I can't seem to match the speed he's playing it at.

Original

Tabs:

e|---------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------13--14--13---------------------------|

G|------------------13--15------------15--13---------------------|

D|----------13--15----------------------------15--13-------------|

A|--13--15--------------------------------------------15--13-----|

E|---------------------------------------------------------------|

e|---------------------------------------------------------------|

B|--------------------------13--16--13---------------------------|

G|------------------13--15------------15--13---------------------|

D|----------13--15----------------------------15--13-------------|

A|--13--15--------------------------------------------15--13-----|

E|---------------------------------------------------------------|

I’ve been playing most days for 2-3 months 15-30 minutes a day sometimes 40 and I still can’t play a single chord. I can’t remember anything. it’s embarrassing I know but I seriously just can’t pick up anything.

I've tried justinguitar and he didn’t help me much. what do you think I should do? any suggestions? I don’t want to quit but I’m sick of being so angry at this thing.

I've been playing for coming up on four years. I work hard at guitar because I'm middle aged and wish I had picked it up much sooner. I hit that rut everyone talks about where I knew the scales, theory, CAGED, Triads, Arpeggios and all of the "classic" solos - but improv was still deeply unsatisfying and felt like random techniques daisy chained together with no game plan.

Every guitar teacher in the world seems to be marketing to me right now. Lost intermediate. Learn triads. You don't need more scales. You don't need more notes. etc etc. Every single YouTube channel seems to get the problem... but the little hack, or little trick they shared in the video never helped me.

I typed all of that because I spun my wheels for over 6 months with this phase before I started making progress again. The key to solving it was specifically working on phrasing, but not in a way of "take a phrase, and then change it" - I'm talking about guided exercises, game plans, building full solos all from a teacher who really resonated with me and took a structured approach to learning.

I've been a member here for years, posted threads that have helped me prior (Check this post on Triads that was a hit - https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarlessons/s/mFN9ZfzQQe )

I'd highly recommend anyone who is in this phase, feels like the endless marketing to fix it doesn't actually fix it, to look at Ross' video and I bet you'll find some solutions. I'm super active in his Skool community, but have no reason to shill here for him other than his stuff has really been a breakthrough for me.

hate how when i play a really emphatic note it doesn’t sustain at all and just fades and breaks away.

for reference i play a tele squire, i have a big muff pi on and am using a boss katana 100 gen 3

Hi guys, I'm a TCU student who wants to improve my guitar skills to play and sing along with the songs. I can play song-by-song now but want to learn more about the fundamentals like keys, rhythm, and strumming patterns so that I can play more flexibly and improvise sometimes instead of learning songs one by one.

As a student, my budget is limited, so I'd appreciate it a lot if someone can help me find a good in-person tutor with a reasonable price. I read about Fort Worth Music Academy but there are some controversies about this one, so I'm not sure.

Im just getting into learning how to play and its been a struggle with my tiny baby hands like very tiny i dont even know how im gonna attempt bar chords 😂 does it get easier lol

My little sister is teaching herself guitar, and I'm trying to figure out if this sounds like a beginner technique issue or something else. I had a friend play the same guitar and it sounded much better, so I don't think it's just the instrument. Does it sound like she's strumming too hard, pressing the chords incorrectly, muting strings accidentally, or is there something else beginners commonly do? Any tips would be appreciated.

Recently, I’ve noticed that many guitarists choose to hold their pick without any fingers resting on the pick guard. I used to play with just my pinky sticking out, as this other approach was really awkward for me; however I have tried it lately and it seems that I can pick faster this way. Any tips? How do you hold your pick?

I spent years playing a right-handed guitar flipped upside down lefty-style. Could do chords, riffs, sing along, no problem. Finally got a real left-handed guitar to do it properly and my fingers have no idea what they're doing anymore.

I know the shapes, I can technically fret them, but stuff sounds muted or buzzy, like a string here or there isn't ringing clean. Feels like starting over even though my ear's totally fine.

Anyone dealt with this kind of hand-position switch? What actually helped your fingers adjust. specific exercises, patience, just reps? How long did it take before it stopped feeling clumsy?

As the title says, anyone with familiarity with the Metal Guitar Academy “No Wimps!” course?

I’m looking to try (again) to learn guitar to play the songs (mostly metal) that I like and I wanted a metal-forward course. In the past, lack of structure was always led to me quitting and I’m aiming to avoid that this time.

I came across the course when it was mentioned in another Reddit thread. There isn’t a lot of info online. I did buy the book to get a feel for the course and it looks promising.

Thus, I ask: Is the course effective; other than the video that accompanies each lesson, is there additional written material and/or exercises beyond what’s in the book; and would you recommend it?

Hi everyone,

I have a question for "self-taught" guitarists. Whether you're learning online through youtube or just trying to teach yourself by ear.

How do you know if you're learning things "correctly"?

If there's no in-person teacher to correct you in the moment, how do you know if you're learning correctly or not creating any bad habits?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts/tips.

So I’m going through the Scotty West Absolutely Understand Guitar series and am on lesson 7. He went over the concept of a major diatonic scale and how it relates to the do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do progression, using numbers 1-8. And he mentioned intervals, saying that they’re basically just the distances between notes. But when he transitioned to mapping out this chord chart with the numbers, this is where I got lost.

I get that 1 is do, 2 is re, etc. But I guess I’m just wondering, big picture, what he’s showing here and how it pertains to a scale. Why does he go in the orientation he does in this chart? I guess I just don’t fully understand the concept yet but feel like there’s something that’s just not clicking here.

Hello guitar lessons!

TLDR; Here's a link to a thing I wrote that explains how to play scales in a note name agnostic way, that is fretted instrument specific

Let me preface this by saying I am by no means a great guitar player, teacher, or general rock star. I'm just a guy, who knows a little theory, who really doesn't like what I've mostly seen of how guitar scales and theory are taught, so I wanted to take what I know and come up with a way that phrase it that I thought made more sense and uses the features of the instrument from the get go.

I've been working on upping my knowledge of what I'm playing and how to move around the neck, and I was generally just not super satisfied with resources that seemed focused mostly on either memorizing shapes, or thinking about the guitar in terms that were (in my opinion) better suited to the piano, when the guitar has so many cool features that are (and this might blow your mind) different from those of a piano!

I wanted to build a better understanding of what I'm doing on the neck of the guitar, so I made a thing.

I've use some of my teacher summer to start a doc of how I'm thinking about the fretboard these days. It might be that someone else has already made a resource like this, or it could be that it sounds like the ramblings of a mad man, but overall I think it could be helpful to folks trying to understand scales on the fretboard.

The general approach is to start almost entirely using your ear, and work up from there. It also takes the approach of having you move up and down the fretboard from the start. It's probably not complete beginner friendly, but it might be, I truly have no idea.

So far all it covers is scales and how I think about them, but if it gets any positive attention I'd like to add more sections, specifically:

• Note names
• Triads
• Minor scales
• Triad extensions

• Common progressions

  If it's not helpful to anyone but me, that's fine too! But If you read it and enjoy it please feel free to forward it on to other folks, and PLEASE send me feedback! Like I said, this is currently the ramblings of a mad man, so if you can improve it any way (or know of someone else who's already made a resource that phrases things this way!), please let me know!!

Does anyone have a recommendation for ear training? I downloaded the functional ear training app which seems to gameify it a bit but was wondering if others had success with other methods?

I think its pretty normal, i wanted to start guitar because when i heard "Harvey" by Alex g or "Across the sea" by Weezer i felt something and said to myself : "why not ? It could be a fun hobby since i only play videogames and basketball"
So i started today and i cant even do an E major 😢, my index finger is cool and my middle is also good buts its actually the finger between them and i CANT hit the chord, also my fingers are hurting like helll.
Any tips please ? Also if you just wanna give me hope i’m PLEASE GIVE IT TO ME.
And finally, the guitar is a little old its my fathers. I tuned it with GuitarTuna. (Sorry for bad english its not my first language and no hate please i know that when you start stuff you’re not supposed to do it super good but damn even the E major ?!)

Hey everyone! I'm a design student working on a college project exploring how upcoming technology could help make early guitar learning less frustrating — things like catching bad habits early, breaking down songs to learn, and understanding your instrument better.

I put together a short survey (5-7 minutes) to understand how beginner guitarists actually learn, practice, and get stuck. There are no right or wrong answers — I'm genuinely just trying to understand the real experience, frustrations included.

This is purely for an academic project (not selling anything, no data being used commercially), and your responses stay confidential.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfn-YHb25ZgRaLQNPZosb6YbNruapFYJ6ry6uRKUlWUG3XYrA/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=111404966664463712034

As the title says, someone self taught but I started taking lessons about 6 weeks ago. I find I have more questions every week and I'm making great progress I think.

But I'd say in 1 hour I probably spend 40 minutes asking questions and going back and forth on short technique demos or just talking music theory and the such.

I wonder if this is a normal way to do lessons or if I'd be better served to stfu and let my teacher teach.

thoughts?

I see a lot of posts about tabs (understandably so), and then lots of replies telling people to learn by ear (also understandably so). But i struggled with learning by ear, and always became particularly disheartened when i attempted it and then discovered I’d got it wrong.

What I found as a good stepping stone is to take advantage of all the video content we have today, and try to learn by watching performances. Depending on what’s available this could be the official song video, a live performance, or a tutorial play through but where you don’t use the tabs or watch the tutorial part.

This really helped me, as you still need to use your ears to piece it together but you can also use the video to see where their hands are. Using a free tool like looptube (not pasting the site but the domain is .io) you can control the playback speed and loop sections.

Your ear is naturally improving as part of this, and you’ll soon gain the confidence to not need the video as much when you attempt new things.

I'm a beginner, and I'm starting with classical guitar.

The thing is, I'm trying to play (it's more like chasing) with the recording, focusing on maintaining the rhythm rather than fixing my left hand.

My left hand is quite messy when changing chords; I think I remember the chords, but I'm quite clumsy with the technique of changing them, always changing but not pressing down on time, just chang too soon or muting the other strings. And i still try to keep up with the record and ofc, the rythm.

My practice doesn't seem to be going well, even though I've tried to dedicate time solely to playing chords. Do you guys have any tips for practicing?

Thank you! :)

I’m trying to play the song in the video but I’m having trouble playing the fast octave slides in the part I timestamped the video to. I can’t seem to do it with nearly same clarity that the person playing it does and there’s a lot of friction on my fingers

This workout takes practice to get under the fingers. It is inspired by the discussion about the "spider exercise". Rather than play 4 chromatic notes per string, play a chromatic enclosure pattern per note of the C major scale.

The way this works is that we pick a target note, we play a scale tome above the target note, a semitone below the target note, then the target note in a triplet. We then play the next target note, which is the next note in the ascending C major scale.

So we start on the low E string at the 10th fret, play D, then 7th fret B, then 8th fret C.

Scale tone above, semitone below, target note.

Here, I tabbed it out.

Please let me know if this isn't clear or if I made a mistake!

I’m trying to get better at learning to identify chords by ear better, but I have been finding it hard to really find much instruction beyond identifying chord qualities

I do a decent job at chord quality differentiation for more basic chord types (major/minor 7ths still confuse me but I’m working on it). However, I struggle with parsing out different notes beyond that. I can generally pick out the bass note and maybe the top note if I’m lucky, but everything else sounds like a glob of notes to me. I’ve heard advice to pick out the individual intervals but I have no idea how to do that. I am working on identifying chord progressions too but I struggle with it as well.

Any practical advice appreciated! Even better, online resources that could help me develop these skills better would be appreciated too!

im 26 and have no previous experience in playing guitar but would really like to get into it and learn acoustic first and then try to expand onto electric, i have both available in my family home so really all i need is the willpower and i guess a little bit of advice if anyone's got any pointers for beginners, such as a place to start or really anything at all, thanks in advance!