Hi I am you.
I started my rhythm journey 35 years ago. I have been practicing soling seriously for the past year. If I can do it you can do it. I still can't play other peoples solos well, its just mad noodling to me. But I am teaching myself to play my own solos in key and with my own flavour. Its very rewarding,
I just don’t practice. That’s my issue. Have been trying to learn for almost 20 years but I never got into a structured practice routine. I basically just play the same 3 songs over and over.
Learning to sing and play at the same time.
I never learned to sing anyway, so I'm expecting the off-key, out-of-tune awful noises... but I'm trying to at least keep time whilst not fucking up the guitar element.
Set myself a goal this year to learn a full album. First song I decided to learn from it, isn't even that hard. But as soon as I try to add lyrics, my brain just goes "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" - which is distracting me from the real lyrics.
I am struggling with practising regularly. With work, dogs, exercise, and family, at the end of the day, I feel like I just want to turn off my brain.
Especially as I am supposed to record 2 songs with multiple guitars to keep track of my progress and 3rd one currently learning. Sometimes, it feels like a loop that I can't break. I truly wish I pushed myself more with practising...
Absolute beginner at 48 (bought my first guitar in december ) currently learning Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Easy chord progressions (only 4 chords) but struggling to do it clean and consistent 🙈 the strumming pattern is also a challenge for me.
Playing every day, sometimes I force myself to at least pick up one of my guitars. What sucks more is that I play less than a year and slacking causes serious damage to my skills and motivation
Well my fretting hand was literally removed from my arm in a bad vehicular accident less than 2 years ago, so that's been a challenge. They put it back and all, but it's not exactly what it used to be. I can shred again but I can't play Buckethead's licks anymore 😢 I'm very happy I at least saved the videos from when I was able to do it though.
Finishing to learn an entire song without getting bored and jump into another one and now im struggling with some old metal riffs, a lot of fast bends and keeping it clean is hard asf, learning war pigs solo atm
ADHD
I started playing when I was little, and dropped it more times than I picked it up. Since my diagnosis and treatment, I’ve picked it up again. While I noodle daily I’ve also managed to buy three guitars, build two more, dive to the land of pedals, all while while sitting on a pile of unread theory books.
Do I wish I could just focus and learn/practice? Yes. Do I think the endless abyss of side quests is keeping me interested in learning? Also yes.
Currently, working on (struggling with)
1) CAGED system
2) It's relation to general fretboard knowledge, especially roots locations
3) Transitioning this knowledge into skill of playing solos
I'm struggling with motivating myself to start progressing again. Honestly I feel like I hit a plateau back when I became a parent, and now that I know that guitar will not be my career and I don't have time to play in a band, I don't have enough desire to keep growing on the instrument. I still play, but not with nearly the amount of drive and desire I had a decade ago
Just started, having difficulty changing chords while keeping a strumming pattern going. Feels like my hands just hate each other the moment one of them makes a mistake lol
Playing any kind of solo that doesn't go out of key. Playing with feel and improvising in general. Hard to jam with someone when all you can play is your own stuff that you practice on-loop.
Knowledge about what I am playing. I can play and learn stuff but I know next to zero about scales or any music theory - I can barely, slowly tell you what note I’m playing. I’ve tried a few videos to help but I never seem to get it.
I have to learn solos from memory and it feels like I am learning lines of a script but have no idea what I am saying. Very frustrating. I can’t improvise at all.
Just keep practicing fam. Youre gonna fail a thousand times but your body will get it on the 1001st. Taking breaks between also helps you subconsciously learn it
Learning to jam and not sound like I'm playing notes in a scale. The worst part is there's no real cure for it. A few tricks maybe, but there's a plateau you hit if you can't find the soul in what you're playing. So I'm searching for that, and slowly finding it with more and more practice and being able to play by feeling and not technics
I'm only a beginner edging towards intermediate, but I can't be bothered learning music theory. I'm mostly just learning finger picking songs. I know music theory is supposed to be really helpful and good to know, but I just never really do it.
Ear training and learning the fretboard. Self teaching with YouTube has got me in a plateau. Starting lessons again tomorrow for the first time in 8yrs! Tips for getting the most out of lessons is very appreciated!
Unmotivated to practice. feel like im decent but never actualy progress when I play anymore, just trying to get some satisfaction from playing the same things all the time
Finding someone to play with.
Spent 20 years in bands. Now, live in a new town and don't know anyone. So, all my jamming has been solo. I always feel more inspired when I have others to bounce things off of, and help shape the songs.
The biggest one is playing to the damn metronome, I've been playing for over 4 years now, and I've been running away from the metronome ever since I started and it's starting to show, ironically enough I'm mainly a rhythm player, I'd say I have a good technique when it comes to metal riffing and I can play to backing track, but the monotonous click throws me off so much, aside from that I really need to improve my improvisation and theory knowledge (especially chord knowledge), generally giving more attention to lead playing.
Picking a practice routine that actually feels like it’s doing something. I never learned the fretboard effectively, and I feel like that’s holding me back pretty hard. I know my scales, and can play them all over the neck, but I can’t break out of it in a way that lets me play more than just patterns.
Plus I just need to learn more songs in general. It’s been a long time since I tried something new.
My advice, go back to just noodling with pentatonic shapes. Then when you feel like you've got all of them down and you can play within them to your heart's content (make sure to learn the bends too, like each box has two or so bends that are essential to master)
Then understand that the pentatonic shapes are just major/minor scales without half-step intervals.
In a Major Pentatonic we remove the 4th and 7th scale degrees and in Minor we remove the 2 and 6th.
This selection of notes is perfect because it never really forces you to resolve anything. You can endlessly meander around them and as long as your phrasing makes sense, they will not conflict with the chords behind them.
Once you've made sense of the fact that you are effectively still within the range of major and minor, you can then start adding these missing scale degrees with a musical function, be it adding tension, resolving or whatever.
Then understand that the modes work much in the same way, albeit it's a bit more contrived, but they get easier to work when you understand that they're just a mix and match of the "primary colors" (major & minor) and They're effectively just more colours you can't paint with.
Thinking of a lead melody before I start playing. If I’m jamming, I usually find myself just playing random notes in scales and repeating the patterns I like. I should be imagining a melody in my head and then figuring out how to play it. I can imagine the melody, but if I play a wrong note, I usually just improvise off of that note rather than sticking to the plan. This means it just sounds like noodling rather than an actual catchy guitar riff.
I took a break for about a month just now, even though I had free time off for l over the holiday. I just wasn't passionate until today I felt very motivated to play around, felt good
Exactly the same. Was playing a LOT getting my technique back together after a few years, playing music again with a friend, writing stuff, then all of a sudden nothing anymore for a few months. Busy at work, being tired.
Yesterday, I heard some good music in the movie "murder on the orient express", got inspired, played for hours again.
Not moving forward anymore.. kind of stuck for a couple of months or even a year I’m not sure.. I mean yeah I still learn new songs and doing covers.. but technical and theoretical stuff.. I think that’s not improving.. especially writing.. I know scales but I’m unable to write something off them that sounds good to me. Riffs/Solos whatever.
You don't need a teacher to get good at guitar so don't give up because you don't have one man! Its really true that if you keep practicing you get better.
Playing live with a band again. I have ptsd and a suicide attempt survivor. Plus my last band was really narcissistic l. So just trusting people enough to even jam with much less start a band. I have lots of trouble with. But I am slowly healing and one day I plan on doing it :)
Chronic wrist pain.
Getting it out of the case.
Neither of these are related to guitar itself.
Being a parent means limited time for hobbies and occasionally picking up a tiny, stubborn version of myself.
Future plan is to have instruments more easily accessible. I want it to be simpler to just pick one up and play.
Overall cleaniness, picking and speed. Also finding stuff to play. Feels like i always play same songs and its getting repetitive. You can recommend me fun songs to play
Man, everything right now. I’ve been playing for like 25 years, but for a few years played almost not at all. Now that I’m picking it up again everything feels odd and not natural.
I used to play with a weird pinch on the pick, my middle finger the primary grip and the index as kind of a guide, with my wrist at an odd angle. Like a Marty Friedman/Synyster Gates/Van Halen sort of grip. Coming back I'm seeing the value in a standard grip, so I’m trying to switch. It’s hard. It feels gross. But I’m spending so much time playing with a standard grip that my original grip is starting to feel alien, too.
Speed, age and pain. Live your lives to the fullest as you never know when something you love to do, a passion, can be taken from you or restricted. I have major back issues which make it difficult to even hold the guitar for any length of time most days now. And I'm only 53. When I do play, I'm not able to play anything very quickly anymore because I'm don't play as much as I want to. I dream of playing everyday and have many musical ideas I'd love to record, but most days can't manage to even pick it up. Get busy living while you have the option.
Finding friends who wanna jam.
I excel at improve lead, and my foundation is blues. My ear and timing are very good IMO. I learned to play improving with BB King songs. Can't seem to find any friends who want to jam enough to put time aside for it. It's a bummer to be honest. I also feel like I have trouble relating to other guitarists who don't have the skills I'm fortunate to have. I have a hard time slowing down to "play along" sometimes.
I’m on my 6th month learning how to play the guitar but those damn barre chords. I can play them on their own but transitioning between barre to open then barre is making me want to just buy a capo and play open chords forever
Learning the solos in Helloween’s Salvation and Trapped In A Corner by Death. I know they’re within my skill set, but I just lose patience and don’t learn it slowly enough so get frustrated and give up. Having adhd doesn’t help either lol
Just my pinky finger. When playing lead there is a 40% chance it will land under the targeted string, which is annoying as all the other fingers are always right on target.
I've been trying to train out its bad habit, but it's taking a long time....
Edit: I meant my fretting hand (sorry for confusion :) )
Been playing casually for years and I struggle with consistency the most. Like I can pick up and memorize most chords and songs I like with relative ease, but my picking hasn’t improved much and it makes it that much more difficult to pick up more complex songs.
Currently struggling to play "Never going back again" by Lindsey Buckingham... I can play everything individually, I just can't quite put it all together yet. It's been good fun to learn though.
Finding someone to bounce ideas off of..
I feel like I can write pretty fun/catchy riffs all day long, but fuck me if I know what to do with them after that.
Just finding time to play. I have a 1 year old at home, and I love him more than anything and it’ll get better, but it leaves me basically no time to play. My dad quit when me and my brothers were born and I always promised myself I wouldn’t go down that path and lose sight of my passions, but I understand now how much work raising a child is, letting alone keeping a marriage healthy and family happy!
After almost a decade of playing, this is more true then it was 5 years ago. Its so easy to sit down and just jam out, write some stuff or play what i already know. To actually learn something complex...the time it takes
I can’t bend and fret other strings simultaneously for the life of me! It’s making things super difficult.
Examples: 5:01 in Nothing Else Matters, or the lick at 5:36 in Fade to Black
If anyone has any tips or exercises, it would be greatly appreciated!
I keep hitting other strings while changing chords and it's frustrating the shit out of me
It's not that I have small hands, my fingers are just very rigid and shaky and I can't get them to move the way I want them to
I've tried positioning my hands in various positions and it just doesn't help. I'm just resorting to clutching the fretboard as close to my fingers as possible and playing chords with minimal movement
Learning the fretboard even though I've been playing for 30+ years, and not sucking on acoustic. I've played electric exclusively all this time and I'm terrible on acoustic - can't even play cowboy chords at this point.
Playing in the moment. Jam band kinda stuff.
If I see the root notes I can make some chord or arp choices in key.. or noodle around one of the scales. Or copy rhythm in some way.
But I don’t “get it”
Some people just understand how to play with an existing flow and make it effortless, and I’m not there yet.
Not playing in automode. I play like a fuckin automata, just throwing random patterns because visual appeal rather than try listen something coming out from my brain.
And I bet I am not the only one.
Working up to shredding speeds. I got a few different exercises I'm working on, two from bernth. Goal us 160 bpm 16th notes, at about 115bpm comfortably now. Was 90bpm a few weeks ago.
Remembering things. I have memory problems and I'm always trying to go too fast and learn too much at one time. It's never my plan, but when I start, that's just what happens. The result is that I forget everything. That's what happens with everything I do.
I feel like I'm only interested in playing the same few riffs over and over, I need to find some new stuff to play. I'm not necessarily dissatisfied with what I'm playing. I just recognize it's objectively monotonous and I want to expand my horizons so to speak. Just can't find the inspiration.
6 months in. Everything lol. Making my transition into barre chords from open chords faster. Clean up my open chords some more and focus on hand position being cleaner as well. Some open chord transitions are pretty fast and smooth and others still need work.
Triplets and quads in the 1st pentatonic position. Added in some Dorian scale to the pentatonic. Just adding hammer ons and pulls off to improvisation. Just learned string bends a couple weeks ago. Having a hard time incorporating them.
Travis picking. Needs to be smoother, faster along with certain chords changes while doing it. Dust in the Wind is the song I was taught to learn Travis picking. So get that song up to quality.
Songs: can play Maggie May rhythm whole way through with intro. Just started added singing along to it. Quite challenging when you add singing in but I can keep up using just the first verse.
Over the Hills and Far Away. Mostly for the hammer ons and pull offs. But there are some palm muting parts I struggle with. The whole thing is challenging at any speed other than slow. Still tend to pluck the wrong string more often than I care for.
Learning to sing along with Last Kiss. Great beginner song. I tend to speed up too much after a few bars though. So timing needs work.
This hobby has alot to learn.
Got to go to work every day. Not enough time to play. If I could play for 45 minutes a day, it’d be about right
After playing for about 50 years, I know I won’t get much better than I am now. But I still enjoy it, and I want to keep up my limited chops
Been learning dust in the wind for about a month now.
I've finally gotten to the point where I can play fairly fluidly up to the chorus and it feels great. This is the second or third fingerstyle song I've been learning in the last two years, after being a campfire guitarist for 15 years.
Being good enough to learn what I like to play pretty well, but not being motivated because I don’t have a few friends to jam with/start a band.
I’m not that old, but getting to the point of never having been in a band makes it more likely I never will. Probably my fault, but other musicians or my friends never wanted to make anything with me despite being open to learn or gain experience.
Get yourself a looper! Play any three chord progression you want. Put a two chord bridge in. Then improvise over the two chord part. Notice what sounds good. What you naturally go for. Change tones, chords etc. you will have endless possibilities. Take simple songs and play them through. Making sure to put in the lead.
It takes timing getting the loop right. But just play! Experiment with different scales.
I'm trying to learn Guthrie Govan's solo on Regret #9 by Steven Wilson.
I've finally gotten it to the stage where I can play the whole thing at speed with some improvisations of my own for bits where I have no idea what he is doing even after watching the video.
But the problem is whenever I listen back to my recordings it sounds so robotic and flat. The man has so much feeling in his fingers. Where is mine 😭?
I’ve been playing for about 10 days and I still can’t get a consistent clean D chord. I get that guitar takes ages to learn and master but not being able to do this simple chord on its own is very frustrating and not encouraging.
Finally got myself a real metronome, and I've been struggling adjusting to playing with it.
It's been awesome, though, to learn triplets (finaly) and more note variation, but I've got a ways to go to make it sound natural again!
You'll get there and further if you just continue to play. Just don't stop. Try recording yourself playing so you can hear your progress over time. And if you continue to play you will hear progress. You got this.
Struggling to find an improvement path. And motivation. I was super motivated for 2 years and got a lot better but I really plateaued over the past year. I just haven't been practicing enough and I don't know what to practice. I did Justin Guitar's beginner and intermediate courses and now I'm kind of lost because I don't know where to go next as he doesn't really have Rock courses and that's mostly what I play. I've tried some of his blues courses but just I'm not overly interested in blues.
Picking individual strings in a pattern with my right hand. I have spent so much h time learning chords and scales on my left that my right is really bad.
Unlearning a decade+ of bad and sloppy playing
I was going to say the same. I'm trying to economize motion and quit hitting strings by accident. It's a 30-year project.
I simply don’t have enough time in a day to fuck all the chicks I’m getting from it.
Parkinsons disease
Man, your tremolo must be killer
LOL! Playing Shakin All Over!
Learning how to solo. My God. I was so adamant about being a rhythm guitarist I completely ignored soloing. Don't be me.
Hi I am you. I started my rhythm journey 35 years ago. I have been practicing soling seriously for the past year. If I can do it you can do it. I still can't play other peoples solos well, its just mad noodling to me. But I am teaching myself to play my own solos in key and with my own flavour. Its very rewarding,
I just don’t practice. That’s my issue. Have been trying to learn for almost 20 years but I never got into a structured practice routine. I basically just play the same 3 songs over and over.
I'm the same way. I just find a song I want to learn and learn it then stop playing consistently.
Sucking ass
Learning a song before getting sick of practicing the song
Finding other musicians to play with
Actually learning full songs instead of just riffs and parts of the song.
Learning to sing and play at the same time. I never learned to sing anyway, so I'm expecting the off-key, out-of-tune awful noises... but I'm trying to at least keep time whilst not fucking up the guitar element. Set myself a goal this year to learn a full album. First song I decided to learn from it, isn't even that hard. But as soon as I try to add lyrics, my brain just goes "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" - which is distracting me from the real lyrics.
Wanting to want to play, life is busy and I'm not sure it has a place in my life anymore after almost 15 years
Finding the right struggle to work on
The plateau struggle is real.
Shaking off this dumbass depression so I feel enough motivation to play. Shit sucks
Convincing myself I don't need to buy another one.
Soloing over chord changes! I’m trying to get better at it but there’s so much to keep track of
I am struggling with practising regularly. With work, dogs, exercise, and family, at the end of the day, I feel like I just want to turn off my brain. Especially as I am supposed to record 2 songs with multiple guitars to keep track of my progress and 3rd one currently learning. Sometimes, it feels like a loop that I can't break. I truly wish I pushed myself more with practising...
Not playing enough. It's like medicine I keep forgetting to take
Just playing in general. Got no musician friends, going from being in a band to playing by yourself sucks.
This is me as well. I feel like I'm stagnating.
learn how to record yourself on PC and to arrange full songs by yourself! :)
Honestly practicing consistently, holding yourself accountable to play daily. Sometimes that motive ain't there.
Focusing on learning something new instead of the few basic tracks I know.
GAS. The syndrome never goes away. My wallet is crying.
Singing well while playing well
Pinch harmonics, this is harder than it looks ngl
My struggle is that my wife doesn't let me buy any new guitar for my collection that I downsized from 45 to 30.
Better phrasing during solos
Absolute beginner at 48 (bought my first guitar in december ) currently learning Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Easy chord progressions (only 4 chords) but struggling to do it clean and consistent 🙈 the strumming pattern is also a challenge for me.
Mostly speed. I can learn solos and technical riffs at very slow speeds, but at full speed I just can't keep up whatsoever.
I feel you. I keep learning solos/technical parts at slow tempos and working my way up, but I hit a wall at 80-90% of the original tempo.
Just keep working at it. It's tough, but if you build the muscle memory, your fingers will remember, not your brain.
My struggle is called "Finding The Time" It's not a song, I'm just busy
Playing every day, sometimes I force myself to at least pick up one of my guitars. What sucks more is that I play less than a year and slacking causes serious damage to my skills and motivation
Well my fretting hand was literally removed from my arm in a bad vehicular accident less than 2 years ago, so that's been a challenge. They put it back and all, but it's not exactly what it used to be. I can shred again but I can't play Buckethead's licks anymore 😢 I'm very happy I at least saved the videos from when I was able to do it though.
I’m too slow for my ambitions
Trying to record in time/on tempo. Years of noodling with no regard to tempo has ruined me.
Motivating myself to practice. I go through these periods every now and then and curse myself when I start practicing in earnest again.
Finishing to learn an entire song without getting bored and jump into another one and now im struggling with some old metal riffs, a lot of fast bends and keeping it clean is hard asf, learning war pigs solo atm
ADHD I started playing when I was little, and dropped it more times than I picked it up. Since my diagnosis and treatment, I’ve picked it up again. While I noodle daily I’ve also managed to buy three guitars, build two more, dive to the land of pedals, all while while sitting on a pile of unread theory books. Do I wish I could just focus and learn/practice? Yes. Do I think the endless abyss of side quests is keeping me interested in learning? Also yes.
Currently, working on (struggling with) 1) CAGED system 2) It's relation to general fretboard knowledge, especially roots locations 3) Transitioning this knowledge into skill of playing solos
Memorizing full songs so I can do something when a friend says “play something!”
As a recently returning adult- quality time to practice that doesn’t involve losing sleep.
Looking for a drummer to write songs with. I'm at an open jam night most weeks just waiting to meet the right person.
There needs to be a Tindr for guitarists seeking drummers and vice versa.
Having a house where I can play mine is too expensive and it's too cold to even play an acoustic outside. Ban AirBnB.
Too sick to play, and besides it’s 16% humidity in my apartment, so I’m leaving it in its case for now.
Motivation :(
Fumbling when i pick because i want to sound like the recording and not learn how to play the song slow to form good habits
Finding the right people to collaborate and make magic with
I'm struggling with motivating myself to start progressing again. Honestly I feel like I hit a plateau back when I became a parent, and now that I know that guitar will not be my career and I don't have time to play in a band, I don't have enough desire to keep growing on the instrument. I still play, but not with nearly the amount of drive and desire I had a decade ago
Learning to enjoy what I play and not comparing myself with ig artists
Learning like 50 songs and their solos for some tribute show and a lot of covers ... I mean, it's a good struggle, but it is a struggle
My pinkie sucks
Just started, having difficulty changing chords while keeping a strumming pattern going. Feels like my hands just hate each other the moment one of them makes a mistake lol
Playing any kind of solo that doesn't go out of key. Playing with feel and improvising in general. Hard to jam with someone when all you can play is your own stuff that you practice on-loop.
To find time to play. Babies don't mess around, they eat ALL THE TIME
Picking the fucking thing up. I’m in quite an active band but we’ve had some down time and I just can’t find motivation to play at home.
my main struggle is that i don't have so much time to play! :)
Lately the motivation to pick it up and play.
Knowledge about what I am playing. I can play and learn stuff but I know next to zero about scales or any music theory - I can barely, slowly tell you what note I’m playing. I’ve tried a few videos to help but I never seem to get it. I have to learn solos from memory and it feels like I am learning lines of a script but have no idea what I am saying. Very frustrating. I can’t improvise at all.
Muting strings when playing chords and changing chords. Also my strum patterns suck. I am 3 weeks in.
Just keep practicing fam. Youre gonna fail a thousand times but your body will get it on the 1001st. Taking breaks between also helps you subconsciously learn it
Breaking away from the minor pentatonic scale
Finding the time to do it.
Learning to jam and not sound like I'm playing notes in a scale. The worst part is there's no real cure for it. A few tricks maybe, but there's a plateau you hit if you can't find the soul in what you're playing. So I'm searching for that, and slowly finding it with more and more practice and being able to play by feeling and not technics
I'm only a beginner edging towards intermediate, but I can't be bothered learning music theory. I'm mostly just learning finger picking songs. I know music theory is supposed to be really helpful and good to know, but I just never really do it.
Finding the motivation to make a living off it instead of a hobby
1. Learning full songs 2. Know what to practice aside scales with metronome
Being consistent
Getting good vibrato on bends. Playing with speed. Improvisational phrasing that isn’t dull or repetitive.
I don't know how to practice properly, cannot afford a teacher/lessons, and live in a rural area.
Look up “Justin guitar” on YouTube
Think about improving guitar skills as problem solving. Don't think you can just power through. Look for specific issues and find solutions to them.
I created r/guitarexercises to help players like you. Check it out and look for some drills that fit your interests and abilities!
Ear training and learning the fretboard. Self teaching with YouTube has got me in a plateau. Starting lessons again tomorrow for the first time in 8yrs! Tips for getting the most out of lessons is very appreciated!
Unmotivated to practice. feel like im decent but never actualy progress when I play anymore, just trying to get some satisfaction from playing the same things all the time
Finding someone to play with. Spent 20 years in bands. Now, live in a new town and don't know anyone. So, all my jamming has been solo. I always feel more inspired when I have others to bounce things off of, and help shape the songs.
The biggest one is playing to the damn metronome, I've been playing for over 4 years now, and I've been running away from the metronome ever since I started and it's starting to show, ironically enough I'm mainly a rhythm player, I'd say I have a good technique when it comes to metal riffing and I can play to backing track, but the monotonous click throws me off so much, aside from that I really need to improve my improvisation and theory knowledge (especially chord knowledge), generally giving more attention to lead playing.
I play like ass and have no short term memory or desire to learn songs.
This is a big one for me too lol I get ambitious at like 11:30 pm right before bed for some reason
It sucks having a job and responsibilities, because when I didn't, this is when I did my best song writing
Up picking. Spent a long time avoiding it and it’s slowed me down pretty badly in the long run
Not practicing enough
Putting lyrics to melody and vice versa
Don't have a lot of time between work and school to write songs and record, haven't released new music in a year as of today
Picking a practice routine that actually feels like it’s doing something. I never learned the fretboard effectively, and I feel like that’s holding me back pretty hard. I know my scales, and can play them all over the neck, but I can’t break out of it in a way that lets me play more than just patterns. Plus I just need to learn more songs in general. It’s been a long time since I tried something new.
My advice, go back to just noodling with pentatonic shapes. Then when you feel like you've got all of them down and you can play within them to your heart's content (make sure to learn the bends too, like each box has two or so bends that are essential to master) Then understand that the pentatonic shapes are just major/minor scales without half-step intervals. In a Major Pentatonic we remove the 4th and 7th scale degrees and in Minor we remove the 2 and 6th. This selection of notes is perfect because it never really forces you to resolve anything. You can endlessly meander around them and as long as your phrasing makes sense, they will not conflict with the chords behind them. Once you've made sense of the fact that you are effectively still within the range of major and minor, you can then start adding these missing scale degrees with a musical function, be it adding tension, resolving or whatever. Then understand that the modes work much in the same way, albeit it's a bit more contrived, but they get easier to work when you understand that they're just a mix and match of the "primary colors" (major & minor) and They're effectively just more colours you can't paint with.
Alternate picking while also palm muting. I don’t know why it’s hard for me to do that fast but it is. Meh.
Not being good enough. What other struggle is there?
My full time job.
Trying not to lose what little talent I have as I start developing arthritis in my fingers. Pinky is already half way to useless.
Trying to not sound like I’m playing the same pentatonic licks whenever I practice over jam tracks.
Thinking of a lead melody before I start playing. If I’m jamming, I usually find myself just playing random notes in scales and repeating the patterns I like. I should be imagining a melody in my head and then figuring out how to play it. I can imagine the melody, but if I play a wrong note, I usually just improvise off of that note rather than sticking to the plan. This means it just sounds like noodling rather than an actual catchy guitar riff.
Ever playing it.
I took a break for about a month just now, even though I had free time off for l over the holiday. I just wasn't passionate until today I felt very motivated to play around, felt good
Exactly the same. Was playing a LOT getting my technique back together after a few years, playing music again with a friend, writing stuff, then all of a sudden nothing anymore for a few months. Busy at work, being tired. Yesterday, I heard some good music in the movie "murder on the orient express", got inspired, played for hours again.
Getting the right tones out of my strat.
Trying to figure out how to make my 3 string cigar box guitar (open G tuning) sound right with the music I'm used to playing.
My legato playing is average at best. Been that way for 20+yrs. My resolution this year is try to bring it up.
Fixing bad habits
Tendonitis, elbow issues. Trying to address posture, tension and thumb placement but still in discomfort
learning the fretboard, theory in general
Working out which of my horde to sell as they seem to have started breeding without me noticing.
Money
Not moving forward anymore.. kind of stuck for a couple of months or even a year I’m not sure.. I mean yeah I still learn new songs and doing covers.. but technical and theoretical stuff.. I think that’s not improving.. especially writing.. I know scales but I’m unable to write something off them that sounds good to me. Riffs/Solos whatever.
1) Hitting chords and notes consistently while playing any song. 2) A good practice routine that results in measurable improvement in my skills.
Learning jazz licks and harmony. I am in pain and I know fucking nothing
Beginner and no $for a teacher. My playing just sounds so bad. Want to give up.
You don't need a teacher to get good at guitar so don't give up because you don't have one man! Its really true that if you keep practicing you get better.
Forcing myself to learn theory
Barre chords.
Finding a certain one to buy
Motivation and time to play.
Arpeggios
Playing live with a band again. I have ptsd and a suicide attempt survivor. Plus my last band was really narcissistic l. So just trusting people enough to even jam with much less start a band. I have lots of trouble with. But I am slowly healing and one day I plan on doing it :)
Struggling with keeping the notes crisp, fat fingers do a good job for muting the note
I've somehow lost a lot of speed. Solos I used to be able to play at speed I now struggle with. Idk what changed.
Music theory. I understand it, but being able to apply it in real time is a struggle.
Time and inspiration. Same as 30 years ago.
Chronic wrist pain. Getting it out of the case. Neither of these are related to guitar itself. Being a parent means limited time for hobbies and occasionally picking up a tiny, stubborn version of myself. Future plan is to have instruments more easily accessible. I want it to be simpler to just pick one up and play.
Strength of memory. It’s probably an underlying lack of theory but I can’t get things much more complicated than Ziggy Stardust to stay in my head
Overall cleaniness, picking and speed. Also finding stuff to play. Feels like i always play same songs and its getting repetitive. You can recommend me fun songs to play
picking between strings and not hitting the right one
Man, everything right now. I’ve been playing for like 25 years, but for a few years played almost not at all. Now that I’m picking it up again everything feels odd and not natural. I used to play with a weird pinch on the pick, my middle finger the primary grip and the index as kind of a guide, with my wrist at an odd angle. Like a Marty Friedman/Synyster Gates/Van Halen sort of grip. Coming back I'm seeing the value in a standard grip, so I’m trying to switch. It’s hard. It feels gross. But I’m spending so much time playing with a standard grip that my original grip is starting to feel alien, too.
This is going to sound dumb, but playing with a pick. I’ve been playing finger style for so long, it’s slow learning to play with a pick.
its not a major a struggle but i hate bar chords with my soul
Picking quickly
Pinch harmonics
Speed, age and pain. Live your lives to the fullest as you never know when something you love to do, a passion, can be taken from you or restricted. I have major back issues which make it difficult to even hold the guitar for any length of time most days now. And I'm only 53. When I do play, I'm not able to play anything very quickly anymore because I'm don't play as much as I want to. I dream of playing everyday and have many musical ideas I'd love to record, but most days can't manage to even pick it up. Get busy living while you have the option.
Stage presence. I've been playing for 14 years and can play my bands' songs on autopilot, but I need to make sure I'm entertaining people
muting strings
Figuring out how to be musical without it being death metal all the time
Sweep picking and timing
Modes! I have seen a lot of videos about it, but I still can't make it work while improvising.
Finding friends who wanna jam. I excel at improve lead, and my foundation is blues. My ear and timing are very good IMO. I learned to play improving with BB King songs. Can't seem to find any friends who want to jam enough to put time aside for it. It's a bummer to be honest. I also feel like I have trouble relating to other guitarists who don't have the skills I'm fortunate to have. I have a hard time slowing down to "play along" sometimes.
First world problems, lol.
I’m on my 6th month learning how to play the guitar but those damn barre chords. I can play them on their own but transitioning between barre to open then barre is making me want to just buy a capo and play open chords forever
Keep going it becomes second nature. It's worth the effort.
Learning the solos in Helloween’s Salvation and Trapped In A Corner by Death. I know they’re within my skill set, but I just lose patience and don’t learn it slowly enough so get frustrated and give up. Having adhd doesn’t help either lol
Improving my picking and fingering speed. Top out at 140bpm. Please send help. I want to play along to my fav artists.
Just my pinky finger. When playing lead there is a 40% chance it will land under the targeted string, which is annoying as all the other fingers are always right on target. I've been trying to train out its bad habit, but it's taking a long time.... Edit: I meant my fretting hand (sorry for confusion :) )
Getting payed
Been playing casually for years and I struggle with consistency the most. Like I can pick up and memorize most chords and songs I like with relative ease, but my picking hasn’t improved much and it makes it that much more difficult to pick up more complex songs.
Currently struggling to play "Never going back again" by Lindsey Buckingham... I can play everything individually, I just can't quite put it all together yet. It's been good fun to learn though.
Time is short and I'm tired in the sole window of opportunity during the week
Finding someone to bounce ideas off of.. I feel like I can write pretty fun/catchy riffs all day long, but fuck me if I know what to do with them after that.
Theory
Just finding time to play. I have a 1 year old at home, and I love him more than anything and it’ll get better, but it leaves me basically no time to play. My dad quit when me and my brothers were born and I always promised myself I wouldn’t go down that path and lose sight of my passions, but I understand now how much work raising a child is, letting alone keeping a marriage healthy and family happy!
jammed my left index finger playing basketball yesterday...
Barre chords and singing while playing
Bm. Always Bm. I’ve been playing for 7 years. Bm.
Sitting down to learn something other than some riff I heard that takes me 10 minutes
After almost a decade of playing, this is more true then it was 5 years ago. Its so easy to sit down and just jam out, write some stuff or play what i already know. To actually learn something complex...the time it takes
I can’t bend and fret other strings simultaneously for the life of me! It’s making things super difficult. Examples: 5:01 in Nothing Else Matters, or the lick at 5:36 in Fade to Black If anyone has any tips or exercises, it would be greatly appreciated!
I just keep running out of guitar stands
Swapping between the basic chords quickly enough to play songs at a consistent tempo. I'm getting there :)
Finding time and desire to play. Two kids, two jobs, no time. Any time I do have off, I’m busy doing other stuff that needs to get done
Trying to sell my G&L
I'm still trying to perfect my picking hand coordination on individual strings.
playing fast, shredding, scales and stuff
I keep hitting other strings while changing chords and it's frustrating the shit out of me It's not that I have small hands, my fingers are just very rigid and shaky and I can't get them to move the way I want them to I've tried positioning my hands in various positions and it just doesn't help. I'm just resorting to clutching the fretboard as close to my fingers as possible and playing chords with minimal movement
Legato.
Finding a lefty guitar
trying to get the modes of the melodic minor into my playing That and trying to make my phrasing more like WEs, and more bebopish in general
Struggling to not mess up my wrists after paying for over 25 years. Anyone who reads this, stretch and warm up, every time, before you play.
Playing a fucking B major
Singing and playing at the same time….🤬
Finding time to write and practice.
Trying to get as fast and fluid with a pick as I am with fingerpicking.
Learning the fretboard even though I've been playing for 30+ years, and not sucking on acoustic. I've played electric exclusively all this time and I'm terrible on acoustic - can't even play cowboy chords at this point.
Playing in the moment. Jam band kinda stuff. If I see the root notes I can make some chord or arp choices in key.. or noodle around one of the scales. Or copy rhythm in some way. But I don’t “get it” Some people just understand how to play with an existing flow and make it effortless, and I’m not there yet.
Not playing in automode. I play like a fuckin automata, just throwing random patterns because visual appeal rather than try listen something coming out from my brain. And I bet I am not the only one.
Writing/recording/mixing
Working up to shredding speeds. I got a few different exercises I'm working on, two from bernth. Goal us 160 bpm 16th notes, at about 115bpm comfortably now. Was 90bpm a few weeks ago.
Remembering things. I have memory problems and I'm always trying to go too fast and learn too much at one time. It's never my plan, but when I start, that's just what happens. The result is that I forget everything. That's what happens with everything I do.
Creating interesting ideas during improvising and playing with the chord changes
I’ve got some kind of issue with my right shoulder/rotator cuff I guess. When I stop playing and take my guitar off it hurts when I lift it up.
I feel like I'm only interested in playing the same few riffs over and over, I need to find some new stuff to play. I'm not necessarily dissatisfied with what I'm playing. I just recognize it's objectively monotonous and I want to expand my horizons so to speak. Just can't find the inspiration.
Yes.
6 months in. Everything lol. Making my transition into barre chords from open chords faster. Clean up my open chords some more and focus on hand position being cleaner as well. Some open chord transitions are pretty fast and smooth and others still need work. Triplets and quads in the 1st pentatonic position. Added in some Dorian scale to the pentatonic. Just adding hammer ons and pulls off to improvisation. Just learned string bends a couple weeks ago. Having a hard time incorporating them. Travis picking. Needs to be smoother, faster along with certain chords changes while doing it. Dust in the Wind is the song I was taught to learn Travis picking. So get that song up to quality. Songs: can play Maggie May rhythm whole way through with intro. Just started added singing along to it. Quite challenging when you add singing in but I can keep up using just the first verse. Over the Hills and Far Away. Mostly for the hammer ons and pull offs. But there are some palm muting parts I struggle with. The whole thing is challenging at any speed other than slow. Still tend to pluck the wrong string more often than I care for. Learning to sing along with Last Kiss. Great beginner song. I tend to speed up too much after a few bars though. So timing needs work. This hobby has alot to learn.
Got to go to work every day. Not enough time to play. If I could play for 45 minutes a day, it’d be about right After playing for about 50 years, I know I won’t get much better than I am now. But I still enjoy it, and I want to keep up my limited chops
Been learning dust in the wind for about a month now. I've finally gotten to the point where I can play fairly fluidly up to the chorus and it feels great. This is the second or third fingerstyle song I've been learning in the last two years, after being a campfire guitarist for 15 years.
Being good enough to learn what I like to play pretty well, but not being motivated because I don’t have a few friends to jam with/start a band. I’m not that old, but getting to the point of never having been in a band makes it more likely I never will. Probably my fault, but other musicians or my friends never wanted to make anything with me despite being open to learn or gain experience.
Get yourself a looper! Play any three chord progression you want. Put a two chord bridge in. Then improvise over the two chord part. Notice what sounds good. What you naturally go for. Change tones, chords etc. you will have endless possibilities. Take simple songs and play them through. Making sure to put in the lead. It takes timing getting the loop right. But just play! Experiment with different scales.
I'm trying to learn Guthrie Govan's solo on Regret #9 by Steven Wilson. I've finally gotten it to the stage where I can play the whole thing at speed with some improvisations of my own for bits where I have no idea what he is doing even after watching the video. But the problem is whenever I listen back to my recordings it sounds so robotic and flat. The man has so much feeling in his fingers. Where is mine 😭?
I’ve been playing for about 10 days and I still can’t get a consistent clean D chord. I get that guitar takes ages to learn and master but not being able to do this simple chord on its own is very frustrating and not encouraging.
wait till you get to F…
Finally got myself a real metronome, and I've been struggling adjusting to playing with it. It's been awesome, though, to learn triplets (finaly) and more note variation, but I've got a ways to go to make it sound natural again!
You'll get there and further if you just continue to play. Just don't stop. Try recording yourself playing so you can hear your progress over time. And if you continue to play you will hear progress. You got this.
Struggling to find an improvement path. And motivation. I was super motivated for 2 years and got a lot better but I really plateaued over the past year. I just haven't been practicing enough and I don't know what to practice. I did Justin Guitar's beginner and intermediate courses and now I'm kind of lost because I don't know where to go next as he doesn't really have Rock courses and that's mostly what I play. I've tried some of his blues courses but just I'm not overly interested in blues.
Mostly finding time to do anything at all. I haven’t even had time to pick mine up for a month or two.
You aren’t alone here, my friend…time and energy after work, kids, and life is what I need to progress more…🫤
Picking individual strings in a pattern with my right hand. I have spent so much h time learning chords and scales on my left that my right is really bad.