Many people reckon about being able to play the guitar but need reassurance concerning what to expect when they try to learn guitar at a late age in life. By late I mean forties or fifties but really the term can apply to any age past the teen years. A bonus for mature age guitar students is that if you learn guitar it can really help keep your hands and mind alive and healthy. There’s an additional benefit in that your friends and family will reckon you are a hero before you are even able to play.

Learning guitar late in life is open to anyone but the question is if it is simpler to learn guitar as a young person, does that mean it is harder when you are older?

Older guitar students do tend to have some hassles learning music theory and note reading but it is worth the struggle and many guitar players use tab to learn material and tabs are available freely on the internet for any song or instrumental that a beginner could want to learn.

If you find yourself struggling with the more theoretical side of music, then you could make up for it by concentrating more on technique. You can learn a lot about the guitar just using your ear and a diagram of the notes on the fretboard, and remember that many guitarists who played all their lives never learnt to read music.

Changing chords is the first huge hurdle for guitar players of any age, and can lead to a mental block for older students. So, just start with getting the chord shapes right and work on changing from one chord to the other slowly and carefully. If you are troubled by training your hands to do the chord shapes you might want to consider buying yourself a Gripmaster. This is a gadget that helps you strengthen your fingers and develop callouses on the fingertips. Also light gauge strings are a small simpler for an older guitar student to practice on.

Something that is possibly a small more vital for an older newbie guitar player is the need for daily practice. Make yourself a schedule and stick to it religiously. It might do some excellent to occasionally get a lesson from someone  who is not your regular guitar teacher. Even from a friend who does not play in your style. The change can help keep you out of a rut.

Keep your guitar handy all the time. Sometimes if you have a bunch of family and professional commitments that keep you busy, you can do more playing by grabbing the guitar for a couple of minutes when you can, instead of trying to find a regular half hour a day. If this is the way you have to go to get your quota of practice, then so be it.

You will probably benefit from getting a decent guitar to learn on, whether electric or acoustic, and the general rule about acoustic guitars being kinder to the hands in the first couple of months of playing still applies.

Finally, you will possibly need to keep reminding yourself that the reason you started to learn guitar was basically to do with having fun. Don’t get too bogged down in the thought of guitar practice being what you “have to” do. Not having your parents to cook and clean for you, will place you at a disadvantage compared to most young people so don’t be surprised if younger students progress quicker than you. The point is if you keep at it you will be playing any song you want within a couple of years.

The Guitar is a really fascinating instrument to learn. In my opinion it is one of the only instruments that you can learn – to the point of being able to strum a simple tune – within a couple of weeks or less. This makes the guitar so appealing to people. They pick up the guitar, get shown a few chords and straightaway music can be heard. With most other instruments this is not the case and takes months of work before you can start to hear music.Learning the guitar is also different to most other instruments in the fact that you do not need to learn how to read music. Written music notation is like another language and it takes time to learn. With most other instruments you learn to read music notation at the same time as you learn your chosen instrument. This means you have two things to concentrate on meaning the time taken to get anywhere is doubled at the very least.The way you can learn the guitar without the need for music notation is thanks to the nice layout of the strings and frets. This is easily transposed onto paper in the form of boxes. The box is split vertically by 6 lines representing the 6 strings. Horizontal lines represent the frets and dots on these boxes represent where to place your fingers. These are called chord charts or chord boxes and you need no knowledge of the guitar at all to play these. Of course, your fingers will, at first, be reluctant to go exactly where you tell them, but given a bit of practice your fingers will start to remember these chords shapes very quickly. The second method is guitar tab, which is represented by 6 horizontal lines. It looks a small like standard music notation but rather than notes, numbers appear on any of the 6 strings. The 6 lines represent the 6 strings and the numbers represent which fret to place your finger on. Once again, you need no knowledge of the guitar to know this and subsequently anyone can pick it up immediately.Guitar tab is everywhere. Being it is so simple and basic there are thousands of resources on the internet that tabs can be viewed online – of course, there is no guarantees they are right and often are littered with mistakes from the people writing them out. Having said that, it can be a really excellent guide of how to play a song – with no knowledge of the guitar.Guitar tab books are readily available and it is simple to increase your knowledge of the guitar with guitar theory books, your favourite band’s album songbook and much more.The fascinating thing is that I believe the guitar then becomes one of the most complicated instruments to master. On most instruments you can play a single note in one place only. On the guitar you can play a single note in several places. This can add confusion. This also applies to chords as well – a single chord can be voiced in many ways and in many different locations on the guitar. Either way, the guitar is a fantastic leisure activity, and its simplicity in learning your favourite songs to sing along provides hours of entertainment and enjoyment.