Do people just suddenly become incapable of learning new things at the ripe old age of 30 or something?
One of my biggest regret (well, among many), is that I never followed through on learning an instrument in my life for one reason or another. In high school, I wanted to learn guitar, but the internet wasn't quite as useful back then as it is today, so the tools to teach myself weren't quite as plentiful. Later on in my 20s, I bought a drum set, and actually had a lot of fun trying to learn that...but financial burdens struck and I was forced to move, and had to sell the drum set to save on space and money before I really got past mastering using all 4 of my limbs.
Since then, I've just kinda forgotten about that, and most of my energy has been going into learning Japanese, which I'm still working on. That is making me hesitate taking on trying to learn an instrument again, but I just keep thinking to myself that we only live once, and if I don't think about doing it now, then when.
Then there's the problem that my thread title makes...my age...I'm afraid I'm too past my prime to even retain much, and it's not like I'll ever take it anywhere in my life other than a hobby. I'm still uncertain if I'd wanna go back to trying drums, or give guitar another try, or something else entirely. I guess I just wanted some input, and advice if anyone has been in a similar situation, and what'd did you end up doing.
Whenever an adult takes piano lessons in a movie it means that they are rocketing towards self-actualization.
Yup.
When your young you have HOURS, when you're older...time is much more of a premium.
The thing is the basics needed to learn an instrument; muscle memory, actual brain memory, learning basic theory, etc its not as if there's this crazy drop when you're older. The basics needed,: your hearing...the nuanced (not pure speed/strength/reflex) maneuverability isn't a huge difference between when you're young vs older.
The ability to practice 12 hours a day tho? Absolutely. But if you can etch out time (remember, practicing daily for even a little a bit > practicing a shitload in bulk) you can get pretty good in not too much time. You aren't going to become a concert player, but play in a band/make your own music? Easily.
I started learning Piano at around 30 and guitar at around 34. I am not great, but it is the ultimate stress reliever. The hardest thing is finding a period of time to practice. But, even 5-10 minutes on the busy days helps and makes me a tiny bit better.
Going to be 30 here in a few weeks. Been wanting to pick up Piano for awhile now but just never get around to it.
Any good resources you guys recommend for learning Piano the first time?
The piano subreddit has a pretty good FAQ, which includes a purchasing guide and a good amount of resources. The actual subreddit also has some nice info if you search around, and their monthly "Piano Jam" posts are a good way to find additional easy music to play (since they always include 1 beginner song).
For actually learning as a beginner, I personally found books to be the best way to go (learning from youtube just didn't work for me). I used and liked the Alfred Adult All-in-One book, but other common recommendations I saw when I started out were the ones from Bastien and Faber. Briefly looking at all three, there doesn't really seem to be that large of a difference between them, so all of them should work just fine.
The only youtube channel I actually really like in terms of teaching is this one. It has playlists for pretty much all beginner books showing you how to play songs in them, as well as providing additional information that isn't mentioned in the book itself. It works really well as a companion to the books.
This is great, thanks!
Any advice on learning to read sheet music (I think that's the right term?)? I played Trumpet in band in grade school and never learned how to read music. I always had to write down letters above the notes to play it.
All of the books start of assuming you know nothing about sheet music, so they do teach you that too.
In terms of memorization, I found this method to be much easier for me than just brute force memorization of every note. But at the end of the day it's just something that gets easier with practice, just like everything else.
For practice, this website is pretty good since it lets you customize pretty much everything (alternatively, this version has you identify notes based on the piano keyboard instead of names). The same site also has a bunch of other more advanced exercises available, as well as a decent overview of music theory in general.
JustinGuitar is the standard recommended course.I'm starting completely from scratch, so if anyone has any other learning resources they wanna share, I'd love to see. I know there's stuff on youtube I can use, but if you have a channel to recommend, I wouldn't mind seeing it.
arigatou gozaimasu!
I just wanted to provide a little update. Not sure if anyone is still reading this thread, but you folks here certainly helped me get the confidence to give this a try, and I was able my guitar today.
This was just the perfect price point for a beginner like me, and I love the look of it. Les Paul is actually from where I live, so I was also drawn to this style. It also reminded me of Yui's guitar from K-On, so that was a plus to me as well, hehe ^_^
I didn't get an amp yet, because I don't think I'll need that right away. I just got this gig bag, some picks, and a strap for now. I'll get the other accessories I may need later. I do wanna order a cable that I can use for Rocksmith though, cuz I did get that on the steam sale.
I'm starting completely from scratch, so if anyone has any other learning resources they wanna share, I'd love to see. I know there's stuff on youtube I can use, but if you have a channel to recommend, I wouldn't mind seeing it.