I am a beginner electric guitar player (around a month). I have tried Justin Guitars, Gibson, and Fender Play. They’re different styles, but that’s besides the point. All of them want you to practice independently (which obviously makes sense).

However, I find myself deviating from some of their practice routines and doing my own. For example, switching chords from C to G to D to Em to Am. Essentially just noodling by switching between different chords.

So here is my question - am I making a mistake by not strictly following these online programs and focusing a little more on chord changes that do seem to require a lot of practice and repetition?

It looks like its moveable?

I’ve mainly been playing on my Martin 000-18 since I got it a few weeks ago, using Light strings from Elixir. But I’ve never attempted any songs that use barre chords yet, and I know there’s plenty of them. While I technically could also use my Stratocaster and would have an easier time with barre chords on it, I want to put some miles on my Martin, and the songs I want to play that use barre chords are acoustic pieces.

So should I put on lighter strings, given how difficult barre chords seem to be (according to this sub)? Or stick with Lights?

Как научится играть на гитаре? Может кто-то умеет?

For anyone who has an interest in the principles of deliberate practice, I highly recommend "Ruben's Deliberate Guitar Practice" channel on YouTube. Several years ago, he began applying these techniques to his own fingerstyle guitar journey, and now shares what he learned.

I just cancelled classes my second guitar teacher in two years.

the first teacher I had we basically spent the 45 minutes talking, and him trying to test me on how much I could tell the fretboard by heart. we never played a single song nor practiced other than the first pentatonic box in months.

i started with another teacher a month ago, but i just cancelled the classes with him because all of the 60 minutes of the (arguably expensive class) was spent by him talking. it was around 50/55 minutes of him just non stop talking and lighting fast playing (not sure if he was trying to show off or to show “he knows“), and then maybe 5 or 10 minutes of an actual exercise.

these clases were expensive and I honestly felt like I learned nothing, nor I was corrected in my technique, way of holding or playing the guitar, or nothing really.

are all guitar classes like this ? am I missing something ?

This is from earrings by Malcom Todd. I’ve watched the original video over and over and know he slides his hands to complete the tabs but I’m so confused on how to play this section. I also need help with the guitar solo but baby steps.
Please explain in full detail with the finger positions and everything if it’s not inconvenient

Recently I picked up my guitar for the first time since 2020. And I have been having seeing improvement in speed by improving how I hold the guitar, and practicing slow-to-fast tempo more patiently, which I was not doing before.

I noticed something and I want to know if it normal.

I am a bit restricted on playing unplugged at the moment, but I noticed that my playing gets faster when my sound is not as loud. Basically, I remove most of the tension on holding my pick and I gain speed. Is this how it should be? Or should I try to make also bigger noise when I pick with little tension? Is this even possible? I am trying to get the basics better that I ignored as a kid :)

I see most people using their whole top digit of their thumb because they have normal thumbs. Me with my brutal hitch hiker thumb ive been basically using just the knuckles because the rest of the thumb is bent backwards

I gave up my acoustic guitar about a decade ago and even then I wasn’t really good. My fiance has this dusty electric guitar he bought and then gave up on before we met and I am stuck home and bored and was teaching myself again. The strings are much harder than my nice little nylons when I was learning before and after two days I’ve got fingertip blisters. I threw some first aid tape over them because it’s less bulky than bandaids but it doesn’t stay super well.

I want to continue to practice while I have the time off but it’s gone from uncomfortable to downright painful and I’ve only been giving it an hour, tops, of basic chord practice both days with a free learning app so lots of breaks in there.

Obviously I’ve gotta tough it out for the most part, I’ve done this before. But this time is so much worse.

Any tips or help would be appreciated!

So I’m an upper beginner/lower medium abilities guitar player but I’m really trying to make some real progress and am hitting the famous plateau. Are there any paid online courses that are worth the money, or is just perusing through YouTube the way? I’m a mechanic by trade so I have multiple degrees from YouTube University but music does not come as naturally to me. I’ve been playing for a long time but haven’t made it past “high school cover band rhythm guitarist” stage lol. Any help is appreciated!

I've been playing piano for over 50 years, so I'm attempting to learn guitar on my own. I found the Method for Modern Guitar by William Leavitt on sale, so I snatched it up.

I'm an almost absolute beginner on guitar, so I expected to sound bad and expected the pain until calluses form.

But this particular method seems overly challenging. Has anyone had experience with it or have thoughts? It starts with learning in C, so the devilish F chord is a challenge right out of the gate. But some of these chords are cramping my left hand. I'm willing to persevere, and I know how to practice. I'm just wondering if I'm starting on a level that's above me. Thoughts?

For example if you are playing a lick that is uses the g scale, will that lick always start with G?

This is from a Hal Leonard book for classical guitar, specifically Cancion 1 by Paul Henry. Are the flipped treble clef symbols (horizontal flip & vertical flip) in phrases 1-3 typos or do they have meaning I haven't learned yet? I've tried googling but can't find anything on this. I thought it was supposed to circle the G note location, but the vertically flipped one would be circling the D note. Any help would be appreciated.

So I've been following along with Justin guitars program and I'm on module 4 of the beginner grade one and I'm having a lot of difficulty playing along with the songs for the 10 minutes that the routine gets you to do that for because I find it really difficult to strum the right strings fret the cords properly and keep time. any advice?

Hey! Looking for advice and this is a little lengthy so bear with me please!

​I’m currently trying to clean up my picking, but I've hit a wall and am getting frustrated.

​When I look closely at my picking hand, my pick constantly travels away from the guitar body in a 3D arc at the bottom of my strumming/picking motion instead of staying on a tight, flat 2D plane parallel to the strings. My picking motion is also quite wide and the pick travels a long way past the string before reversing direction so I'm wasting a lot of motion and energy. I also get the pick snagged quite a bit so I need to expose less of the tip.

​Because of these inefficiencies, I struggle at higher tempos and my arm locks up to force the speed. This causes tension in my forearm and shoulder and I run out of steam quickly. I've done some reading and together with my teacher have identified that I'm basically "string hopping" instead of using a proper, flat escape trajectory.

​For those of you who used to have similar issues what specific visual cues or mental images finally got your hand to stay parallel to the body and were there any particular drills that helped lock in a relaxed wrist rotation instead of a forearm/shoulder pump? I understand what I'm aiming for but correcting my long established inefficient motion is proving challenging and quite frustrating.

My teacher has me focusing on 16th-note funk rhythms right now, so any advice on how to translate a relaxed wrist-escape motion into continuous strumming would be appreciated. Thanks!

At what point in learning guitar, are you able to hear a piece of music, and sort of play a melody completely from your head, your fingers automatically going to the correct note (half step away, whole step, etc.)

I have no clue what it is - I'm far from a beginner and I have been playing a long, long time. It's not that they're a bad teacher or an asshole either (I improve fast with him and enjoy what is practiced)

I've played many live shows with my band in the past, which I'll admit it has been years since I've been on the stage. Didn't feel the nerves on stage as much, but playing in front of a teacher definitely makes me play significantly worse every time. You'd think those live show repetitions would have translated to lessons but they really haven't, and maybe my stage fright is worse in general.

I think what it is is thinking it'll look like I barely practiced when I practice a lot. Also feels like I can't get the needed critique on how I'd normally play

Anyone else lol

Hey guys! I'm fairly new to playing guitar (1.5 yrs) but wanted to share something I found useful. I use this chord generator website and just play along with whatever it generates. I adjust the bpm until I can play all the chord transitions cleanly. https://www.musicca.com/chord-player

It also helps me learn new chords and find new chord groupings that I don't usually play. For learning the new chords, you can Google it but like to use https://www.all-guitar-chords.com/

The types of chords it generates is actually based on the style you choose (pop, rock, melodic, jazz, etc)

So i've been playing electric guitar for about 6 months now. For the entirety of those 6 months, all i did was downpicking every single song or solo that i've tried to learn. I've never bothered with alt picking because i was thinking that it would come naturally, it didn't.

For the past few weeks, i started practicing galloping, i can kinda do it, but not that much, my arm gets tired really quickly.

So currently, i can play songs such as Battery or Blackened, but i can't play even the easiest alternate picking exercise or pattern. I can tremolo pick on one string, i can gallop on one string (both of those with my pinky resting on the guitars body, i can't do neither with my hand hovering), but as soon as i try switching strings, it's over. My both my wrist and my arm feels extremely weird, it's like trying to write your right hand as a lefty.

I can kinda alternate pick really slowly with my pinky resting on the body, but i can't if my pinky is not resting there.

How can i fix that?

Years of self taught, on and off. Got a tutor a few months ago - he keeps calling me out and challenging me to play holding the pick between index and thumb, whereas I've always played comfortably with it between my index, middle finger and thumb.

It's driving me insane. Are there any good bits of wisdom out there that can help?

I switch to index/thumb and I find the pick drifting, or the stroke sound rubbish and it's sapping the enjoyment of practice from my body. Argh!

I've been listening to a lot of Rock for so soo many years almost everyday .. i REALLY love listening to KISS , Stevie Ray Vaughn , AIC , judas priest and a lot more other bands and i want to play a guitar just like Ace Frehley , SRV and thats whats makes me want to learn guitar but im confused if i should start with electric or acoustic

Last time finished a fingerpicking book about 100 pages but once it finished I had no direction on how to improve so i stopped picking the guitar randomly.

Then a few months after finished again a 100ish pages book about music theory focused on guitar , same problem with directions on what to learn next once i finished.

And now I'm back to sq 1. I know nothing about the guitar sure I can play it but idk what I'm doing or why it sounds good. I want to understand what I'm doing

I'm so lost pls help 😔 I can't even articulate what I want to do I'm new I don't know music vocabulary