Karlsson on the roof: “..I am clever, reasonably fat man in my best years”
Little Brother: “Which are the best years?”
Karlsson: “All of them!”

You don’t need to be too smart or fat to start learning the guitar although it may help 🙂 But the truth is that all the years are the best for starting. Much depends on your goals: developing the classical guitar technique still takes 16 years, and it is good if one starts at the age of 6-7. However, there are stories about people who have started as “late” as 18 or even 27 and still become professional players. And there are too many of those who start at the age of 6 because their parents want it and we never hear from those guys.

My GuitarSchool’s beginners course (live-course) is for grown-up people but the youngest participant was a 9-year old girl and she was very good. The oldest participant on my online-course is a 79 y old Irish man. 65+ y is common.

Often I try to find similarities between guitar playing and sports and it goes here, too: if you don’t start early enough, then you will not be allowed to the Olympics but for your own fun and fitness you can do sports whenever. I have a 2.5 y old daugher Katariina who saw her first guitar recital this summer. During the concert she was crying but later took herself a 1/4 size guitar from my office and now enjoys playing with it and improvises songs. I tuned her guitar to the open D so whe just plays the open strings: