Greetings from NZ

Hello everyone!

I'm completely new to guitar and actually making any kind of music for that matter. Got an acoustic guitar for my 40th birthday which was an amazing surprise. After a few beginner YouTube videos which left me with more questions than answers, I saw an ad for this and decided to give it a go. 

Can't remember last time I've had this much fun and got this excited. It's a feeling of pure joy to unhinge and indulge like I'm 20 again. 

Now I've got a business trip overseas and can't get over the long break away from practising. Is diving into theory a good idea while still on 1st beginner course? I'm also watching song tutorials even though I don't understand half the lingo, want to get used to vocabulary. 

Cheers,

M

Welcome aboard.  41 here.  I picked it up again a few months ago.  I made a related post the other day and two things happened: (1) Christopher responded with some good links of his lessons, which I felt helped a lot, but there's still the "but, wait.... I still don't understand" feeling, because I think it's beyond what we can really understand now.  Seeing more math created by the fretboard will help to capture that knowledge. (2) ScubaCPA said that the book No Bull Music Theory For Guitarists really helped and reading the reviewsd seems to support that    

Bottom line you can watch the theory vids and try to think about how the fretboard spots are calculated and write some notes or draw to just help make it click, but having the guitar in hand would be perfect just for the sake of following by finger 

Welcome.

It's great to read of your obvious excitement and wanting to dive in. Dive in with both feet!

I keep a piano app on my phone. There are times I want to play with some licks and don't have a guitar. The notes (there are only 12 we use in Western music) are all there and easier to find in fact as the piano lays them out in a straight line. A piano will help you put the theory you read about to sound so you can hear it.

Cheers mate, that's a truckload of solid info 👍 

Hard to get bored around here, that's for sure.

What a wonderful piece of advice, thank you!

And thanks for the welcome 🤟 glad to be here. 

Pleasure, best of luck with. 

Actually M,  travel is a great time to go choose and go through some of the songs you find of interest.  It's really good to listen a number of times and become familiar with a song before diving in to learn.  Especially when you're working on the fills and solos, you'll make faster progress is you can "sing" your way through the notes.

I'm using the term "sing" very loosely here of course.

Welcome and have fun!

I'm with you on singing there haha, but I know what you mean. Thank you mate.

Good to see another Kiwi aboard.

The blues courses are pretty good and offer a lot of pretty essential building blocks. Most seem to think mixing theory and fun (songs) in equal measure to your practice is the way to go and it worked for me. Hope you keep at it and all the best mate.

Cheers bud, appreciate the warm welcome.

If you cant stand being seperated from your guitar for traveling.... Maybe you should look into a Travel Guitar.  They are not that expensive, but they are easy to travel with (fits in overhead bins).  You buy a pocket rocket amp and some headphones and you are set to go.  The headphones make it acceptable to practice just about anywhere.  Great for motels.  I take mine on ski trips where I stay in motels.  I am in there shreading and there are no complaints from the adjoining rooms.  Also a great way to  burn time while waiting for a flight.  You go find an unused gate area and go back in the corner and you can shread to your heart's content.  Headphones mean you can be blistering paint off the wall, all the while bothering nobody.  It really helps to pass that dead time.  I bought one years ago and now I never go anywhere with out it.  Mine took a little while to get used to holding, but attaching a strap solved those problems. 

Gidday from another fellow Kiwi. Joined GT about 5 years ago at the age of 54. Never regretted it. Was totally new to guitar. Started with fundamentals and then moved on to blues 1 & 2. Have been naughty, haven't spent much time on theory. Too busy learning songs. For a long time I would finish learning a song to my satisfaction, then immediately move on to a new tune. Problem is, I kept forgetting the songs I had learned. If someone asked me to play a song I could only play snoppets of old songs or most of the latest song I was learning (probably a sympton of my age).

Over xmas I decided to choose my favourite 4 acoustic guitar songs I'd learned in the past and re-learn them. I am now going to dedicate a few minutes of wach practice time to playing these 4 songs so that I actually have a small set of songs I could play at any time.

Now I have to do the same with my electric! But wait...... there's a cool new song for me to learn....😃

Enjoy!

Alf from the Top of the South