“Seasoned” guitar player learning the blues–at 65

[John W]

While I’ve always loved blues, few bands I played with over the years included blues numbers due to the venues (where we made decent money). I’m 65 and the last band disbanded in 2005. Since then, all my skills have gone to hell and I only occasionally get the guitar out and noodle, or pull up something from the old catalog, or just jam along to a blues song or backing track.

Enough futzing. I signed up for the Premium membership and want to attack this. I’m retired now so I have time every day to put the guitar in hand. For the sake of argument, let’s just say 1 hour a day but that may vary based on what’s on tap.

What I could use is advice on PRACTICE before addressing a LESSON. In other words, my hand skills are rusty. What would help with relearning articulation? Do I need to rememorize the fretboard again? For a given hour, I thought this might be useful.

practice Pentatonic Scales in various keys, various positions
3 note inversions across the fretboard
Speed practice (like chromatic exercises and gradually speed it up)
Say that takes up 45 minutes. Then 15 minutes MINIMUM on one of the lessons. I spent the day picking out 10 I wanted to learn over the year (that’s my goal: 10 lessons).
I also want to start a lesson by another guitarist on Truefire, but I’d weave that in as secondary, just for fun.
And, also time for improvisational jams.

I’m meeting with an old friend next week, a VERY seasoned gigging guitarist to set up a practice routine, but I want to be sure I walk in with a sense of what I NEED barebones. He’s going to want to talk theory as usual (that’s ok) but I really want to focus on the nitty gritty of learning and playing the types of things that the ActiveMelody site provides. This has been so eye opening: it really is straightforward, just requires intense focus and dedication. That I have. and time.

Thanks for listening, I know that’s a dump. But I’m looking for what daily practice my look like BEFORE I just into the lessons.

[Jean-Michel G]

Hi John,

I think you are going to get a million different opinions on what you need to do and what you don’t wanna do LOL. This sort of questions inevitably triggers that sort of responses.
So, here’s my 0.2 € from my side of the pond.

Since you’re out of practice and feel a lack of hand skills, I would recommend focusing on that first. If you Google up “right and left hand coordination exercises for guitar” you’ll get a lot of useful material. Just make sure you don’t overdo it: tendonitis is easy to get and hard to get rid of! (Believe me!).

I wouldn’t spend too much time on scales at the moment. The reason is that scales usually consist of fairly predictive finger movements and that will not help you much in recovering your dexterity.
On the other hand, arpeggios will work miracles!

Good luck!

[John W]

Thanks for the response. I found some online arpeggio exercises. I’ve never thought to play with arpeggios for practice so this will be a good add to my hour. This one looks like fun to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV8t_M60oAY

I hear you about the pentatonic scales but it just surprises me that my fingers have forgot how to walk those walks. For me it can’t hurt to get those back under my skin. Five minutes (1 of the 5 positions Mon-Fr) should be enough. I like some of my chromatic exercises too as my pinky is shit strength is shit right now.

I DID google “Right and left hand coordination exercises for the guitar”. Holy crap! Lots of good stuff–thanks, this is eye opening for me!

And we’re off…

Best…John

[Stan]

I been with Brian about 2 years been wanting to form a band with my new skills I was always a cam fire singer strummer but wanted more here is a audio clip on my new band I recorded
on my ph Me on lead all brians licks keep at it Im 65 Too entire band is 65 and all my ole high school band buds click link https://youtu.be/EwclWaACnF8

Stan The Man so I been Called a Million Times....

[Dave B]

I got back into guitar after a break of almost 30 years. I found that just noodling and playing with the pentatonic patterns helped me a lot. Everything came back to me much quicker that I expected. As far as where to start with Brian’s lessons, I would search for lesson category “No Accompaniment”. These are simple, cool sounding, typically about a minute and a half long and fairly easy to learn without needing a backing track. And they will give you musical seeds to allow you to build on.

Welcome back to the guitar!

[” Slappy”]

I’ve played for 40 years, but was just in a rut of playing the same things, losing the joy of playing.
I jumped it with a premium membership cuz it’s only 89.00 for the year. thats less then 10 a month and I’ve been on here almost daily. so it’s cheap when you compare it to anything else. Brian the instructor is an amazing guitar player.
heck the back tracks alone are worth it. I’ve remember things and learn things and the lessons cover different style.
I recommend this site. hope to see you in the community.

[Author]

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