Your ‘Too Old to Start’ Excuse Just Met a Man Who Took Up Guitar at 80

Five years ago, a guitar landed in Don’s family by way of a raffle at his grandson’s music recital. Someone in the family had won it and was going to give it back. Don, then 80, had a different plan. He said he would learn to play it, something he had always wanted to do.¹

He had never played an instrument in his life. His relatives reacted about the way you would expect.¹

“POV: 5 years ago at 80, my Dad decided out of the blue he was going to learn guitar and it was a bit of a family joke, tbh.”

That is how his daughter Emma captioned an Instagram Reel of her father, Donald, playing guitar and singing, filmed in the reflection of a window, as reported by Upworthy.¹ The details of Don’s story come from Emma, through her Reel and her interview with Upworthy.

Plenty of people quietly decide some dream has expired. Don’s version shows that a late start can work, and that it doesn’t have to be fast to count.

Years of wrestling the strings

Since the raffle, Don has had a guitar lesson every week with a teacher Emma names as Luke, and he practices every day, she says.¹

Progress was slow. Emma says it took him a long time to reach this point because he struggles with the strings and can’t read music. He struggled for years, she says, but has now found his confidence.¹

The first song he learned was Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” a fitting choice for a man who has turned up to his lesson every week. His favorites now include Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Sam Scherdel’s “Somewhere in the Middle” and Elvis Presley’s “Blue Suede Shoes.”¹

Emma says she is proud he kept going. “Don’t ever think it’s too late,” she wrote in her caption. She also told Upworthy what watching him has meant to her:¹

“He has inspired me personally and opened my eyes to the fact that you’re never too old to start something new.”

What Don’s guitar can teach the rest of us

• Say yes when the chance shows up. The guitar was about to go back to the raffle. Don kept it because he had always wanted to play.¹
• Steady beats speedy. One lesson a week and practice every day carried him through years of struggle, according to Emma.¹
• Slow progress is still progress. He can’t read music and found the strings hard, and he got there anyway.¹
• Sticking with it may matter for the brain, too. In a separate Kyoto University follow-up study of older adults with no musical training (average age 73 at the start), those who kept practicing an instrument for more than three years maintained memory function and protected key brain areas better than those who stopped. That research looked at older adults in general, not at Don.³

Still on the wish list

Don turns 85 on August 17. He is a big Elvis fan who has always wanted to visit Graceland and Nashville. He has flown only twice in his life, most recently in 1996, and thinks he may now be too old to go.¹

Another hope is closer to home. Emma’s eight-year-old son plays drums, and he and his grandfather talk about which songs they are each learning. Emma hopes the two can play together.¹