I am 26 years old and want to learn to play guitar...?

Question

I dont plan on learning music theory. I Just want to learn chords and read tabs and play. I know practice, practice, practice. Question is, am I too old to learn? Any advice for me? Thanks.

Answer 1

you are never too old to learn. playing guitar is a life long thing.

Answer 2

You're not too old at 26, but much depends on how much time you are willing to spend at learning the craft. Your job and home duties may interfere, which is natural at your age.

Buy a good chord book that has 2,500 to 3,000 chords in it. Since you don't want to learn music theory another option is to spend playing time with other guitarists to learn what chords go in whatever key you're in.

As an advantage, find lyrics of songs that you know their melody and that have the chord names above the words. This method will greatly help you to learn what chords go with each key signature.

I never recommend relying on tablature as the sole avenue to play songs. Some tablature is good to know because you can learn the fretboard notes easier. Music notation and its theory is the best way to play.

Answer 3

Your never too old to learn guitar. Get yourself a chord chart and a song book with chords of someone simple like Johnny Cash and figure it out. If you can swing it, take lessons. And once you get a few chords down, look for someone else that plays and sit down and play with them. I taught myself guitar and really did'nt learn anything practical until I started jamming with other people. Good luck!!!

Answer 4

To old! First of all when did 26 become old??

I'm 20 and I'm just learning. This website works really well for me.

www.playitnowtunes.com

No theory required!

Answer 5

Too old?!!!??? Are you kidding? People jump out of airplanes for the first time at 90 years old, and you are concerned about touching strings on a guitar at 26?

Answer 6

No, your not too old.

My advice would be to first, define what type(s) of music do you want to play? The reason for this is, you want to be able to buy the right gear for the sound you want. So by categorizing the music your going to be playing to, you will have a better idea of what you need when you go shopping for equipment.
Will it be classic rock? country? folk? metal? jazz? classical? swing?
Lets just say, for example, you wanted to play classic rock like ACDC and Black Sabbath. You wouldn't want to spend money on a guitar that had a whammy bar, because you would never use it with the type of music you wanted to learn. Or if you wanted to play country music, you probably would want to get a guitar with single coil pickups for a more "twangy" country sound, as opposed to a guitar with humbuckers.
If you wanted to learn Van Halen, you would definitely need a top-notch whammy bar on your guitar, along with a smoking hot pickup in the bridge position.
As far as amps go, its the same thing. You have tube amps and you have solid-state amps. Tube amps sound warmer and richer, but they have to be turned up quite a ways before the tube really kicks in. This is good for classic rock if you have the capacity to play that loud in your home. Solid-state amps don't sound as rich as tube amps(which is why most professional musicians go for tube), but you don't have to turn them up to get the sound they make. Metal musicians prefer solid-state amps to get that more "industrialized" sound, and the solid-state amps react instantly to the guitar, which is needed in that type of fast-paced music.
But if your going to be playing "clean" (no distortion), then you have to take that into consideration when picking out an amp. Some amps sound great clean, while others don't sound so good. Of course, thats the same way with distortion, also.
Then there are effects. If you want distortion, will it be fuzz? overdrive? distortion? Metal? Will you need compression? Delay? Flange? Chorus?

Or maybe you want to play acoustic. Again, you have several different brands, with different sounds.

Guitars, and other gear, are like cars. You usually get what you pay for, you can hot-rod out your gear (at a price), you have all types of different performance options to suit your taste.

Look into what you really want to do with your guitar, and find the right equipment that suits it. I've been playing for over 20 years, and I looked for my right "sound" for quite a few of those years, which can be frustrating. So just don't jump in and buy the first thing you see, because like I said, guitars are like cars, you have to know everything about their performance before getting stuck with it.

thats my advice.

Answer 7

I taught myself to play the banjo at age 25 (moderately well), you're never too old as long as you're willing to put some practice in.