It's Never Too Late to Learn Guitar
As someone who has been playing for 35 years or so, here are some observations...<p>First and foremost, guitar is a pretty straightforward instrument for beginners. There&#x27;s a reason it&#x27;s the most popular instrument in the world. If you put in the effort, you can be playing something musical in a few months, and proficient in basic folk&#x2F;rock music in a couple of years. It doesn&#x27;t take &quot;talent&quot;. It just takes effort.<p>Something that throws a lot of beginners is that we fret with our &quot;weak&quot; hand and pick with our &quot;strong&quot; hand, which seems backwards. That&#x27;s only because they&#x27;re beginners. Picking is <i>much</i> harder than fretting. It doesn&#x27;t seem that way when you&#x27;re struggling with cramped hands for your first few chords, but good picking technique is the key to actually being good, and it&#x27;s very challenging.<p>Don&#x27;t try to learn on a crap guitar! If it has high action and truly hurts to play, or if it has bad tone, it&#x27;ll drive you away. Learn on a good instrument. Virtually any guitar that costs over $200-300 new these days is good. You don&#x27;t need to spend a fortune. And get it &quot;set up&quot; at a good guitar shop. It makes a huge difference in tone and playability.<p>If you&#x27;re playing rock guitar, there&#x27;s a real temptation to use <i>way</i> too much distortion to get what you think is the sound on records. Most great rock guitar tones are much cleaner than they sound. When in doubt, use less gain.<p>And finally, the guitar is an incredibly deep instrument. After 35 years, I feel I know less now than I knew after three years. Approach with humility.