Start Playing Guitar at 40, 50, 60 & Beyond

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Steve Stine shares seven essential tips for older adults beginning their guitar journey. The focus is on creating sustainable practice habits, maintaining physical comfort, and finding joy in the learning process regardless of age.

• Start simple and celebrate small wins to build confidence and motivation
• Practice in short, consistent sessions rather than overwhelming marathon sessions
• Be kind to your hands with proper warm-ups, stretches, and comfortable playing positions
• Focus on songs you actually love to maintain interest and connection to the music
• Learn how the guitar works beyond just memorizing chord shapes
• Leverage community and support from other players and qualified instructors
• Stay positive, patient, and enjoy the journey rather than focusing solely on end results

Interested in more structured guidance? Head over to the GuitarZoom Academy where we can help you get from where you are to where you want to go as a guitarist.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
Hey, Steve Stine here from the Guitar Zoom Academy.
Thank you so much for joiningme today.
What we're gonna be talkingabout are seven tips for the
older beginner guitar player.
Okay, seven things I think arereally important.
I've got them written down here.
So the first thing we're gonnatalk about is starting simple
and celebrating small wins.
Okay, if you're a guitar playerwho's just started playing and

(00:23):
you're no longer 15 years old,the first thing you have to
understand is that things aregoing to take time, and so
celebrate small wins if you canlearn how to play, you know an
open chord and get comfortablewith you know doing it properly,
accurately, that sort of thing,or maybe a strumming pattern or
something like that, and westart putting those together.
The key with all of this, thisstuff, is not doing too much at

(00:46):
once, okay, and then being ableto take the information that
you're learning and actuallyconvert it into things that you
enjoy Music, that you enjoybands, that you enjoy styles of
music, whatever it might be agenre that you enjoy.
But the goal here is not to getoverwhelmed.
Trying to do way too much atonce, learning too many things,
and it just becomes, you know,overwhelming, and then you wind

(01:09):
up not wanting to do it.
So small wins.
Keep things simple find aninstructor that's actually able
to work with you on your level,your interests, and then start
trying to put small thingstogether.
I guarantee you, once you get acouple of chords together, you
start playing a couple of songsthat you really enjoy, even if
they're not perfect.
Again, give yourself someforgiveness.
It doesn't have to be perfectin the beginning, but we start

(01:31):
crafting these small things andall of a sudden, we start
playing some music and we feelbetter about ourselves, get some
confidence, get some motivationand forward motion.
That starts happening,happening.
So the next thing I want to talkto you about is short,
consistent practice sessions.
Okay, I tell people to practiceon the days that you eat.

(01:51):
Okay, if you're going topractice that day, um, or if
you're going to eat that day,you should pick up the guitar
that day, learn to becomefriends with your guitar,
develop a relationship with yourguitar to where you you just
know you have to pick it upevery day.
It's sitting in the living roomor whatever it might be, and
you just pick it up and you justplay.
But the goal here is to doshort, consistent practice
sessions.
You don't need to sit down andplay for an hour or two hours.

(02:14):
Maybe you practice for 10 or 15minutes in the morning.
Maybe you practice for 10 or 15minutes again in the afternoon,
and maybe you practice for 10or 15 minutes again in the
evening.
Maybe you only do that twice aday.
Maybe some days you can do more.
Maybe some days you can do less.
That's called being a humanbeing.
That's the reality of things.
But don't like.
The whole thing with all ofthis stuff is is if you just sit

(02:36):
and overwhelm yourself and thenmake yourself feel guilty
because you can't get to all ofthis stuff, it's going to fail.
So don't do that.
Don't set yourself up forfailure.
Set yourself up for success byfinding the right people to help
you, the right person to helpyou.
Okay, set yourself up with whatis the best stuff that you need

(02:59):
to be working on in thebeginning to get you to
something that makes you feelgood about yourself, gets you
motivated, and learn to practicein small amounts so you're not
overwhelming yourself with withtime or with with you know tools
that you're practicing.
The next thing is be kind toyour hands and your body.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, maybe I'm 55, I've gotarthritis in my hands, okay, you

(03:20):
have to be careful about thesethings.
You want to make sure whatyou're doing?
Of course you're going to haveto learn, you, about these
things.
You want to make sure whatyou're doing?
Of course you're going to haveto learn you know how to hold
the guitar and put your elbowand your wrist and all this kind
of stuff.
But there are real ways to dothis so you're not hurting
yourself, you're notoverwhelming yourself.
You know doing some basicstretches are really good to do.
You know proper, proper warmupsbefore you grab the guitar.

(03:43):
You don't need to do a lot ofstuff, but a little bit goes a
long way.
So, learning how to do somethings like that to take care of
yourself, you know, one thingthat I like to do is, before I
start a practice session, whenit's available, certainly when
it's cold out.
I live in North Dakota, so itgets really, really cold in the
wintertime here.
You know 40 below 50 below zero, and so if it gets cold in my

(04:04):
studio at all, the first thing Ido is I always run my forearms
and my my hands under reallywarm water not hot water to
where it's painful, but reallywarm water as much as I can
tolerate it for a few minutes totry.
And then I start doing somebasic stretches to get stretched
out.
That can be part of yourroutine.
So you just do some stretchesand things before that.

(04:24):
You sit down in a comfortablechair.
Okay, learn to sit comfortablylike not, you know, hunched over
and all that kind of stuff.
You learn those kinds of things, so you take care of yourself,
okay.
The next thing is is focus onsongs that you love.
Like I said in the first one,it's very important that you're
motivated.
So just learning things may ormay not get you to where you

(04:46):
want to go, but if we remindourselves, the reason why most
of us play guitar in the firstplace is because we love music,
we love listening to it.
We'd love to be able to playsome of those songs that you
know motivated us as children orteenagers or whatever it might
be.
So there's things inside therethat we can find.
There are songs inside yourmemories of the things that you

(05:08):
like that we could find, that wecould play and start working
toward.
And when we play those again,you're going to feel really
great about yourself when youstart actually putting together
something and you're like, wow,this is legitimate, you know
that's the next thing.
The next thing we've got islearn how the guitar works.
Okay, not just understandingthe how, but the why, because

(05:32):
they're actually in a key.
It doesn't force you to have toplay more.
It puts you in another realmwhere you're actually working on
thinking about things,visualizing things, memorizing
things.
So that's really important todo too.
Along the way, while you'relearning these things, let's
learn what it is and how itworks and why it works that way.
We don't need to knoweverything to a perfection level

(05:54):
, but to be able to do some ofthat.
So if you and I were jammingtogether and I said, hey, let's
do this song, it's a, you knowin the key of G, and you're like
you know you don't freak out,you go, oh, that makes sense, so
I know what he's talking about.
Like, just some basicinformation would be really
really good for you, okay.
Next one we've got, okay,leverage, community and support

(06:14):
Okay, which means, the moreyou're around other people who
are positive, like-minded,motivated, maybe educated, and
can help you all of those kindsof things that can be huge to
your progress.
It's really hard sometimes tomake progress when you're all
alone and watching videos orreading a book or something like

(06:36):
that.
You're trying to be the teacher, right?
You're trying to learn theresources.
You've got a book or you've gotvideos that you're watching on
YouTube or whatever, but youultimately, are the one that has
to try and assess theinformation and figure out
whether or not it's somethingyou need or don't need.
Well, how do you do that whenyou're a beginner?
So, to be around otherlike-minded people, be in a

(06:57):
community, be with a group ofpeople, work with people that
care about you and have beenthere and can give you advice,
the proper advice to get fromwhere you are to where you want
to go I think that's reallyreally important as well.
So the last thing is staypositive and enjoy the journey.
Okay, it's really important.
You got to be patient, you.
You got to stay positivedoesn't mean every day is happy,

(07:18):
happy, joy, joy.
There are days where you'regoing to be frustrated, okay,
and that's okay.
Every day can't be like that.
Okay, every day can't be likethat, and so what we need to do
is make sure that we're enjoyingthis as well, understanding
that anything worth.
Something takes time.
We need to put in the effort,right.
Right, there's no magic pill tolearn how to play the guitar,

(07:39):
contrary to what is often said.
You know, learn to do this andwhat.
Maybe maybe that works, maybe,but some things just take time.
The difference is if you've gotthe proper guidance and you
know what it is that you'redoing and why it is you're doing
it and how it benefits thebigger picture, and then you
start trying to make sure thatyou're not getting overloaded,

(08:00):
you're not getting overwhelmedwith too much stuff.
You can see why you're doingwhat you're doing and you can
feel that progress.
And all of a sudden, you startplaying some things that you're
relating to and you feel thatmotivation.
That's half the battle here,okay.
So being patient, stayingpositive, okay, getting
encouragement these are allreally important and just
enjoying what you're doing, allright.
So take care.

(08:21):
God bless, and hopefully thishelps you a little bit.
If you are interested at all,you can always head over to the
Guitar Zoom Academy.
There's probably going to be alink around here somewhere.
You can always just type asearch for Guitar Zoom Academy
and find us, but you know, ifyou're interested in trying to
get some real help to get fromwhere you are to where you want
to go and, um, you know we cansee.
If it's a fit for you, that'sthat's.

(08:43):
That's the best thing we can do.
If it's not, it's not, that'sokay.
But if it is, we can get towork and start getting you where
you want to go.
So take care and stay positive,all right.