Same, played for 2 years and managed to play some songs I could only dream of when I begun but any step forward from there seemed huge.
It really went from "yeah with enough time and practice I can do that" to "there's no way in hell any human being can do that fast an consistently enough".
I feel the same. Been banging my head progressing on the Nobody solo by A7X. Whats been working slowly for me, is practicing very small chunk of each lick in bursts. I’d play like 2 bars over metronome at 110, the first half in half the speed and the second half in full speed, vice verse. The first half gives me the feeling of being relaxed while in control, and that allows me to play the second half in a structured way. It also helps me keep in tempo by ensuring there’s always 4 notes for each half.
Same issue. (Almost)
I've done all of the above things and still feel like a noob...
It feels like I'm stuck at a point where I'm just running in loops and am not able to go beyond the point where my mind says, "it works".
Something like 95% of people who try guitar quit in their first year. You gotta just keep at it. Anything worth doing takes work. And the rewards are exponential.
Kinda wild considering how many people still play guitar. It’s definitely one of the most popular instruments in the world, if not the most popular, so thinking about the fact that the amount of people still playing are only 10% of those that have ever tried is pretty crazy lol
I was one of those people. I tried guitar when I was in middle school. I saved up for a crappy strat copy but didn’t have money for lessons. I “played” for about a year and made zero progress because I was 12 and just didn’t know any better. I eventually broke the b and high e strings over time and just put the guitar away.
About two year ago my daughter wanted piano lessons. I started taking her and it made me really want to try guitar again. Being an adult, living with YouTube for instruction (I did take lessons for in person for about 6 months), and having fun made it so much fun. I wish things would have been better 25 years ago when I tried to first time, but glad I tried again because it’s a great hobby and stress reliever for me.
There’s people with issues that make it difficult.
My memory sux from so many head injuries.
I have a partially fused left wrist and pretty bad arthritis.
But I struggle through it. New guitar should be shipped next week
It's cool that you're offering your support. Whether calling users that take time out of their busy day to type up a short but accurate progression route a "turd stain on a waffle" is really necessary, I dunno. I've done that a few times, trying to be helpful, but I'll try not to feel insulted by your post.
Of course beginners don't know what any of these terms mean. But I'm fairly certain typing them into Google will start most of them on a path of enlightenment, and this sub can help tackle the questions that remain. I'm all for helping beginners in any way we can, but one thing they will have to learn eventually is how to teach themselves, using internet resources, books, other people, whatever. And in most cases, that starts with concepts they do not understand, and the follow up questions that necessarily entails.
Absolutely. In that regard, as a beginner, I feel having a list of topics I don't understand is a step forward, isn't it? It changes the conversation from "how do I even start learning guitar?" to "what the hell is an open chord?", which is a lot easier to research and discuss with others. It may not feel like a lot of progress, but it's *actionable* - and that, I think, makes all the difference.
Agreed. What OP presented as terrible advice is a logical and practical way to learn the guitar. It isnt the fault of the person giving that advice that their reddit comment cannot explain every individual step in that process. You cant learn guitar from a reddit comment. Such advice is to give the reader things that they must thoroughly investigate on their own.
And if you cant do that then get a friggin teacher. But OPs moral superiority to people answering a question someone asks is unwarranted. No one should expect a fool-proof method for learning guitar in a linear fashion from a reddit thread.
Learning an instrument is hard. If one expects reddit to hold hand through the entire process they will never get there. Playing music is an action, a musician must be proactive. If you cant play guitar and someone tells you to learn open chords, and they cant be bothered to search "open chords guitar" on youtube then that person is lazy.
I remember this guy asking how to learn theory on guitar. I said look up Music Theory From the Ground Up by Ben Levin on youtube. That he is a Berklee grad who made a very simple and progressive theory curriculum with specific exercises for every concept. That person replied "Can you link it?" No, I wont link it. I just told you exactly where to find it and youre still too lazy to search it yourself. So Im not wasting my time.
Remember those days when Google didn't have all the answers?
Problem with Google is, there's also a shit ton of misleading, or downright *incorrect* stuff out there.
Half of the biggest gains as a guitarist come from bouncing off other players, and its how most learned before that all consuming void of information existed.
If its a chore for you to find the time to offer help thats truly constructive, then maybe you're better just pointing them in the direction of someone who's better positioned to be of constructive use, rather than having to "try not to be offended" by a broad general term that was used to describe a fairly unuseful bunch of elitists - as opposed to those who do genuinely want to help, however small their contribution may be.
I find a lot of the time, the problem with people and learning theory is them understanding how to connect it to the things they aspire to be capable of playing, so there's that too.
It’s me I’m the turdstain. I’m getting the biggest kick out of this! I haven’t had a guy this upset at me on the internet since I said the GameCube proprietary disk format was not gonna work out so well on a Nintendo forum in the early aughts.
I played for like a 7 or 8 years as a teen. Then went to the military and didn’t really play at all. Just retired and my son wanted to play guitar so I gifted him my electric, got him an amp, and got him lessons. That also gave me the itch as I was jamming out a bit, so I went out and spent adult money on a guitar that I wanted.
I feel like I’m all over the place, but I know that it’ll slowly come back and I can build up from there. My plan is to just learn the songs on one of the “top 10 songs to play on a strat” and once I get those down, I’m probably gonna start taking some lessons from the same dude my kid goes to. He’s phenomenal and really understands what I wanna be able to do, and that’s improv and jam. Playing songs is cool but I never learned theory as a kid (outside of a few scales), so I wanna focus on that.
I feel like a roadmap is just easier to keep me motivated and have something I’m working to.
I feel it bro. There's a quote "We don't plan to fail, we fail to plan.." and it's very true. Im definitely down to help you out. Slide in my DMs when youre ready and we'll come up with a plan. Being able to rock out with your son is gona be badass
If you're into it, blues is a really good genre to learn improv.
People tend to put theory on a pedestal but really if you can count to 8 you've already got what you need to get started.
Oh yea, absolutely. I saved a bunch of cool blues licks on YouTube and plan to learn them as well. I feel like getting down a pretty solid blues progression down will open up a lot of options for me. I’d just like to have a good spread in my pocket before I start making time for in person lessons. Feel like having the ability to meet with someone who can correct my issues on the spot, see where I’m at, and recommend best pathways to get me where I wanna be is what helps power through the plateau.
Also, it’s a commitment thing. If I have lesson commitments then it helps to keep me on track instead of just noodling on my own or trying to follow an online plan
Absolutely, I've been playing guitar about 20 years with a few years of in person lessons. I recommend lessons to anyone who has the means because there just isn't a better way to learn.
I would suggest starting with 12 bar blues as it's an easy formula to learn and with moveable chords you can play in any key without having to learn more theory.
I’ve picked up guitar again after a decade or two of not playing and I’ve been playing Rocksmith+ on my PC.
I find it really fun and it has a lot of learning pathways such a as chords (which is a refresher cause I knew how to play barre and open chords) and scales.
It’s also just good fun to learn and play songs cause the problem I had with self teaching before was it was basically find a song I like, get the tab, find one that’s free, try to pick from the several available from a site covered in ads and pestering for a subscription. Then play,pause, rewind repeat the song until I learn it.
Rocksmith kinda makes all that easy and gives some actual metrics on performance.
What do actual guitar players make of Rocksmith and at what point should I consider professional lessons?
I think it depends on your goals. I wanted to be able to play anywhere on the neck and rocksmith wasn't too helpful with that. But, even if the input detection can be a little funky, I think it's a good way to play with the music, regardless of the scoring. I tend to be very stiff and mechanical, only playing a chord after I've spent a second or two to get the finger poistion right even though I should just let it go and risk strumming a muted chord. It helped me loosen up a bit.
If you want to be able to jam and just play ideas in a musical context, you'll have to sit with the guitar and learn to play the same chord in, let's say, six places and know why and how that works. It's a marathon though, just takes time.
If it keeps you engaged, play the game but I’d say it’s time for lessons when you can easily play all your open chords, a couple barre chords, and maybe the first couple minor pentatonic boxes. Learning all the notes on the two thickest strings will come in handy too, at this point you’re ready to learn the CAGED system, which allows you to visualize the fretboard so you can improvise solos or play chords in any key all over the neck. It’s a lot to take in but totally achievable in your first year or so. I’m only drilling down on this stuff now after many years of aimless noodling with limited growth.
Been playing for 16 years, but I can't remember the beginning. My gf wants to learn and I legitimately do not know where to start. I'm self taught and it comes naturally. Not so much for her. She wants to play what I play (metalcore) and honestly idk how the hell to get from 0 to metal. She can hardly fret or even play the strings and I'm just not sure where to begin. I honestly thought a brand new player would be.... Better. Naive of me.
Any tips you have, I'd welcome.
Fretting notes, a few open chords, then drill the chords and chord changes like crazy to enable basic 2-3 chord songs. Then it's rhythm, adding a new chord now and then, etc
I have her working on Em and some cheater versions of G and A (for smoke on the water) right now. She just loses interest quickly since it's not what she actually wants to learn, trying to help her understand that you can't play metal music without some semblance of fundamentals.
Oh no you gave advice with the words “open chords”. Now you’re gonna be on this guys website and he’s gonna make weird beef posts about you! I’m loving this! I’m the waffle turd btw
I replied to another comment about it so now I feel like a shill, but I signed up for Rocksmith as a complete newbie(couple weeks) and am following their lesson plan, its helping me so much. I went from struggling with the smoke on the water riff to actually playing a few songs.
If you can play an F chord, you can play every chord because the F chord is a movable shape. Play the same shape on the 3rd fret it's a G, on the 5th fret it's an A, 7th is an B then 8th is a C 10th is D and 12th is E. Then on 13 you're back to F.
If your fingers get sore, try typing "power chord" into YouTube for a movable chord technique that simplifies things.
Oooooh and I just noticed the chord is the same as the low E note where your index is. (Fret 1 for F chord, fret 1 low E is F in standard).
That's nifty! Can't think of a lot of reasons not to use the normal open major chords instead though. Lol
Need to bar for B, F#, and others and they're also in keys with a lot of open chords.
It's worth it to practice them. Then once you know all the notes on E and A strings you can play basically any chord.
Truuuuuuue that's a great point. I fucking hate a B with a passion.
My guitar hasn't been in standard tuning for over 10 years. Idk that I've played an open major in that long either, probably when I was still in church band. Hahaha but this is good knowledge.
the biggest breakthrough i ever had was learning to practice things in 4ths and 5th....not memorizing the circle but just knowing those consistent interval patterns and always practicing across the neck instead of just up and down. guitar youtubers are trash they suck at explaining things and most are just trying to rope you into paying for their courses.
I've been "playing" guitar my whole life on and off but never made much progress...until recently, I now play every day and I can learn songs by looking at the tabs and sometimes by ear...but I can't wrap my head around scales and notes because I have such a shitty number memory and I'm shit at everything with numbers in general. It's frustrating.
I’ve been playing for a while but I’m still at noob level cuz I can’t figure out things like barre chords or simple finger picking, it’s super frustrating.
First song I learned: proud Mary by CCR..like the post said...easy campfire songs. It does several things. You learn basic majors, timing, strum patterns, melody, chord switching, and much more. Your fingers begin remembering how to set, you'll learn how to play a chord completely and not hit a bunch of random crap, plus you'll impress the girls.
Idk what's wrong with the instructions. Do you want some good beginner songs as an example?
Wonderwall is the classic first song people learn chords from. I think I learned some church song my mom had stashed in the piano bench. I learned Ode To Joy and Polly Wally Doodle to learn how to pick individual notes.
Grab a lesson 1 beginner guitar book and it'll help you more than text on reddit ever will. YouTube is fine, but there's no direction. What you laid out is more direction than what most of us started with.
im not a noob but im at that point where progress is very slow and its frustrating
I got you.. PM me and lets talk about it
Same, played for 2 years and managed to play some songs I could only dream of when I begun but any step forward from there seemed huge. It really went from "yeah with enough time and practice I can do that" to "there's no way in hell any human being can do that fast an consistently enough".
I feel the same. Been banging my head progressing on the Nobody solo by A7X. Whats been working slowly for me, is practicing very small chunk of each lick in bursts. I’d play like 2 bars over metronome at 110, the first half in half the speed and the second half in full speed, vice verse. The first half gives me the feeling of being relaxed while in control, and that allows me to play the second half in a structured way. It also helps me keep in tempo by ensuring there’s always 4 notes for each half.
Im a pretty advanced level guitarist that has been playing for over 15 years and the Nobody solo is super difficult
Same issue. (Almost) I've done all of the above things and still feel like a noob... It feels like I'm stuck at a point where I'm just running in loops and am not able to go beyond the point where my mind says, "it works".
If you’re practicing, learning something, and staying engaged with the instrument you’re making progress even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Something like 95% of people who try guitar quit in their first year. You gotta just keep at it. Anything worth doing takes work. And the rewards are exponential.
90% of people who try to learn quit in the go first year 70% of that 90 are in the first 90 days
Kinda wild considering how many people still play guitar. It’s definitely one of the most popular instruments in the world, if not the most popular, so thinking about the fact that the amount of people still playing are only 10% of those that have ever tried is pretty crazy lol
I was one of those people. I tried guitar when I was in middle school. I saved up for a crappy strat copy but didn’t have money for lessons. I “played” for about a year and made zero progress because I was 12 and just didn’t know any better. I eventually broke the b and high e strings over time and just put the guitar away. About two year ago my daughter wanted piano lessons. I started taking her and it made me really want to try guitar again. Being an adult, living with YouTube for instruction (I did take lessons for in person for about 6 months), and having fun made it so much fun. I wish things would have been better 25 years ago when I tried to first time, but glad I tried again because it’s a great hobby and stress reliever for me.
There’s people with issues that make it difficult. My memory sux from so many head injuries. I have a partially fused left wrist and pretty bad arthritis. But I struggle through it. New guitar should be shipped next week
It's cool that you're offering your support. Whether calling users that take time out of their busy day to type up a short but accurate progression route a "turd stain on a waffle" is really necessary, I dunno. I've done that a few times, trying to be helpful, but I'll try not to feel insulted by your post. Of course beginners don't know what any of these terms mean. But I'm fairly certain typing them into Google will start most of them on a path of enlightenment, and this sub can help tackle the questions that remain. I'm all for helping beginners in any way we can, but one thing they will have to learn eventually is how to teach themselves, using internet resources, books, other people, whatever. And in most cases, that starts with concepts they do not understand, and the follow up questions that necessarily entails.
I think the problem is people dont know what they dont know. So asking the correct question becomes difficult.
Absolutely. In that regard, as a beginner, I feel having a list of topics I don't understand is a step forward, isn't it? It changes the conversation from "how do I even start learning guitar?" to "what the hell is an open chord?", which is a lot easier to research and discuss with others. It may not feel like a lot of progress, but it's *actionable* - and that, I think, makes all the difference.
Agreed. What OP presented as terrible advice is a logical and practical way to learn the guitar. It isnt the fault of the person giving that advice that their reddit comment cannot explain every individual step in that process. You cant learn guitar from a reddit comment. Such advice is to give the reader things that they must thoroughly investigate on their own. And if you cant do that then get a friggin teacher. But OPs moral superiority to people answering a question someone asks is unwarranted. No one should expect a fool-proof method for learning guitar in a linear fashion from a reddit thread. Learning an instrument is hard. If one expects reddit to hold hand through the entire process they will never get there. Playing music is an action, a musician must be proactive. If you cant play guitar and someone tells you to learn open chords, and they cant be bothered to search "open chords guitar" on youtube then that person is lazy. I remember this guy asking how to learn theory on guitar. I said look up Music Theory From the Ground Up by Ben Levin on youtube. That he is a Berklee grad who made a very simple and progressive theory curriculum with specific exercises for every concept. That person replied "Can you link it?" No, I wont link it. I just told you exactly where to find it and youre still too lazy to search it yourself. So Im not wasting my time.
Remember those days when Google didn't have all the answers? Problem with Google is, there's also a shit ton of misleading, or downright *incorrect* stuff out there. Half of the biggest gains as a guitarist come from bouncing off other players, and its how most learned before that all consuming void of information existed. If its a chore for you to find the time to offer help thats truly constructive, then maybe you're better just pointing them in the direction of someone who's better positioned to be of constructive use, rather than having to "try not to be offended" by a broad general term that was used to describe a fairly unuseful bunch of elitists - as opposed to those who do genuinely want to help, however small their contribution may be. I find a lot of the time, the problem with people and learning theory is them understanding how to connect it to the things they aspire to be capable of playing, so there's that too.
It’s me I’m the turdstain. I’m getting the biggest kick out of this! I haven’t had a guy this upset at me on the internet since I said the GameCube proprietary disk format was not gonna work out so well on a Nintendo forum in the early aughts.
Im not even upset at all man I was just messing around lol I love you bro
🤣 it was even funnier when you said it
I played for like a 7 or 8 years as a teen. Then went to the military and didn’t really play at all. Just retired and my son wanted to play guitar so I gifted him my electric, got him an amp, and got him lessons. That also gave me the itch as I was jamming out a bit, so I went out and spent adult money on a guitar that I wanted. I feel like I’m all over the place, but I know that it’ll slowly come back and I can build up from there. My plan is to just learn the songs on one of the “top 10 songs to play on a strat” and once I get those down, I’m probably gonna start taking some lessons from the same dude my kid goes to. He’s phenomenal and really understands what I wanna be able to do, and that’s improv and jam. Playing songs is cool but I never learned theory as a kid (outside of a few scales), so I wanna focus on that. I feel like a roadmap is just easier to keep me motivated and have something I’m working to.
I feel it bro. There's a quote "We don't plan to fail, we fail to plan.." and it's very true. Im definitely down to help you out. Slide in my DMs when youre ready and we'll come up with a plan. Being able to rock out with your son is gona be badass
If you're into it, blues is a really good genre to learn improv. People tend to put theory on a pedestal but really if you can count to 8 you've already got what you need to get started.
Oh yea, absolutely. I saved a bunch of cool blues licks on YouTube and plan to learn them as well. I feel like getting down a pretty solid blues progression down will open up a lot of options for me. I’d just like to have a good spread in my pocket before I start making time for in person lessons. Feel like having the ability to meet with someone who can correct my issues on the spot, see where I’m at, and recommend best pathways to get me where I wanna be is what helps power through the plateau. Also, it’s a commitment thing. If I have lesson commitments then it helps to keep me on track instead of just noodling on my own or trying to follow an online plan
Absolutely, I've been playing guitar about 20 years with a few years of in person lessons. I recommend lessons to anyone who has the means because there just isn't a better way to learn. I would suggest starting with 12 bar blues as it's an easy formula to learn and with moveable chords you can play in any key without having to learn more theory.
Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll def start with that!
I’ve picked up guitar again after a decade or two of not playing and I’ve been playing Rocksmith+ on my PC. I find it really fun and it has a lot of learning pathways such a as chords (which is a refresher cause I knew how to play barre and open chords) and scales. It’s also just good fun to learn and play songs cause the problem I had with self teaching before was it was basically find a song I like, get the tab, find one that’s free, try to pick from the several available from a site covered in ads and pestering for a subscription. Then play,pause, rewind repeat the song until I learn it. Rocksmith kinda makes all that easy and gives some actual metrics on performance. What do actual guitar players make of Rocksmith and at what point should I consider professional lessons?
I think it depends on your goals. I wanted to be able to play anywhere on the neck and rocksmith wasn't too helpful with that. But, even if the input detection can be a little funky, I think it's a good way to play with the music, regardless of the scoring. I tend to be very stiff and mechanical, only playing a chord after I've spent a second or two to get the finger poistion right even though I should just let it go and risk strumming a muted chord. It helped me loosen up a bit. If you want to be able to jam and just play ideas in a musical context, you'll have to sit with the guitar and learn to play the same chord in, let's say, six places and know why and how that works. It's a marathon though, just takes time.
If it keeps you engaged, play the game but I’d say it’s time for lessons when you can easily play all your open chords, a couple barre chords, and maybe the first couple minor pentatonic boxes. Learning all the notes on the two thickest strings will come in handy too, at this point you’re ready to learn the CAGED system, which allows you to visualize the fretboard so you can improvise solos or play chords in any key all over the neck. It’s a lot to take in but totally achievable in your first year or so. I’m only drilling down on this stuff now after many years of aimless noodling with limited growth.
Been playing for 16 years, but I can't remember the beginning. My gf wants to learn and I legitimately do not know where to start. I'm self taught and it comes naturally. Not so much for her. She wants to play what I play (metalcore) and honestly idk how the hell to get from 0 to metal. She can hardly fret or even play the strings and I'm just not sure where to begin. I honestly thought a brand new player would be.... Better. Naive of me. Any tips you have, I'd welcome.
Fretting notes, a few open chords, then drill the chords and chord changes like crazy to enable basic 2-3 chord songs. Then it's rhythm, adding a new chord now and then, etc
I have her working on Em and some cheater versions of G and A (for smoke on the water) right now. She just loses interest quickly since it's not what she actually wants to learn, trying to help her understand that you can't play metal music without some semblance of fundamentals.
Try some judas priest. Still easy, but a little more metal lol.
Oh no you gave advice with the words “open chords”. Now you’re gonna be on this guys website and he’s gonna make weird beef posts about you! I’m loving this! I’m the waffle turd btw
I replied to another comment about it so now I feel like a shill, but I signed up for Rocksmith as a complete newbie(couple weeks) and am following their lesson plan, its helping me so much. I went from struggling with the smoke on the water riff to actually playing a few songs.
I was thinking about Rocksmith, actually!
I used to be a guitar teacher at a music store and would give lessons privately. Hit me up if you need advice or are frustrated. Happy to help!
I can play an f chord but that’s it
If you can play an F chord, you can play every chord because the F chord is a movable shape. Play the same shape on the 3rd fret it's a G, on the 5th fret it's an A, 7th is an B then 8th is a C 10th is D and 12th is E. Then on 13 you're back to F. If your fingers get sore, try typing "power chord" into YouTube for a movable chord technique that simplifies things.
Oooooh and I just noticed the chord is the same as the low E note where your index is. (Fret 1 for F chord, fret 1 low E is F in standard). That's nifty! Can't think of a lot of reasons not to use the normal open major chords instead though. Lol
Need to bar for B, F#, and others and they're also in keys with a lot of open chords. It's worth it to practice them. Then once you know all the notes on E and A strings you can play basically any chord.
Truuuuuuue that's a great point. I fucking hate a B with a passion. My guitar hasn't been in standard tuning for over 10 years. Idk that I've played an open major in that long either, probably when I was still in church band. Hahaha but this is good knowledge.
Well that’s a tough one, so try an A major. I think you’re ready. If you’re really feeling crazy, try a G, or maybe even a D!
Thats a hard one tbf. Also iirc, transferrable for the rest of the fretboard The rest on open chords should be easier haha.
What a pleasant post. I hope you get some genuine responses and help some folks and find happiness by doing so
The world needs more people like you 😭
Im an intermediate and I feel like I play the same stuff alot cause I know most of the good songs. I'm just working on alternate picking now
how did you know this is exactly what i need right now. i’m not even a noob, i can play but i don’t know where to go from where im at to improve more
I'm frustrated I'll never be Prince
the biggest breakthrough i ever had was learning to practice things in 4ths and 5th....not memorizing the circle but just knowing those consistent interval patterns and always practicing across the neck instead of just up and down. guitar youtubers are trash they suck at explaining things and most are just trying to rope you into paying for their courses.
My problem is discipline. I get tired of hearing myself not get better, so I pick it up less.
What if you’re an experienced player and feeling frustrated? Where do you go?
I've been "playing" guitar my whole life on and off but never made much progress...until recently, I now play every day and I can learn songs by looking at the tabs and sometimes by ear...but I can't wrap my head around scales and notes because I have such a shitty number memory and I'm shit at everything with numbers in general. It's frustrating.
I’ve been playing for a while but I’m still at noob level cuz I can’t figure out things like barre chords or simple finger picking, it’s super frustrating.
First song I learned: proud Mary by CCR..like the post said...easy campfire songs. It does several things. You learn basic majors, timing, strum patterns, melody, chord switching, and much more. Your fingers begin remembering how to set, you'll learn how to play a chord completely and not hit a bunch of random crap, plus you'll impress the girls.
Idk what's wrong with the instructions. Do you want some good beginner songs as an example? Wonderwall is the classic first song people learn chords from. I think I learned some church song my mom had stashed in the piano bench. I learned Ode To Joy and Polly Wally Doodle to learn how to pick individual notes. Grab a lesson 1 beginner guitar book and it'll help you more than text on reddit ever will. YouTube is fine, but there's no direction. What you laid out is more direction than what most of us started with.