u/JustMateHahoha

Hello everyone.

I've been thinking about something that is still quite scary for me to even think I want to achieve. I'm reaching 23 years in life, yet even writing this post is something that I reconsidered many times cause I feel like this might sound childish or it's just me asking dumb stuff.

I want to start writing and making music as a hobby, which I hope will later become something more.

I remember I used to live to sing and move around like it was some karaoke night. But then that faded when I became insecure and a target of others. So for years, I never pursued music like others who are the same age as me or older who made it big.

But I want to change that because now I feel like I want to achieve something, even if it's a little. However, some roadblocks make it feel like it's impossible.

1. I'm planning to buy an electric guitar and try to learn how to play it, and then use it to make music. However, I never learned or picked up a guitar before, so I don't know where to start.
2. Gaining confidence. I'm not confident about myself when it comes to writing, singing, or achieving something. I saw a few videos of what others are saying about this topic, but I still want to hear what the people here have to say about this topic.
3. Where to even begin? Besides coming up with lyrics and the song, where do people who want to become a musician posts their work? I know YouTube is one, but besides that?
4. Equipment. I don't have anyone to ask about this. About what kind of app is good, and what equipment I need to get. Which app is good for recording and creating music? What equipment do I need so that I can record the sound of the guitar? What microphone is good for recording the singing part?
5. Music writing. How do the rest of you do it? This is more of a curiosity about how others write their songs. Do you guys do it when you're in the mood? Late at night, when an idea comes up, and you quickly get up and write it down so that your rival won't get an idea?
6. How hard is it to do it alone?
7. Perhaps this question will sound the weirdest, but at what age is it too late to pursue this dream? Many started it around 17-19, yet here I am about to hit 23.

I hope these lines of questions don't sound dumb, and I hope I asked all the important question but in case there's something I left out that I should've asked or known about, I'm happy to hear it in the comments.

I highly doubt I will be wrong with what I'm gonna say next. Learning the language is hard. Even so, since Japanese is in the top 10 most difficult languages to learn, it almost shares the same spot as my own. I'm aware of the difficulties such as :

1. Three writing systems : Hiragana, katakana and kanji
2. Thousands of characters : Need to learn 2,000+ kanji for literacy
3. Honorific system : Complex levels of politeness affect vocabulary, verb forms, and sentence structure
4. Particles : Grammatical function markers with nuanced differences
5. Subject-object-verb word order: Fundamentally different from English structure

I was thinking of using an app, but I don't know which one would actually help me. Duolingo didn't help me. I was thinking about buying a book that helps, but I'm lost there as well, thinking which one would be good, and also couldn't find a book where the words are in English words, which then translate to Japanese in a way that helps you pronounce them. I also thought about a private teacher, but that is like a last option if the first two options won't work.

So I'm here to ask where a level 0 beginner should start?

I know it's hard, and it took months, years to learn anything. But I still want to learn it. One day, I want to go to Japan and not make a fool of myself.