Does age hinder you learning to play the guitar?!
Question:
Does age hinder you learning to play the guitar?
Its just that ive heard its so much more difficult because your fingers arnt as flexible, is it a myth or kind of true ?
Answers: not sure really, i prefer the organ myself. i doubt it, but they say kids learn faster for new things. Finger flexibility hasn't got much to do with it. Often (but not always!) adults are slower at learning a musical instrument than kids, especially if they have no previous musical experience, but don't let that stop you. YES, ITS TRUE FLEXIBILITY IS ONE THING AND ANOTHER IS YOUR FINGERS GET TOO FAT. AND AND ARENT AS AGILE. . I DONT HAVE THE PROBLEM THOUGH !!!!!! you could always use a pick... No. There are still many guitarists that are good and acclaimed even though they're in their 50's and 60's.
Oh, and B.B. King is in his 80's, and he played in Clapton's Crossroads concert! Theres a saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"....luckily were not dogs though. Now if your wanting to pick up guitar at an older age there is nothing wrong with that. It might make the theory aspect of it a little bit more tough though. Look at music as a language. Little kids have no problem at all picking up on new languages, yet someone who is older can still learn new languages, it just takes a lot more effort to become fluent in it. If you have a background in music it's going to be A LOT easier to pick up a guitar and start to play it. If not, its going to be frustrating at first, but stick with it, playing music is an amazing stress reliever. Its honestly the way i deal with most of my problems. I find that there is no better way to vent than to pick up the guitar and let it do the talking.
Good luck
(and as far as finger flexibility i wouldn't worry about it much, the only thing you would truly need REALLY flexible fingers for are things like sweep arpeggios and weird chord voicings, but the more you use your fingers on a daily basis the more flexible they become and by the time you get into the crazy stretched out chord voicings your fingers will be used to the different stretches you need. As far as the physical aspect of playing guitar it's ALL muscle memory, and the only way to build solid muscle memory is repetition) nope... :)
it just depends on your will :P If you're old enough to be asking questions on this site, then you're old enough to be playing guitar. If you're under twenty, your fingers will never be more flexible. The only thing you may lack is finger strength; very important for the instrument. You can develop that as you progress. The most important thing to have for learning the guitar is committment; it's not easy and it hurts to learn as you build up callouses. Progress can be slow at times, but that's where your desire for the guitar comes through. I only WISH that my fingers were as flexible and pain-free as they used to be!