Self-taught guitar players: How did you do it? What do you wish you could go back and do differently when you were learning?
I’ve been getting back into guitar playing and trying to have more focused practice when I play each day. I wouldn't call myself a "beginner", but I don't think I'm near the "intermediate" stage yet. I know chords and power chords and can transition between them pretty easily. I've been working on figuring out CAGED shapes, but still really struggle with playing scales and "solo-ing"...partly because (1) I have tried exploring music theory and "learning the notes on the fretboard", but it hasn't clicked for me yet, and (2) my fret fingers feel sluggish and don’t seem to move across the fretboard with the ease that I seem to have when switching chords.
That said, I’m feeling pretty discouraged right now. Looking for some “pick me ups”, so to speak. And wanting to learn to play a few songs all the way through so I can feel more confident in my ability to actually play a song. But I don’t really want to get hung up on a difficult “solo” or a bunch of individual fretting stuff yet.
As I thought about making this post, I figured it might be useful to also ask about some "beginner tips" on how to best stay motivated to stick with learning, practicing, and playing the guitar. If I'm going to keep this up, I want to really invest in it and stick with the guitar. Here are some additional questions/thoughts to hopefully trigger a discussion.
Fellow guitarists:
- What has helped you in the past?
- What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it?
- What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through?
- How did you learn the notes on the fretboard?
- How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck?
- What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar?
- What was the "key" to getting guitar playing to "click" in your brain?
Looking forward to seeing what advice fellow players can offer! Everyone's musical journey is different, and I am interested in learning how you learned to get to where you are now!
I think that most experienced people are really bad at remembering the hardships they got through as beginners, so take any advice with a grain of salt (including mine). People who are good at guitar are often horrible teachers. You get advice like "I wish I'd done tons of scales earlier on," or something like that, but no one would have actually done that because they would have quit within a week on that kind of program. I recommend an experienced teacher if you want to help cut through some of the bullshit.
It sounds like you're in a pretty fun stage of development where you can play a lot of what you want, but it can be frustrating because you've learned enough to see the depth of guitar and how far you have to go to reach some kind of mastery. You mentioned that things haven't really clicked, but most likely things will never feel like they've clicked. You mentioned this a few times, so just know that it is an unreasonable expectation. If you keep challenging yourself, some things will always feel hard, and that's a good thing. However, if you keep at it, there will be moments when you look back and realize that you've made a lot of progress.
The times I haven't felt motivated were times that I wasn't listening to very much music, or had stagnated in what I was listening to. So as far as staying motivated, I think the best thing to do is to always seek out more inspiration through listening, whether it's more of the same or exploring new artists or genres. Then maybe try it out yourself. If you're tired of playing rock, maybe some gypsy jazz would be fun to learn. Another good way to make things interesting is to play with other people.
As far as learning the neck, it's a slow and kind of painful process. If you're not delusional, you will always feel like there is some deficiency no matter how much you practice, so don't fret about getting to the end and try to enjoy the journey. It seems like you're already on a decent path, so just keep doing stuff that's hard for you at least a few times a week.
On the other hand, probably more than half of your playing time should be stuff that's not too challenging for you, and hopefully fun to play. Everyone wants to get better faster, but if you're only playing hard stuff you will get burned out pretty quickly.
Thank you for this comment. It is a helpful reminder for me to keep in my head that there will always be something new to learn, some harder song or skill to tackle, and that I can always be having fun with guitar. Focusing my practice routines in a portion of challenging, learning material vs. a portion of fun "just for me" stuff is probably a great idea.
This is a great question, but I'll echo @cdb and say that it's one that a lot of self taught guitar players would probably struggle to answer. However I'm going to pepper in some tidbits from teaching people to play and what clicks for people. I'll note that I've never taken a guitar lesson in my life, but I have studied music a lot (including a minor in music at uni), so some of my advice is tainted by those facts. I had a pretty strong foundation with piano; I could read music, I understood things like keys, time signatures, had rudimentary understandings of melody and harmony when I started learning. Those are all important parts of learning music not just learning an instrument, and I didn't have to do that on my own. Those things would probably be hard to learn without a teacher, but I think that there are definitely places you can figure out information about this online. I got my first guitar at 14, which was ~30 years ago, so another thing to keep in mind is I'm thinking about what I did 30 years ago.
Onto answering some questions:
What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it? When I picked up the guitar, I had already learned the piano fairly well, and had learned a couple of instruments in introductory music classes - several brass instruments - and I knew from experience that if I actually practiced at the guitar that I would get better at it. I think that's a thing that so many people tend to forget about just about everything; no matter how bad they are at something, if they keep doing it they will improve. That's true for literally every possible activity, but it's something that is really hard to internalize, but luckily by the time I picked up a guitar, I had, for the most part, learned it and to a degree understood it. I was bad; I would be better.
What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through? Zombie by the Cranberries, one of the best songs of the 90s. I was trying to impress a girl, and I learned the whole thing and it wasn't awful. It's relatively simple to learn - four chords, simple progressions, easy strumming - and it's a hauntingly compelling song, so even if it's not good, it's pretty good. To that end, I would recommend finding a song that's relatively simple (ie. most songs), that you are deeply into, and learning the chords.
How did you learn the notes on the fretboard? There are markings on the fretboard which are important; they mark out the spaces between the notes in a pretty important way, and learning things like "the next sting two frets up is a fifth" is important. When I learned that the lowest string is "E" I already had a concept of what "E" meant, and I understood what the next string being a fourth higher meant, so I didn't have to learn it, I related it to previous experience. I think if you're trying to self-learn "how to music" at the same time as "how to guitar" that would be very, very hard.
How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck? I learned a lot of chord patterns, and I have a big book of chords that I referenced. After a while I could figure out what the chord was; if someone tells me to play an Abmaj7, I know where Ab is, and I know what maj7 chord is, and I put the two together. That's just 30 years of familiarity; when I was learning, when I got to a chord I didn't know, I referenced the big book of chords, and I just learned it; If I was playing from sheet music, I would often just write the fingering directly on the music. Over time, the chords sink in, which relates back to what I said earlier - the more you do something, the better it is going to become.
What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar? This is going to sound like a broken record, but what I would tell anyone is if you stick with it, you will get better at this. I'm going through learning to draw - no small feat in one's 40s - and I keep reminding myself that every bad drawing I create is making me better at drawing. There's no shortcut to be instantly good; you just have to be bad for a bit. I also never ended up being great and I accepted that I wasn't going to be Yngwie Malmsteen and that was okay.
I didn't answer a couple of questions to which I don't have reasonable answers. Good luck in your learning!
Thank you for the encouragement! I knew when I made this post that the most common suggestion would be "keep going, you'll get better"...and I wasn't wrong. That advice rings true because it is essential. I have already accepted that I will never be Yngwie or Steve Vai, but that I can be the best guitar player that I can be, I just need to stick with it.
I think focusing a bit more on chords and chord patterns and repetitions is going to be a key for getting to a point where all of that sinks in for me. I know all of the "cowboy" chords, and can hit powerchords that I know sound good...but I don't know the names of them, let alone maj7 or minor or A5 or what have you. I definitely could use some help and guidance in getting all of that down and locked into my brain.
After writing that I felt like it was a bit reductive - "just keep playing, you'll get better!" - but it's true. Maybe I'll add on a specific thing to try. I'd recommend trying to learn two songs at a time. One song should be simpler, but means something to you; a song that you like to listen to that you want to learn to play. The other song should be more complex; it could feature chords you don't know or picking you're not comfortable with or something that pushes a boundary. One song will be fun, the other will expand your ability. You can play around with the ratio depending on how fast you learn songs; maybe you do 3 fun songs for 1 challenging song, for example. The idea is if you are struggling with the harder song, you can switch up and practice the song that is fun and positive, and capture some of that "oh yeah, this is why I play guitar" feeling.
Learning music theory at the same time as learning guitar is hard mode for sure, and I don't have any good advice for that. There is just so much to learn about music; I've been learning for close on 40 years (since well before I got a guitar) and I still learn things all the time. I think it's also possible to play a lot of music and not necessarily know the underlying musical theory? I know lots of musicians who don't know why a G7 -> C sounds good; they just know it sounds good, and that's probably all that matters.
If you are looking for specific concrete examples, then learn all of these chords (and here is a site that helps you figure out the chords):
Practice switching between all of these . If you are comfortable with them, you can play about 75% of all popular music. Throw in some barre chords and you can fake the rest. Get comfortable strumming and switching chords; to do this, pick two chords and a strumming pattern and then just go back and forth between them. Add in a third, then a fourth chord. I've written these in the order above, because it's roughly the order that they resolve nicely (ie. E -> A sounds nice, and A -> D sounds nice and D -> G, etc). The closer things are in that list, the less "far" they sound from each other, and the easier you should be able to switch between them.
Edit to add: if you want a comment about the difference between the types of chords (major, minor, dominant 7, major 7, minor 7, diminished, suspended, weird jazz stuff) let me know. I don't want to over explain anything, but I'm happy to also just explain things.
Thank you so much for this. Seriously. This is extremely helpful. I love the idea of having a fun song and a challenging "learning" song to keep me learning and growing, but not feeling miserable and burnt out.
That chord site you shared is amazing. I am going to start using that and the list of chords you shared with me here in my practice today.
With that in mind, I would be happy to learn more about the difference between the types of chords. For the most part, I get the foundations of theory, but am still trying to piece it all together. My mind works well when I'm gathering information and then able to put it to action and see the results. If you're willing to explain more, I would greatly appreciate it!
If I over or under explain something I pre-pologize. There's some physics in here, and everything I say has a very "History of European Music" vibe to it, because that's how I learned things, but there are a lot of other interesting musical systems out there.
Basics and Nomenclature
An Octave is a jump of twelve frets on your guitar. It's the distance, for example, from one E to the next E. If you think of the opening of Somewhere over the rainbow, the first word is an octave jump - it feels like the same note, but one is higher than the other.
A semi-tone is a move of one fret on your guitar. It's the distance from E to F, or from A to B flat or D to D sharp. If you think of the theme song from Jaws, the two repeated notes are a semitone apart. In western music, this is generally the smallest we divide the scale. Sometimes you might here someone say this is a "half step".
A full tone is a move of two frets on your guitar. It's the distance between C and D, or between E and F sharp. If you think of singing a scale using solfege: Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do, it's the first two notes. Somtimes you might here someone say this is a "full step".
A scale is how we move from one note to the same note an octave above. There is a pattern of tones and semi-tones that are used, and they evoke different sounding scales.
A C Major scale and an F sharp Major scale have the same battern of steps; a major scale always looks like this, with the root being the starting note of the scale:
Root -> Step -> Step -> Half step -> Step -> Step -> Step -> Half-step.
Or in a tab notation for a single string:
If you add 3 or 5 to all the notes, it'll still be a major scale.
Generally we refer to the distance between notes based on their distance in the scale, except we call the first note the root.
The first note in the scale is the root; the next is the second, the third is the third, and so on. Thus the reason that an octave is called an octave - it is the 8th note in the scale, and octo is the latin root word for eight.
The Musicky Explanation of Chords
Chords are made up of three or more tones together. Many chords are made of a root, third, and fifth of a scale. Chords are most often named for the root, and then described by the third. For example:
Typically if a chord's descriptor is absent (ie. C instead of C Major) then the chord is assumed to be a major chord. Sometimes chords are a bit more complicated; they are still named for the root, but are then described by whatever is special about them. I used C for the examples, but this works for all keys.
One thing to note is that chords most often add up in thirds; from the root if you go up a third, you are at the third, then up a third to the fifth, then up a third to the seventh, then up a third to the ninth, and so on. When you get into 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, etc. then we tend to be in the realm of jazz, and that might be more than we get into here, but they're still annotated similarly, with anything that gets put into the notation being the important part. For example C7 flat 9 is the same as a C7 above, but with an additional note on top.
The Physicsy Explanation of Chords, in which we go a bit off the rails
Chords are all about the difference in frequency between two or more notes that are sounding at the same time, and how those notes' sound waves interact with each other. The difference in frequencies makes the music that is made sound a particular way. Notably, some frequencies interact with each other in a way that is pleasing, and some of them sound bad. You can get a sense of this by slightly tightening one of your tuner pegs; the resulting chords won't sound right, because they're off, and the reason is that the frequencies just don't sound good with each other. If you use a tuner to tune your guitar, the frequencies will be approximately these:
E - 330
B - 247
G - 196
D - 147
A - 110
E - 82
There's some interesting math in there (really!) but the simplest to see is that the low E (82) is about 1/4 of the high E (330). That's because when you go from one E to the next E up - going up an octave - then you double the frequency. So your A string reverberates at 110Hz, the A one octave up is 220, one up from there is 440. There's another bit of interesting math in there: A220 and E330. Because there's a fifth between A and E, the ratio of E:A is 3:2. In general (and this is super broad), it turns out then a lot of the time chords sound good when there's some ratio between the notes.
This leads to an interesting mathematical factoid that relates to Pythagoras (the triangle guy) and how you tune a guitar. The tritone, or the flat fifth, is equidistant between the octaves; it is the halfway point. As such, the ratio between the tones is not a rational number; it's the square root of 2:1. There are apocryphal stories of Pythagoras, who was notably also a musician, actually murdered Hippasus for showing that this relation exists.
Anyways, this leads to a whole conversation about different ways to tune your guitar (or your piano) which I'll leave for another time, but generally, these ratios end up not being perfect ratios in practice, but they're close, so they sound okay. Notably, if something is close, you get "beats" in the music; you can hear the interference when the notes are just a bit out from each other.
All of the chords I listed above tend to have rational relationships between their frequencies.
But why are the chords the way they are?
This is going to be very fast. I'm going to explain once again using C, because that's the simplest from a piano player's perspective.
C Major is comprised of these notes in this order: C D E F G A B (C).
If you look at the chords that you can make with just those notes, you get these:
I've given these all roman numerals; sometimes chords are just talked about in these terms, because the key doesn't necessarily matter. I've also put major in upper case and minor in lower case. This isn't always consistently done.
Now that we've abstracted out the chords to some numbers, you can talk about chord progressions, and you'll find that some chord progressions show up a a whole awful lot in music. For example:
is a chord progression that you will hear all the time. This is riffed on in Four Chord Song; if you play all of the reference material in the same key, it's just the same four chords.
Going back to Classical music, most songs have a Harmonic Progression, or "a bunch of chord changes" in the song, and there's a whole bunch of ideas that people have had about the rules of how melodies and chords should progress. I'm going to massively, massively oversimplify the history of western music before about 1800 and say that most music is in some way a journey from I to V to I; we start at the root, we progress to V and then we "resolve" that progression to I. When you play a V, there is a tendency for that chord to "want" to progress back to I. Part of this is because the third of the V is the note right below the root; there is a tension because that is one of the half-tone steps in the scale, so that note "wants" to move up to the "home" tone. If you add in the flat seventh to that V chord, then this is the other half step in the scale; the fourth above the root, which "wants" to resolve down to the third.
There are a lot of complext relationships between the chords above, and there are a lot of ways that the tone of those chords and how they interact with each other make us feel, and the harmonic progression is also typically interwoven with a melodic progression, but at the core, western tonal music set up movement to the dominant to resolve to the tonic. Music has progressed since then - this is not a requirement for music now at all - but we still tend to name chords this way. You probably also still feel it - if you play a G7 and then a C, that feels right. If you play a G7 and then an E minor, it doesn't feel right. And speaking of feeling the music, you can get a sense of how powerful our expectations are culturally about music with Bobby McFerrin. It's deeply ingrained in our understanding of music culturally.
This got a bit out of hand, but I'm happy to continue to answer questions!
When you’re listening to music, pay attention to songs with chords that sounds more colorful. They don’t have to be complicated, but learning them will get your fingers used to new shapes and give your ear a sense of what A7 vs Amaj7 vs Asus2 are.
For example, a song like Breathe by Pink Floyd is a good one. As a bonus, you could also find a tab for the solo.
A lot of the learning for guitar (maybe most stringed instruments) is just getting the muscle memory for shapes and patterns. That goes for chords (bar chords are the same shapes as open chords, but moved up the neck) and scales (there are a few positions for each scale depending on which finger and string hits the root, but then they just get moved around the neck). Once you have the shape for the major scale in your fingers, you can then play it in any key just by shifting the location on the neck.
Look up the pentatonic scale and noodle around with that as a good starting point.
Find songs you like that aren’t super fast, and learn the chords and the solos. If you have a way to record it loop yourself (via a pedal or a computer), do that. Loop a simple 2-3 chord bass line of just the root notes, add some chords to it, and then just mess around.
Most importantly, it’s supposed to be fun. Learn songs you like, be cool with playing them badly, and steadily you’ll get better.
To answer each of your questions:
Id say my guitar playing really blossomed after a depressive phase I had several years ago. Id pretty much do nothing but play guitar all day long every day. Over a period of several weeks, I kept breaking guitar strings one by one, and each time I’d no longer be able to play a huge amount of my repertoire. But I also never bothered to replace them. Each time I broke a string, I’d have to come up with completely new stuff, a lot of times experimenting with new techniques or even tunings to try and get the most out of the instrument. This also really helped me develop a good intuition for how to “get around” on the fretboard (and I’ll get into this in more detail later as you have a dedicated question about it). Eventually, I was left with only the lowest three strings, and to my great delight, I noticed that my playing had become extremely reminiscent of 20th century American Roots musicians.
As for maintaining a broad range of musical tastes, this is just to fill your head with all sorts of different “ideas” or concepts that you find appealing that your brain can use to build new original melodies. And what I’ll often do is try to transpose these melodies to the guitar. And once I’m working on the guitar, I can start to experiment with different ways to color that melody (by introducing different kinds of harmony onto it, essentially), and thats when you really start cooking.
It might sound like a cop out, but if you’re finding yourself discouraged by your practice sessions, you honestly should just try finding some easier stuff to play! Not saying that you should give up on practicing the stuff that you’re struggling with, but it’s okay to take breaks and come back later. It’s really important to ask yourself why you’re trying to learn how to play the guitar (or any instrument, really). I can’t speak for anyone but me, but I know that I never really had any “sticking points”. There was plenty of stuff I’ve found challenging, difficult, or even just gave up on along the way, and for sure it sewed doubt in me about if I’d ever be able to become a “great guitarist”. But in the end, I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I just wanted to make music, this is all supposed to help me unwind and express myself!
Tbh the only songs I remember ever learning all the way through are White Wedding by Billy Idol, comfortably numb by Pink Floyd, Don’t Stop Believing by Journey, and Hot For Teacher by Van Halen. I didn’t actually choose to learn these songs either. Full disclosure, for several years of my childhood my parents had me in a weekly 30 min guitar lesson, so not totally self taught but I never really took it seriously, constantly neglecting to practice in between sessions in any kind of structured way or with care to what we were working on that week. These songs were only learned as part of two recitals I performed in for the school. I pretty much immediately forgot them all by the next week. Most of what I play is honestly just “original noodles” and specific parts to different songs that I like in particular. There’s probably a lot of songs I know all the parts to but never bothered to “put it all together”.
As I mentioned in my first answer, I really think trying to adapt your original melodies to the guitar in a variety of tuning systems is a great way to build this intuition. I don’t actually “know all the notes on the fretboard”. But, based on how its tuned, I know where to “expect” to find certain notes (and also I could not tell you what these notes are called except for in a purely relative sense, like in terms of intervals). Tbh, if you want to drill something, probably the most worthwhile drill you could do in my opinion would be “interval training”. Instead of “learning every note on the fretboard” you should focus on learning how to find all the characteristic intervals of any given note on any string.
This is something I can’t do, but I can give tips for “finding” chords all over the neck ahead of time. It comes back to trying to perform your own original melodies on the guitar and then trying to “color” them. Stack enough harmonies and you have yourself a chord. Also, if you are familiar with barre chords, a lot of times you can easily modify these to find a chord of a certain “color”.
Start experimenting sooner!
To be honest, it was that depressive episode I mentioned at the beginning.
This isn't exactly the encouragement kind of advice. But from the way you're talking I think you're in a pretty healthy place overall, you're just in a dip. So, when you're in a problem-solving mood:
Record yourself. Lots. And listen to your recordings.
Listening to and watching yourself play is some of the easiest practicing you'll ever do. Well, or the hardest but most productive. Depends on the day. You'll see some pretty wild stuff if you're looking.
Personally, I know I've improved the most when I'm getting productive feedback from someone else — teachers, friends, enemies.*(Try not to make enemies.) And someone else includes me, if it's through a recording rather than live practice.
Remember that we live in the future and that you can record yourself doing something wrong for five seconds for free. It's not a big deal. I still lie to myself, "oh, it's not really worth it for this bit." That's bargaining, and I'm always wrong.
So when you've put fresh coats of paint and sealant on your ego, try it out!*(Please. Someone must learn from my mistakes.)
I loved what you said about bargaining with yourself always being wrong. It is easy to justify things to talk ourselves out of doing something, but when we can discipline ourselves enough to sit and focus and make sure we are getting things right, the results will be much better!
I've never tried recording or watching myself play, so I will take that advice and see how it helps my practicing!
I've been playing guitar for about 17 years now and I'm by no means great at it. I've made mistakes and wished I did things differently for sure.
If I could go back, I'd learn an exercise and stick with it. 15-20 minutes dedicated to perfecting a technique every day for weeks. Repetition builds speed. I always wanted to learn how to shred, and I'm finally getting it down. I would have learned within a few years if I had just stopped noodling and actually practiced exercises.
But what I did right was learn the songs that made me want to play guitar. I was a big fan of Coheed and Cambria when I was first learning how to play. The song In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth was the one on my bucket list. Easily my proudest song to learn after a year of trying.
Honestly, just pick a song that you love. You'll get it down with time! Just focus on doing the right slowly, make sure you're hearing each note you're supposed to hear. Do this enough times and the speed will come naturally.
My first songs were mostly church songs, but outside of that, I learned Green Day, Blink 182 and Brand New. Blink and Green Day are both good as they mostly play the same chord shape and move it up and down the neck. Brand New was good because they use a lot of the open-chord style fingerings like in Play Crack The Sky.
It's your own journey to do this. There really isn't a wrong way. Don't force it on yourself if you want to take a break. The last thing you want is to turn something fun into a job. Just listen to music and you'll feel inspired to tackle it again.
My experience was the opposite of yours. All I did was do exercises to improve technique. All other skills were neglected. I guess this is why I quit playing. It stopped being fun.
I agree with this. But I think it's also important to expand your musical taste. For example, if shred guitar is the only type of music you listen to, then all the songs that you listen to will be out of reach.
Oh for sure about expanding taste. I fell in love with John Mayer when I started playing guitar, which was not something I thought would happen back in the day. Had a lot of fun learning to improv thanks to him. Problem was that it was easier to sound good playing those pentatonic licks while jamming than it was to sweep pick, so I stopped learning techniques and learned more riffs. Stuck to that mantra for over 10 years.
Now I'm actually doing all those boring technique exercises and playing better than I did when I was younger. I guess the biggest lesson is to learn how to balance both. 20 minutes of exercises and then still have fun afterwards would be what I'd tell younger me.
Thank you for this advice and the encouraging reminder that this is my own journey - I can take it at my own pace, as long as I'm having fun.
I am curious about the exercises you learned and focused on...can you share any of these? Do you have any recommended resources that I could review to try and implement a 20-30 minute "technique exercising" period into my practice sessions?
I find that right now, I play the guitar nearly every day, but it usually involves me picking it up, noodling around with a bunch of random chords and attempting to hit some scales (not usually successfully), and then diving into learning different sections of songs I want to know how to play someday.
I think some focused exercise training could actually really benefit me, but I'm curious where the best place(s) to find those are and what to start with.
You're welcome! It's hard to remember sometimes that this is supposed to be fun. You get all caught up in other people's abilities and it can be discouraging.
Same issues for me. I've been playing for 21 years now and there's so many YouTube guitarists that's been playing for less than 10 that are so much better. But that's okay. I'm just here to have fun!
As for exercises, I can't recommend Music Is Win enough for this. He's got some silly videos and some clickbait, but if you search YouTube for music is win exercises, there's a ton of beginner exercises that really does help.
Currently, I'm learning more about shredding from Bernth. This is the video I'm currently following. https://youtu.be/HEnGiWwNQCQ
Thanks for the Music is Win suggestion! I will start watching some of those exercise videos to get some additional help.
Re: Bernth - a video of his just popped up in my algorithm yesterday...it was like 7 practice routines to improve with...some of those were super cool and I can see how I would benefit from them; others (like sweep picking!) seem impossible to me right now...
Just gotta keep playing and practicing!
4 chord sing along jams!
Simple songs that you can sing along to always boost my stoke and make me want to work on other more challenging stuff.
It's almost like the "just do 5 minutes" theory. It just opens the door to practice and gets the momentum flowing.
honestly, I see why you're making this post, but aside from every reply and tip you get here, the only real, tangible progression, is achieved through just practicing and practicing as much as you can, whatever you like, just make sure you're going at your own pace to avoid burning out and, if it's a new technique you've never tried before, make sure you're doing it "right" (as in ergonomics and such)
I've never taken a guitar class, and I'd feel weird if I started to take classes after 16 years, but the most common mistake people make is comparing themselves to others, instead of themselves the day before :-)
Thanks for this comment! I think that sometimes, I get too in my head with this stuff and want to try to read and learn all about some newfangled technique or learning method that will help me when really...all I need to get better at guitar is right in front of me...a guitar.
And that's not bad in on itself, it's you telling yourself you do want to keep improving, but sometimes just doing something is much better than thinking on how to do it and getting stuck on that forever 😮💨
Never stop playing, and never stop enjoying it!
You need a teacher. Being self taught it great, and can help you get a foot in the door, so to speak, but targeted instruction will move you along so much faster. If you understand the CAGED system, and can play some scales, instruction will show you all the little things you're missing to put it all together. If getting a teacher isn't possible, then I would suggest these two things.
First, create a reason to play. You need a goal that you can work towards, get stumped, work though and keep going. This is generally going to be starting a band, or just writing songs on your own. This eliminates the practice-for-practice's-sake mentality and creates repetition with purpose, vs just blind repetition.
Second is to learn to address the fretboard vertically. The most available method is sweep picking. This will stop you from just running scales when you need melodies/solo's. The same reason that the CAGED system helps you address the chord going "forwards" or "backwards", learning to address the fretboard vertically will open up so much.
Happy to go into detail on any of that.
Thank you for this response! I would love some details on how to best listen to address the fret board vertically. What do you mean by this? How should I go about learning that? I think my biggest hang up is that I can figure out scales, but can’t break out of that melody and create my own solo. Any suggestions?
Sorry for the way way late response.
The trap that some new players can get into after learning scales is to run that scale with little to no variation in the interval. So a chord progression in Am, has a lead over it that walks a b c d e f... from some start position, then maybe descends the same way, then maybe does a little linear pattern e f g g f g f e, or whatever. The focus is on fulfilling the scale because you know its in the key and it will work and it will sound ok. As you grow as a player however, this becomes stale and cliche.
The next step is to create interesting intervals within the scale. The easy way to do this is to sweep pick a chord. Using the same example, you may start the lead with a c e f e c a. This is just the g form minor chord(5th fret on the E, 3rd fret on the A, 2nd fret on on D strings), but the notes are played individually, rather than strummed. This pattern is instantly more interesting than just running the scale, even though its not that far from just running the scale.
This verticality, moving from string to string for some next notes rather than staying on the same string for a run of notes, is like having built in interval variation. The other bonus is that it makes your overall navigation of the fret board way better. You may find that you aren't stuck in "boxes" any longer.
There are lots of sweep picking tutorials on Youtube, but I have no idea who to recommend. You definitely want to start slow, and small. 3 string sweep is the sweet spot for beginners in my opinion, and I like D major(regular open d form, pull off the a to the f# on the high e string, then to the d on the b string, then the a on the g string, then back down to the F# via the d on the b string. Focus on the timing, and proper up/down stroking. Do not practice for speed, practice for accuracy.
I had a little head start. In middle school, I was luckily placed into a guitar class. They pretty much taught just the high 3 strings on little classical guitars. We had to learn some basic melodies. From there, I learned the "rest" through tabs, friends and some video tapes. Nowadays, I just sort of see a technique, try to learn it and take it from there. No real fuss.
For me it was waiting too long to really practice Barre chords. I got really slick at the first position chords without Barre....then had to take steps back and sink the time into learning them. I should've worked on those starting much earlier.
Totally. I remember when I first started, thinking that I could never get my fingers to work the way I needed them to to make an F chord...and now, I can play barre chords all over the neck.
I had a similar problem. And I think in trying to solve it, I made it worse.
But it's worth fighting for it.
If I could rewind the time I would go all in by using a proper teacher. I tried to self teach myself, but as a beginner you don't know what you don't know and if you learn things the wrong way, or the right things at all.
You have 1000 guitar teachers on youtube, but you can't really judge what is the best thing to learn right now. Often you only scratch the surface about things they deem important in their videos and then you are left alone again.
What helped me personally was to concentrate on a greater goal and smaller steps towards that goal. In your case soloing for example. (Which is not as easy as it looks). Don't get discouraged when some guy on youtube plays the most epic riffs, they don't solo those and practice them often. The 30second shorts are practiced as well.
Personally, I like the math rock genre a lot and fortunately, the math rock community is super friendly and helpful.
There are two great teachers who make great videos about simple and difficult topics - especially music theory and techniques.
https://www.youtube.com/@LetsTalkAboutMathRock
https://www.youtube.com/@TrevorWongMusic
Learning the fret board was also a hard thing for me, because I did it wrong. A lot of youtube teachers have invented some fancy shapes that allegedly make it easier for you, but it always made it harder for me.
The simplest way was the best for me. Learn each note one-by-one A-A-A-A-A-A until you can do it in your sleep, then B-B-B-B-B-B, and so on. I haven't done this practice for at least half a year and I still have it in my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJddQ6Q0UDo
And that was easier than expected. It took me maybe two weeks of 30minutes to have all notes in my head. Just do it concentrated and actually do it.
The only thing that was still hard, was to find a random note spontaneously, but it got easier the longer I did the training.
Smaller goals you can finish make you happier than big goals that you could fail.
Try to invent some licks by doing a very very slow solo. No one is there to judge you, do it in your pace. Do it as often as you want and you will get better.
There is no need to have a drumkit in the background at 120BPM just to fail hitting the notes. You don't learn soloing by noodling randoms notes in the hopes of hitting the right one. (This is what I did for way too long). Small baby steps, slowly.
Learning playing guitar was a good way to understand my destructive perfectionism. It was the biggest wall between me and getting anything done.
I had four years of "playing" under my belt and couldn't play one song because I stood in my own way, basically.
Then I started
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_jePJTIRk
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0KqY1EnWXE
And then everything was a lot more fun.
Find your own "Midwest Sky" and learn it as often as possible.
It took me almost two months for "Caution", but eventually, I even could play the finger tapping part properly and I finally had actual fun playing.
I think I concentrated so much on learning that I forgot to have honest fun and enjoyment playing.
For me there was no "key" to make it click. It clicked on its own when I've practiced, it came usually out of nowhere.
Good luck!
I'd consider myself an intermediate level player overall, and I generally like playing metal/fast music. I think it's important to note that things are pretty different for each individual in terms of what motivates them to get through ruts. For me, if I could go back and change a couple things about my journey it would be this:
So, that would be my couple of things I would change about my journey. I'm certain yours will be different, but hopefully this perspective can help out a bit. My advice for where you're at right now would be this: if there is a song that you've always wanted to play but haven't learned yet, ESPECIALLY if it sounds easy to play, you should go learn that song. Look for a tab, look for a Youtube playthrough video and learn from that and play along with it - whatever you have to do. That always helps me, anyway. Best of luck to you!
As others have mentioned, it's hard to remember all of the growing pains but I'll try to answer what I can. The most important thing I can suggest is try not to get hung up too much on classifying yourself as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. I've been playing 30+ years and there are some things I can do very well and some things I'm terrible at. The guitar is a very versatile instrument that's used in all kinds of genres, so just play what feels good to you and find your own voice. That said...
*What has helped you in the past?
Tablature combined with playing along to the recordings, repeatedly, one section at a time. When I first started the internet tools we have now weren't available, so I would get tab books and try to match up my playing to the tab and the recording. I'd do that a few bars at a time and repeat until that section sounded right. There were a few times using that method that it just never sounded correct, so in order to move on, I just put the book down and tried to play something that sounded like the recording. I eventually figured out that the books were actually wrong fairly frequently, and trying to learn more by ear improved my playing significantly.
*What helped you get over the "discouraging" first steps of guitar playing and keep at it?
No way around it, getting good takes time, but any progress is huge. It's kind of like learning to type... If you're looking at the keyboard, either your accuracy or your speed will suffer. By the same token, when you get to the point on guitar where you don't really have to think about what you're doing and can just roll on sound, instinct, and muscle memory, it gets way easier to get into a groove and rely on your hands to play what's in your head (or on the sheet music in front of you).
*What were some of the first songs you were able to learn to play all the way through?
First songs (at least rhythm guitar): House of the Rising Sun, Iron Man, Enter Sandman
First solos: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nothing Else Matters
*How did you learn the notes on the fretboard?
I didn't, and I'm just now starting to pay more attention to music theory. I've always played more to sound and patterns, so I basically just knew the notes of the open strings and the 3rd and 5th frets. Also, the 12th fret is just an octave of the open string and the 7th fret of the next string is that same octave note, so I would just take the info I had memorized and use that to figure out anything else.
*How did you learn to play different chords all around the neck?
Power cords help with that, at least in a limited capacity, since it's easy to memorize the root notes. CAGED is a useful system as well. You'll need to be pretty comfortable with theory and the fretboard to be able to do the different inversions.
*What would you say to your younger self to help encourage them to continue pushing through the sticking points of guitar?
I'd just remind myself that I'm doing this for fun, and I don't need to do it on anyone's timeline but my own. I've for sure played shows where there was a bit of stress trying to get everything tight before the gig, but it should always be enjoyable.
*What was the "key" to getting guitar playing to "click" in your brain?
For me it was a bunch of little clicks that all added up to one big one, and that is that nothing should never be painful or feel impossible. The first one of those was realizing you don't have to press down all that hard on the strings to get a good sound, then it was realizing if you press just behind the fret, you can go even lighter. The next one was realizing that some of the basic things (like barre chords) didn't require stretching... I just needed to change the angle of my wrist a little bit and it was no problem at all. Fast picking? I could never get up to speed, and I'd wear myself out in the process until I stopped trying so hard and just went loose which fixed both problems immediately. The list of stuff like that goes on, but basically every sticking point I ran into was a result of trying to hard to do it wrong and relaxing into a slightly different method always solved the issue.
Anyway, hope that's helpful. If be happy to clarify if I said anything that doesn't make sense.
I echo a lot of what the other commenters suggested, but there was one specific aspect to learning guitar that motivated me to be creative and try something new and that was changing the tuning.
Guitar is my youngest instrument and I started learning it around 6 years ago. My biggest hurdle with it is that I truly did not like the feel and sound of standard tuning (EADGBE), despite it being the best and most widespread for learning the fundamentals. After a while of trying, I decided to switch to a tuning that was more intriguing to me and that was Celtic tuning (DADGAD). Using chord charts, it was fairly simple to figure out but the fascinating thing about this tuning is that you could play nearly any chord or fret and it could sound like something - maybe even something good. That alone motivated me to get weird and creative with all sorts of ideas - using capos, creating my own picking patterns, and so on. I recorded just about everything I did on my phone via voice memos because - just like another commenter mentioned - recording what you play helps you hear what you can improve and what is working well. I listen back to those recordings on occasion to reminisce and it's often cringe inducing - but it's a great reminder that I've actually progressed.
I should mention that I never really learned proper songs and only created my own tunes during this time. in standard, I tried learning "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young all the way through, but I couldn't stick with that early on. Learning songs didn't interest me as much as creating them, but that was definitely a rookie mistake. In essence, if you need a break from the typical fundamentals of standard tuning exercises, try mixing up the tuning for a bit. I don't recommend staying out of it too long as that can cement bad habits (which I certainly formed). Nowadays, I use standard and Open D tuning (DADF#AD) the most, while occasionally going back to Celtic tuning for the occasional feel good jam.
I didn't read the other responses but I'll give my perspective. I started learning when I was 12 which was .. 28 years ago. Starting out was not about theory or scales or soloing for me, it was about being able to play to songs I liked and trying to figure things out by ear. This was obviously before the internet had so much available, so it was a different world. I didn't have access to things like tabs, youtube with theory a click away, tutorials, etc. It was so much trial and error.
If I were to start over now I probably wouldn't end up sticking with it. I think there are too many opinions on the "right" way to do it. You must learn chords. You must learn scales. You must learn X. I am not a great theory learner, I need to tinker and figure things out on my own. That said, I have learned theory over the years as I had interest in doing so, but the way I went about it is against what almost everyone says to do.
The place you're at now sounds like you just need to keep practicing. It also helps to try to record some music and listen back to how you play. You'll be able to pick out mistakes, clunkiness, or weird bits WAY easier than while you're playing. You can use something as simple as Audacity with a computer mic and it'll go a long way to helping you. For solos, you just need to work your fingers out.
Put simply, it's repetition. You have to play a lot for a long time to get good. That's just the reality of it (and pretty much anything).