Frustrated with playing skills

[SexyGibson]

My advice to every newbie is to become a good rhythm player before jumping too deep into lead playing. Not that you can't practice some of both but focus most of your time on rhythm; all the best lead players are also GREAT rhythm players. Focusing on rhythm will also help you understand better how the scales are built around CHORDS, so it's a good idea to know them and use them.

 

[joba]

Thanks to DishSoap for the Thread. Big thanks to all the responders. I am also a 52 year old beginner that just hit a barre chord rut. Lots of motivation in this thread! Great community.

 

[BluesDisciple]

OK, I missed this part. Five days, one hour a day, is five hours. That ain't shit. I spend an hour every day warming up. Every day. Practice starts after I'm warmed up.

River speaks the truth here. Practice until something hurts. Take a rest. Practice some more. Perseverence and dedication.

 

[rockerbilly]

Here's something that some may find amusing and others unbelievable. I knew a bloke years ago who wanted to learn guitar, which I thought was great, and told him to go for it. He decided to take lessons and a few months later I saw him and asked how it was all going. He told me that he'd quit the lessons because he didn't want to learn all the technical 'proper' stuff that they were putting on him. His last words to me on the subject was something like " I don't wanna learn all that crap, I just wanna play like you ! " I still don't know if I should be flattered or not.

 

[Azathoth]

I've been playing for over 20 years. I'm a lazy learner, and I'll never be great at playing. I've come to terms with this though, and just play for the enjoyment.

If I could start over, I'd concentrate mainly on songwriting. Spending years learning to shred is a waste of time, IMO (though it is a panty dropper), and songwriting skills will take you a lot farther than solo gymnastics.

 

[battra]

I've been playing since 1995....but I've always been pretty bad at it, but always had fun.

This year, I decided to get lessons as I have a really nice guitar now and I wanted to live up to it.

I taught myself everything wrong and I'm going back to the beginning to fix it all.

It's not fun, but it's rewarding as hell.

My advice to young players is to take lessons.

 

[River]

I just started playing last year at 58.

 

[g8tr]

Thanks River! I actually decided to play my acoustic masterbilt tonight. It always makes me work harder to get the right sound out of the chords. I have struggled with the D chord for this whole year, I can play all the variants, but the D was giving me h*ll. Well tonight I had a breakthrough with just the D. I figured out what I hadn't been doing and started doing it right. I played the D chord and variants for over 40 minutes. Now I see why it takes you an hour to warm up, just got to keep working and practicing. This thread has made me want to work harder then I was.
As Stevie202 said, "It's a journey, not a destination."

 

[River]

You go, g8tr. That D is a sumbich. I'm now dancing with it, like with the Devil in the pale moonlight.

Mastery is soon to be ours.

 

[56GT]

You go, g8tr. That D is a sumbich. I'm now dancing with it, like with the Devil in the pale moonlight.

Mastery is soon to be ours.

reminds me of that song, "Some Beach" - Blake Shelton

 

[56GT]

I still get screwed on some of the jazzy cords, and hitting every string cleanly... it's an on going road to perfection... damn you guitar inverter...

 

[David230]

I have been learning to play for two months with my first epiphone les paul and first guitar for that matter. I put in a minimum of 1hour a day but usually ends up being atleast 2-3hrs.

I cant wait to pick up the guitar and learn something new. Overcoming those inevitable hurdles are all part of the fun for me. Even after a short period of time Its great to look back at something you thought you would never be able to figure out! The best advice I have rec'd is practicing anything new, slowly and rhythmicly and with plenty of practice it all starts to fall into place.

One thing I struggled with the most initially, is strumming, or the up stroke mostly. Just found it extremely difficult to upstroke with out twanging out the high E all the time. I have just started to develop a cleaner strumming technique and introducing palm muting for control and also learning dynamics, playing softer and louder with different strum patterns. Something I really struggled with for quite a while.

I kick myself now that I'm 30 that I didn't start this when I was in my early teens. Still, doesn't stop me from having fun with it now!

Stick with it and be patient with the tough bits and enjoy the results of all your efforts when it WILL start to come together!

 

[Epi 57 classic]

When I get frustrated about my playing skills and off course like all guitar players: I do. I give my guitar to my wife and let her play. She can't play, so she sound absolutely like crap Than I take the guitar back and start playing. Then I feel like a hard core guitar god. Problem solved

 

[CHUNKYNECK]

As others have said, 1 hour a day isn't going to get you anywhere fast. If you really want to get that song down then spend an hour playing through your usual scales and then spend 3 or 4 hours on the song you want to learn. Rest and then hit it again after a few hours. Basicly spend as much free time as you can on it. I run through excercises while watching the tv or reading posts on here. I can't tell weekly if i'm improving or not but if i take a month or so off i can tell. I stick to one song at a time and move on when i have it down but you have to refresh your memory on those songs or you will forget. It's a constant battle to remember all the songs you have learnt through the years. Good luck with it and remember to enjoy it.

 

[DishSoap]

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone on that put in the time to reply. All of the support is second to none.

I have decided to take a step back and practice more on fingering technique and learning to play 1 song at a time and finishing it vs lick here riff there. Agreed the Floyd stuff may be to soon for me.

Going to take it down a notch. I think a good song for me for me would be collective souls shine. Gets my hands and fingers moving around the fret board with some strumming.

Does this sound like a good plan?

 

[Dolebludger]

Well, I first realized that playing from standard notation was not possible for me. The same note occurs too many places on the fret board! Then I realized that scales are actually built around chords, and this (along with a decent ear) got me going. So good chording ability is sort of the foundation for composing solos.

 

[fullspectrum]

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone on that put in the time to reply. All of the support is second to none.

I have decided to take a step back and practice more on fingering technique and learning to play 1 song at a time and finishing it vs lick here riff there. Agreed the Floyd stuff may be to soon for me.

Going to take it down a notch. I think a good song for me for me would be collective souls shine. Gets my hands and fingers moving around the fret board with some strumming.

Does this sound like a good plan?

That's a great song to learn. Stick to learning a full song right through. Also there's nothing wrong with learning licks and riffs as well. Once you combine the licks and riffs with scale runs etc. you can improvise with what you've learned. Learn the pentatonic scales in and out and learn how to connect them. Learn how to use the root notes in the scales to help connect the scale positions. Also learn some scale runs to help you get around the fretboard.

I'm frustrated every time I go into the guitar shop and I see a 15 year old shredding like Randy Rhoads! LOL At nearly 41 I feel frustrated and like I've wasted time on other useless pursuits in life. I'm getting there slowly and I can "shred" a bit now...but not nearly as quick as I'd like to. Learning guitar is definitely a lifelong journey, and like anything, you usually get out of it what you put in.

 

[Dolebludger]

Another good idea is to start with some blues numbers. That's where rock got its start. I'd like to take a lot of the newer players (no matter how good they are at what they do) and lock them up in a room and force them to listen to blues for two weeks. They'd come to understand some things they don't now know, such as the fact that portions of a number need a chordal resolution, and that rock should be played with a certain emotion that does not involve slamming noise out of a guitar.

 

[Epi 57 classic]

Another good idea is to start with some blues numbers. That's where rock got its start. I'd like to take a lot of the newer players (no matter how good they are at what they do) and lock them up in a room and force them to listen to blues for two weeks. They'd come to understand some things they don't now know, such as the fact that portions of a number need a chordal resolution, and that rock should be played with a certain emotion that does not involve slamming noise out of a guitar.

Amen to that

 

[battra]

You go, g8tr. That D is a sumbich. I'm now dancing with it, like with the Devil in the pale moonlight.

Mastery is soon to be ours.

For years I just gave up on ever playing a D open chord..lol.

I can play one variant now, and as sad as it is, I'm proud of that.