The Older you get , is it harder to learn ?

RobB1964

Having played the guitar for many years on and off , ive now settled to a routine of two nights a week without fail for a least a couple of hours or more , usually more on a Friday night with a bear in my shed so to speak . 
I tend to play what I know to start off with and then try and learn something new , do you find this gets harder the older you get of is it just me . Obviously depending on what your trying to learn ? Chords and finger picking combined or solo's ? 
Ive never played in a band and have always just played for me  , saying that I did a a couple guns and roses tracks for my 50th birthday party and been told i need to play ! lol ! 

topdog91

Generally speaking, learning becomes more difficult as we age. However, personally I find that my motivation and effort levels make a lot more positive difference to the outcome, than ageing makes a negative difference. All else being equal, it's "just" a matter of grinding away and doing the reps.

VimFuego

learning does become harder, however it's not impossible if you're prepared to work around it. As an example, in my cohort at training school for the ambulance service, 2 of us were over 50 and we finished 1 and 2 in the class of about 10 in our clinical stage, despite neither of us having any medical knowledge before hand. As topdog said, it's about focussing and putting in the hours.

DefaultM

I find that I learn things a lot quicker with shorter and more regular practice.
 I’ll do a few hours sat at the computer on evenings at least twice a week, but generally that’s for fun. If I've got something to learn I'll do 10-15 minutes on it multiple times a day when I've got a bit of spare time. 

octatonic

RobB1964 said:

Having played the guitar for many years on and off , ive now settled to a routine of two nights a week without fail for a least a couple of hours or more , usually more on a Friday night with a bear in my shed so to speak . 
I tend to play what I know to start off with and then try and learn something new , do you find this gets harder the older you get of is it just me . Obviously depending on what your trying to learn ? Chords and finger picking combined or solo's ? 
Ive never played in a band and have always just played for me  , saying that I did a a couple guns and roses tracks for my 50th birthday party and been told i need to play ! lol ! 

I’ve actually found the opposite, if I’m honest. I’m in my fifties too and I learn faster now than I ever did when I was younger.

Not because my brain is magically better, but because my mindset is. I’m more patient, more deliberate and more willing to sit with something that feels awkward for a while. When I was younger I wanted things to work quickly. Now I’m happy to grind a little, to isolate the hard bit, slow it right down and keep showing up.

What does change with age is that you notice difficulty more. You’re more aware of what you can’t do yet, whereas when you’re 18 you just bash away and call it progress. That can make it feel harder even if it isn’t.

The routine you’ve built is good. Two nights a week, a couple of hours, beer in the shed, starting with comfort and then pushing into something new. 

And the fact you pulled out Guns N’ Roses at 50 and people said “you should play” tells you everything. You’re not slowing down. It isn’t about age. It’s about attention and intent. You’ve got both.

Playing with people is a much better way to progress though. Try to do that too.

monquixote

I'm 45 and I don't think I find it significantly harder to learn. 
I've been learning sound design, mixing, non diatonic harmony in my compositions and a bit of piano and it's not noticeably worse than at any other time of my life. 

I would say as you get better it gets harder to make improvements. I'd have to put a lot of work in to improve my guitar playing as I've been playing for about 30 years now and I don't put anywhere near the hours in now that I used to.

further

I am 77 and find moving my fingers a lot harder.

Roland

There are pluses and minuses to learning as you get older. New patterns of thinking are harder to pick up, but you’ve got more existing patterns which you can use. Fingers get stiffer and slower, and some chord shapes become harder to reach, but you know more alternative chord shapes which you can use.

Supportact

It's an interesting question and I assume someone somewhere has studied it but I don't know what they would have found.

Personally I find it easier to learn things on the guitar these days (I'm 48) than say 10 or 20 years ago, but I think that's just down to being more patient and more likely to stick to a routine. 

If I had to guess I'd say there's probably a period when you're a child into late teens when your brain is very receptive and it's easy to embed things, and then a bit at the end of your life when your cognitive abilities drop off a bit, and maybe the middle bit is all fairly even (depending on external environment). That's just a feeling though with no basis in science.  

joeW

Know exactly what you are going to work on in each session and try for 2 15-20 min sessions per day as often as you can.  Amazing what short periods of total focus can achieve.  

joeW

Play music better by Fiona Berry is an excellent book for maximising practise time.  

Supportact

joeW said:

Know exactly what you are going to work on in each session and try for 2 15-20 min sessions per day as often as you can.  Amazing what short periods of total focus can achieve.  

I agree with this, I find doing small bursts regularly is better than longer sessions less frequently.  It can also be less daunting to start a 20 minute session than a 2 hour one, even if you end up playing for the full 2 hours. 

matt_sefton

You have a bear in your shed? Isn’t that distracting?

Supportact

matt_sefton said:

You have a bear in your shed? Isn’t that distracting?

It's amazing the focus you can achieve when you're trying to placate a bear using melody alone. 

Barney

I don't think it's much difference for me really but what I would say is that your better off doing more regular and less time in my opinion ....30 minutes a night every night is better than a few hours for 2 nights a week ...

also check out chunking so so taking maybe a finger picking exercise...chord changes ..or anything else your struggling with and repeat it every day for maybe 5 minutes each ...with regular repetition you nail it and then move of to something else you struggle with....that way you are putting your full concentration into one thing daily ....

with practice our minds tend to wander after so long and what was supposed to be dedicated practice of something becomes noodling what we know using chunking our concentration levels remain high ...

Iff 5 minutes is touch on each subject just lower it to a few minutes 

sev112

i think we learn faster as we age, but physical motor skills perhaps less so, and even go the opposite way

Dr_Necessiter

For me fear of failure tends to be a significant motivating factor. My problem is that I'm in a bit of a fur-lined rut in that I only play at home and don't really have anything I want to share with anyone else and no specific target to aim for. Consequently, that fear is removed as the need to reach a certain standard by a certain deadline isn't there...so I noodle away. 

I can have fun playing generally, but the lack of progress is frustrating...

Crazed_Fandango

I don't find it harder to learn, just harder to remember it the following day.

Musicwolf

Crazed_Fandango said:

I don't find it harder to learn, just harder to remember it the following day.

Have we had lunch?  Somebody ask Matron, she'll know.

guitars4you

matt_sefton said:

You have a bear in your shed? Isn’t that distracting?

Bare necessities of life

GoFish

guitars4you said:

matt_sefton said:

You have a bear in your shed? Isn’t that distracting?

Bare necessities of life

It's how a bear can rest at ease.