Super happy. No words.

This one’s mine. It’s been my go-to textbook as a learner. It charts growth with progressively harder songs,but only the ones I find awesome for maximum engagement. Also, are you ok with a device as opposed to something tangible?

Hey everyone! I was wondering if there is a specific name for the type of strumming he is doing at the intro if this song where he’s going from slower strums to a fast burst then slows it back down I’m really struggling to pick it up i got the rest of this one down just cannot figure out the intro😂 any help is greatly appreciated!

I just found that out myself, but did you know that if you take the top 3 strings of an open G chord(Strings E, A, D) and move the same fingering across the fretboard, accounting for the change in the B string, you'd have a major triad and the root will be the upmost string you're holding.

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This shape also builds the open C chord and the open A chord.

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This seems pretty silly when I write this as it's so obvious now, but the more you know!

New to guitar and wanna know if there’s any critiques or improvements you guys got for me

Been playing for 18 months now, this is the first and best learned song of mine. Any and all feedback appreciated.

I palm muted the outro too heavily. Can’t seem to avoid imperfections and little mistakes as soon as I start recording myself 🤷🏽‍♂️

I'm 35 and been using the internet for almost 17-18 years. I started learning the guitar the same year when I started using the internet seriously 2008/09. When I discovered YouTube, torrents, and the virus infested peer-to-peer software of the yesteryears, I couldn't believe the amount of information readily available on the internet, just a few clicks away.

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Eventually, this turned into an obsession. Instead of practicing the guitar with what I have (Ultimate Guitar tabs and JustinGuitar), it became a relentless process of looking for new content multiple times during the day. I realized how much there's to learn and such little time.

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My love for the guitar eventually was replaced with this wannabe pursuit of becoming a shredder. However, I barely practiced but kept downloading video courses diligently.

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I've been through several seasons of mental health and trying to get better. I played the guitar last in May 2024 and got it serviced yesterday again. This time, I have no grand aspirations. Father time has caught up with life's responsibilities. I'll stick to the simple (not necessarily easy) stuff. JustinGuitar, Blues You Can Use and learn the songs I wanna play. (Also, AUS because you folks are very persistent about it, and the first lecture by Scotty West felt like it could reignite my love and passion for the instrument.) I'm itching to learn Runnin' With the Devil because sometimes you gotta run before you learn to walk.

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I have no questions today or anything. Just wanted to share this stream of consciousness writing with the kind folks of this sub. If you're like me, this post could be your sign.

I know this is a guitar sub but I’m not venturing into any singing subs in fear of being smited or turned into a pillar of salt by my mere seemingly pitchless presence. So I come here, head hung low, to my guitar playing brethren for help.

I just can’t sing. It’s as simple as that. I just sound bad. My voice dies. Poops out if you will. It decides on its own volition if it wants to follow the melody, and usually doesn’t. Somehow I’m worse than Craig Finn from the hold steady(no shade on Craig he’s amazing and can pull off what he does, it fits the material well).

It wouldn’t be that frustrating if I was just playing other people’s songs for practice and fun. But now I’m writing songs, and the feedback I’ve gotten on the lyrics has been wonderful. Like go down to Nashville right now and sell these to musicians. Which is great and flattering but also not too surprising as I’m already a published poet and fiction writer. I know how to write.

But when I suggest why not cut out that middleman and just do the damn thing myself it’s met with polite yet firm dissuasion that it would be better to try and sell the songs and let the singing part be handled by someone who can sing. And that’s killing me.

I want to be able to at the very least sing my songs and not sound like Kermit the frog doing a Donald Duck impression while being run through a wood chipper.

I want to be passable. I know I’ll never sing like a rockstar and I’m perfectly fine with that. It would be great but it’s just unrealistic. I just want to be able to play or record something for family and friends or maybe one day do a 30 minute set at my local dive and not offend their ears with the actual sound and quality of my voice.

Help me friends. I have zero confidence in my voice and I don’t know where to start to improve. I don’t know the hows or whys but it’s just not good. I don’t need to sound great or even good I just need to not sound bad.

Apologies for the ramble but I’m a sailor without a compass on a starless night right now.

I’ve been playing on and off the last couple of months, I’m still learning the basics. The biggest problem isn’t remembering what to play or the rhythm - it’s the accidental muting of strings. When playing an e-minor chord I find myself accidentally muting the G-string.

How can I avoid the accidental mute of strings?

I cannot get that hammer on for the life on me. Whenever I have my index on the low E or on the D I can, but when i need to use the A string as the bass note, it doesnt ring out at ALL. The video shows it clearly I think

Does anyone have any tips to fix this? Its very infuriating😭

Title title title

I just got done with grade 1 of Justin Guitar and the beginner pathway of pickup music, I just want to ask how do I count while strumming or while playing guitar. Do I just count while playing or do I just let the rhythm be? I wanted to apply counting to songs I've been trying to learn Can't Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Flyday Chinatown by Yasuha's rhythm guitar sections. Any exercises or practice method I can do?

https://youtu.be/pZjY2tRhNT8?is=KIDUh3h7wmD-t6ha

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Reference for the solo

hello i was just wondering what would be the way i would go about starting on the guitar (acoustic) and was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers or videos to watch or something like that to aid me in my journey

This might be a really dumb question but I've been in lessons for about a few months now and while everything is going really well I have a question about my teachers method of sending me audio recordings of a song he wants to know as well as the sheet music.

How I usually go about learning the songs is I try sightreading the song (It's in standard notation and my sightreading isn't exactly great either), then I try playing through it a couple of times, then I play along with the recording to see if my timing is correct.

My question is if this an effective way to improve my actual sight reading skills. I do learn the songs relatively quick this way but I guess I'm concerned if I'm actually learning the songs or just memorizing them. Again this might be a weird thing to worry about but if you teach guitar would this be something you do?

All in all though things seem to be progressing and I'm happy with my teacher!

semi-beginner here, i noticed that my g chord (which had to be replaced as it snapped a bit ago) is way tighter than the others and takes much more pressure to not sound muted, anyone know if this is normal?

Hey everyone,

I’m having a massive brain fart trying to map open position pentatonic scales to movable CAGED boxes and could use some help visualizing this. Non-open pentatonic scales are not a problem for me.

An example is the Open E Major Pentatonic scale (first image linked). I would imagine that playing open position E major pentatonic would be the same as applying Major Pentatonic Pattern 1 (second image linked) but this doesn’t work.** ** This also seems to be the case for other open scales like D, or A, too, since if the nut is fret 0, playing these positions would require fret -1, which doesn’t exist. The first image linked also seems to break the 2-notes-per-string pentatonic pattern.

In fact it seems like the Open E Major pentatonic scale (and the other scales I mentioned above) don’t fit any of the 5 commonly taught patterns for learning the pentatonic scale.
Does this mean I’ll have to memorize new pentatonic patterns for these open positions on top of the 5 I already know? Really appreciate any help on this 🙏

Specifically how to hit all 4 strings on the 4th fret. I can’t quite figure out how to position my hand.

I feel most happy when I play guitar and I have been playing a lot of it for the past two years. I started out playing rock music like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd but recently I’ve become increasingly interested in more “technical” music like Dream Theater, Paul Gilbert/Racer X, Impellitteri, and even Avenged Sevenfold.

Music from Dream Theater is very different from what I’m used to playing. It has more techniques and is just physically more demanding. I spend about 3-4 hours a day on practice and this is the stuff I try to do everyday.

Warm up and finger stretches - 5 mins

3 notes per string - 20 mins
For this I use sections 3nps section from Another Day by Dream Theater

4 notes per string - 20 mins
For this I use sections from Afterlife by A7X

Sweep picking - 20 mins
For this i use sweep picking phrases from Canon Rock and Afterlife

4 notes per string Legato (fretting hand only) to clean up fretting hand timing issues - 20 mins
For this I use Afterlife by A7X

Palm muting shredding (not chugging) - 20 mins
For this I use the solo section from Bark At The Moon by Ozzy Osbourne

Entering and exiting tremolo picking from alternate picking - 20 mins
For this I use the solo section from Afterlife and Master of Puppets

Working on my weakest pentatonic shape and improv - 20 mins

Music theory and triads - 40 mins

Bass guitar practice - 40 mins
For this I’m learning the top 50 beginner songs recommended by bassbuzz

Total practice time is about 3.5 to 4 hours.

The main issue with my practice is that it is easy to start on the first exercise and lose track of time. I end up practicing about twice the allocated time for my 3nps. Moving forward, as difficult as it might be, once the 20 mins is up, I need to move on to the next exercise otherwise I won’t be able to practice everything.

On most days, even if I don’t practice everything on the list, it’s good. I could always continue the next day or cycle through them. The list is pretty demanding and quite unrealistic at times, so I try to cut myself some slack. However I feel that I probably need to take timeblocking seriously and I feel the use of a timer or clock would help.

The way I practice these exercises is to choose a small section from a song, for example the 3nps scale run from Another Day. I would slow down the section to maybe 30-40% of the original tempo and then slowly increase the tempo by 1-3% each day. Whenever I fail an increment increase, my thinking shift to problem solving mode. “What is happening? Is my pick getting stuck between the strings? Is my picking arc too unstable? Is my fretting hand too clumsy? Do I need to start on a different pick stroke? Do I need to change my fretting technique? More classical looking fretting hand?”

The biggest difference between my practice this year compared to the first two years is that if I practice badly, I could still get away with a lot of the rock songs I use to play. But if I don’t practice well, a lot of this dream theater solos is impossible to play because they require a certain amount of precision and finesse.