I used to teach guitar back in the Sixties (folk and classic) and the most enthusiastic student I ever had was a man 73 years old, the father of a friend of mine. He had never played a musical instrument and, in fact, knew absolutely nothing about music other than that he liked it. He decided that it was about time. I asked him what kind of music he wanted to play. He said that he liked folk songs (he had been around during some of our songfests), but that he would like to play other things as well.

I gave him the same options I gave all my pupils. If you want to accompany songs, you can start out with about ten weeks of classic technique while learning to read music. This is the way I favored, because actually it's easier that way, and you can then learn songs from songbooks as well as off records -- and you are also equipped to go off in any direction, including heavy-duty classic if you decide later that you want to. It takes a couple of weeks to get the hang of reading music for songs or simple guitar (a lot longer if you want to analyze a Beethoven string quartet), so, frankly, I can't understand people's resistance to learning to read music. Or -- you can go directly into learning chords and songs. Whatever you want. It works either way.

Anyway, Mr. McLoughlin decided he wanted to learn to read music. Two months later he was playing simple but very nice sounding classic guitar pieces (Fernando Sor's easier studies for the guitar -- real music, not just exercises) and then he started learning chords and songs. Not long after that, he was participating in the songfests. He was pretty good, too. Turns out he knew a whole batch of songs that he didn't know he knew -- some folk songs, but a lot of old pop songs as well. He got pretty darned good, and he was a delight to have around.

So age just ain't a factor.

What instrument? I favor the guitar because of its versatility, but then that's just me. Lots of good suggestions above. What kind of sound turns you on?

If you decide guitar and if you want to just start out playing chords to accompany songs, rather than the usual route of learning C, F, and G7 first, start with D and A. You can accompany quite a few songs with just two chords. Then add E. Now you can play two-chord songs in two keys -- or three-chord songs in the key of A. Why these chords? Because the fingerings are easy. Then just add a chord at a time, and each new chord will expand the number of keys you can play in. One chord at a time. Easy. There are lots of good guitar books out there.

Music theory. Music theory is actually based on the physics of sound. It's not, contrary to popular belief, a set of rules that you have to slavishly obey to please some faceless academician, it is a description of why some things sound good and some things make your ears want to slam shut. I've always found it absolutely fascinating. Especially when you're first learning it, it's full of great flashes of insight: "AHA!! So that's how that works!!"

But then, there's nothing that says you can't just start with accompanying songs with chords, then go back and learn to read music later. That's what I did. You will find that whether you learn to read music or not, you'll need some knowledge of music theory, though, but it's not that hard to pick up.

Whatever you decide, jump in. Paddle around. As Pete Seeger says, "Goof off!" Have fun. And keep us posted as to what you decide.

Don Firth