure I would refer to myself as a type A (..not sure of my type but I do work hard at stuff so there's that).

I quoted the above text because I never really mastered any one thing on guitar but I got surprisingly good at a lot of things. It's all in what you want to play. First and foremost, just enjoy playing the instrument. Whatever it takes to keep you playing, so be it.

If that means jumping around, I see no harm in it. Key is not to make it drudgery but play cuz you want to. To some people that means mastering advanced sweep arpeggios and others it is being able to strum a clean barre chord. It's not what the world thinks you need to know but what you want to know.

Sure, learns the rules of playing a style and all that jazz but you are playing to enjoy the experience. That is first. After that, it's all secondary.

Congratulations on taking up the guitar.

Like you, I started "late" (age 44) at guitar. It was something I had wanted to do since I was a kid, but never got around to for one reason or another.

Whether you "have" to learn to read standard music notation or not depends on what you want to do with the guitar. I learned to read music as a teenager when I took piano lessons. However, I do not find that I "need" it to enjoy playing guitar. You can almost always find tablature for a song you want to learn. Like you, I am "Type A" and at times have felt that I "should" learn every note on the fretboard and how to relate them to standard notation (unlike on a piano, which has a one-for-one mapping to standard notation there are often several places to play any given note on a guitar) but I just don't find that I need it.

If you would get joy from learning it, or if you find that not knowing it is standing between you and something you want to do, then learn it. Otherwise, don't sweat it.

My $.02

I am amazed. Until 5 minutes ago I felt like the oldest swinger in town. It turns out there are loads of us late starters.
Having an "A" type personality I need to put structure in, in order to keep motivated and organised.
I have got about 15% of the way through Guitar Fundamentals 1, with Chris Schlegel but the lessons ran out at that point. What I need to plan is a beginner to as good as possible route to finger picking acoustic playing. I am a little confused at how to put this together now the section has run out. Any suggestions Guys and Gals?

Originally Posted by: romaine1...I have got about 15% of the way through Guitar Fundamentals 1, with Chris Schlegel but the lessons ran out at that point. What I need to plan is a beginner to as good as possible route to finger picking acoustic playing. I am a little confused at how to put this together now the section has run out...

A little clarification, please. :) What do you mean by the "lessons ran out..."?

To get to "as good as possible (at) finger picking acoustic playing" you'll have to know what's in the Fundamentals courses. You may not have to do the Fundamentals but you'll have to be able to do what's taught. IMO.

So tell us what the problem is with running out of lessons.

And welcome to the Forum!

Hey and welcome. Like yourself i have just started playing @43 and have managed to set out a structured path to my goals.

I spend on average around 7hrs a day practicing. I go through the lessons on here to get the basics correct, then i switch to Rocksmith 2014.

I have found both to be great teaching aids, but also have lots of fun doing it.

Fun is the major factor that keeps us going, after all why would you try to learn something if it wasnt fun.

Keep at it and enjoy...

Originally Posted by: romaine1What I need to plan is a beginner to as good as possible route to finger picking acoustic playing. I am a little confused at how to put this together now the section has run out. Any suggestions Guys and Gals?

Your goal is clear: you want to be able to play acoustic fingerpicking asap. That's the immediate goal. To work towards it:

-watch Christopher's tutorial on how to learn chords. I believe its just one tutorial. You don't need to learn a bunch of chords, you just need to know the correct approach for how to learn new chords. I'm not talking about chord theory or anything like that. Just simply that you learn and memorize the chord shape, then be able to play that cleanly, and ultimately be able to remove your hand from the fretboard, then fret the chord again instantly so that it sounds cleanly when you strum or pick the strings.

-Now go through Lisa McCormicks fingerpicking course. Its excellent. She'll start you off with very easy picking patterns, and work you right up to being able to play the theme song. For each song, you will see that there are specific chords played in a specific order. You need to learn these chords and be able to make the changes between them smoothly before learning the song. Avoid the temptation to fudge your way through the tune making tons of mistakes. Instead, learn the chord (you can learn and slowly practice the fingerpicking pattern at the same time) and then when you feel ready, play through the chord changes very slowly, so that you make hardly any mistakes.

How many mistakes you make will dictate the tempo. If you try to play faster, but start making a bunch of mistakes, slow it back down. Think "Tai-Chi" for guitar. Practicing correctly at a slow pace is the fastest way to being able to play at full speed. Rather than making tiny improvements, you'll probably find that at some point you can play much faster and still play it cleanly.