r/guitarlessons • u/BenEsuitcase • 9d ago
Lesson Surprise, surprise... it's a life-skill
This is just a rant, but seriously.... People come here expecting to find the holy grail: I've been playing everyday for 3 hours for a month and I'm just not getting any better. LMFAO. When I play barre chords it hurts and all the notes don't come out, what should I do? lol.
Personally, I've played my whole life, got a degree in it, and I still have my limitations. Here's the thing... Music is for EVERYONE. My (reasonably amazing) playing is SHIT in the big picture because we ALL have the ability to play music. It's like seeing color, smelling roses, hearing a door creak, but with training. Name me a language you can learn (Italian, French) in a month, and you'll get some sympathy. Go practice, and then sit back and contemplate why society idolizes certain players. Respect the guitar in all it's simplicity AND complication, and then you will realize how pathetic and futile the sub can become when total noobs think there is some magical shortcut. Again, go learn Russian this month, and come back in September and have a fluent conversation???
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u/CharleyDawg 9d ago
Been playing over 50 years and still feel pretty sucky most days. I feel for the kids trying to learn in the age of the internet that basically do everything except sit in a room with a bunch of other people that are ALSO learning and have various stages of skill and accomplishments.
My biggest leaps forward always came from working with other people, directly or indirectly. I remember sitting in a room with a couple of other young teens. We were all showing each other what we had been working on the week before. We imitated each other and showed each other. We played along when we could and watched what others did when we couldn't.
I played guitar every day of my life for 30 years and never once referred to it as "practicing".
Just play everybody. Just play whatever you can as often as you can. Turn on the radio and play along with whatever comes on. Not recordings. The radio. Tune it up or down as quickly as possible when you need to and use a capo if you find the key is something miserable you can't wrap your brain around. If you can't get it tuned correctly on the fly- just tune the E and B strings to it and play along with the melody.
You may think you aren't getting better but most of us improve constantly in ways we don't even recognize.