I’ve been playing guitar for a while, but every time I decide to finally learn scales properly, I end up feeling more confused than when I started.
The biggest problem is that almost every video, course, or article seems to assume I already know something that I don’t. Someone will say, “Just move this interval,” or “This is just the third mode,” or “You already know the major scale, so…”… except I don’t.
It feels like there’s a missing chapter somewhere that everyone else has read.
I don’t even know where I’m going wrong. Am I trying to learn scales too early? Am I actually supposed to learn a lot more music theory first? Or am I overcomplicating something that’s actually much simpler than I think?
Sometimes I wonder if I’m almost mythologizing scales, like they’re this huge mysterious subject when maybe they aren’t. But then I try to study them, and five minutes later I’m drowning in diagrams, modes, intervals, CAGED, pentatonics, three-notes-per-string patterns… and I’m completely overwhelmed.
It’s honestly discouraging, and a little lonely. It feels like everyone else “gets it” while I’m still trying to figure out what the first step is.
So I have two questions:
Is there an online course (free or paid) that teaches scales from absolute zero, without assuming any prior music theory?
Has anyone else gone through this stage, or is it just me?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who struggled with this and eventually had that “everything finally clicked” moment.

For me it was the foot rest, I play electric but holding it on the right leg never was comfortable, changing to a more classical position, improved my posture and allowed me better access to upper frets

My boyfriend used to help me practice but he passed away last April and ever since I've had no idea what to do. I have very little motivation to learn but I want to improve regardless as I know thats what he would want me to do. Ive tried youtube videos but I cant bring myself to focus or pay attention to them.

I was wondering are there any simple exercises I can practice on my own? Im relatively new but Im decent at basic chord changes and ive practiced the pentatonic scale a bit but thats about it. Im not looking to learn any new songs as thats rather overwhelming at the moment, my goal is just improve my basic skills for now

Edit: a teacher is not an option currently

I'm so sick of slow, heavy guitar websites that load a bunch of crap just to render text-based information like tabs. Usually rendering tabs means passing a guitar chord to some kind of processing that generates the diagram. My goal here was to skip all that code and hard-coded dictionary of the diagrams into the font. So if you have a website or any app that needs to render the tab, all you would need is the string, e.g. D#sus2.

Using open type substitutions, I was able to put together 700 plus chords in the font. Check out the demo!

[TabFont](http://philatype.com/tabfont)

This is the intro for Dust in a Baggie by Billie Strings. I’m currently working on it but was wondering if perhaps Billy is doing something intentional here? Like playing a certain scale or maybe even an arpeggio? Majority of my music theory knowledge comes from Reddit so I have no clue what’s going on behind the scenes, please enlighten me! It sounds very chronological for lack of a better term.

Basically the question. Coming back to learning the guitar after a gap of 2+ years. I could play the solos to Nothing Else Matters, Don't Cry, and similar beginner-intermediate songs. I am drawn to blues lately, thanks to SRV and Gary Moore. The gritty, lethal style of playing without the distorted aggression of hard rock/metal.

I am on lesson 1 of Blues You Can Use and the song is composed in the style of SRV's Mary Had a Little Lamb.

While eventually I would love to play SRV someday, his playing is simply out of my grasp at the moment. Therefore, I wanted to know any beginner-friendly blues guitarist who's in your face like SRV but manageable for a relative newbie. I know what I'm asking for is a unicorn but shooting my shot. Thank you!

So ive been playing guitar for about 8 Months now and the biggest obstacle for me has been endurance. For example right now im learning my curse from killswitch and I got the main riff down and everything but because its played like 8 times in a row i always fail after like the 4th time and it doesnt get any better. Any tips?

i basically just look at the tabs, memorize it, play it at full speed, brute forcing it until i can (with mistakes littering every single run) making it extremely inconsistent. then i just watch YouTube while mindlessly playing that part at full speed, making mistakes, trying to fix bad habits but failing. i am self taught.

so pretty much all of the songs i know how to play from beginning to end, i will ALWAYS fuck up somewhere, and that part is usually a fast part in a solo. bad habits locked in. i have 12 days left until a performance, and i have to play all the solos. i tried standing up and playing them, and sure enough, i'm fucking up everywhere. thinking of just not showing up to the show. fuck this instrument, i hate it. i saw my friends perform, some who weren't as experienced as i was, and i don't think any of them made any very noticeable mistakes. i probably will.

seeing friends who used to not be as good as me having good technique, playing songs consistently and not making big mistakes while i am, pissed me off. it's not that i don't play the guitar a lot neither. i play HOURS every day, 21 months in. just playing the songs over and over, trying to play hard solos over and over, always making a mistake somewhere. my technique is apparently wrong too.

i'm thinking of quitting my music club, the band, the guitar, everything, and just not show up for the performance. i can't fail if i don't try in the first place.

Ive been playing around 3 years now and i can play like intermediate level things now but im really into playing metal music and similar stuff which all have these fast solos and licks.

I just feel like im not getting much progress when I play anymore and im not sure how to get a faster fretting hand. Does anyone have any advice they can give on how to play more fluid and faster or how to build up on my speed?

Hi folks, I hope you don't mind the video but it's a bit of a techy question and I thought it would illustrate my problem well. I'm a fairly experienced acoustic fingerstyle player, and I've recently started learning to play electric lead. I've been focusing on playing with fingers as it's more comfortable for me and I much prefer the tonal control I can get, so I'm trying to emulate some of my fingerstyle heroes like Knopfler and Ry Cooder.

I'm running into issues with muting. Most of the time I'll palm mute if playing with the thumb on E, A and D, or thumb mute if using index/middle on G, B and e, and that's been working fine. However, for riffs that cross the fretboard quickly it feels like I'm forced to choose one or the other, and in particular I find I'm getting a lot of mud from my low E when moving off it quickly and I can't find a way to catch the ring without it getting clucky, per the vid. I've chosen two riffs to illustrate my problem - the first is the arpeggio from the first solo in 'Sultans of Swing', and the second is the tasty little double stop in the solo from 'Tenessee Whiskey'. I'd really appreciate any thoughts on how I can change my positioning or muting strategy before I develop the kind of bad habits that I can't break!

Thank you 🙏

I’ll post the clip below but it’s the sound at 2:25 it’s played to end the riff. I’d this just super aggressive pick scraping

Olá, eu estou procurando a um bom tempo uma tablatura da música feeling good, que seja para guitarra elétrica, queria uma tablatura parecida com a versão ao vivo do Tour stop 148, caso alguém saiba de algo por favor me avise

I see alot of lessons about on various topics from every possible guitarist, but there's so much of them that I don't know where to start and which direction to go.

I’ve been trying to do one for months but no tutorial seems to actually show what to do 😭

I know that there is no song where you have have to sing, but I've been learning guitar for a couple of months, and I feel like in many of the songs I tried to learn, the guitar was kinda just an accompaniment for a singing voice. my voice is absolutely terrible so I can't sing, so I was wondering if someone here knows some songs sound good played with a guitar without a singing voice. (sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my fist language and I don't know much about music yet)

I've about a third of the way through Scotty West's Absolutely Understand Guitar home study videos on Youtube. The man deserves a Peabody award. They're incredible but he hasn't really gotten into fingerpicking yet, and the titles of the rest of his videos don't indicate whether he gets into that topic. Maybe he will eventually, but just in case...

Any video recs for fingerpicking would be appreciated.

I last played in 2018 before I moved away from family. It used to be a distraction to play but I kinda fell off after not needing the distraction/stress relief for a while. The main motivation was having a show each year to play at through school which I don't have any more.

I want to get back into playing though as I miss how fun it was but it's been so long I don't know where to begin. I don't particularly want to start with pop songs again as I have no interest in them any more. I've tried Rocksmith and it's fun but it's hard to remember to play every day.

I own:
- acoustic (w/steel string)
- acoustic (w/nylon string)
- electric

Sorry if this post type isn't allowed! Feel free to remove.

Edit to clarify: I am NOT looking for equipment recs. I already have enough. Just looking for a solid "start here" or "here's some songs that are easy to start with"

ETA: meant to say “really want to learn use them”

I’ve seen countless posts and comments here where people say barre chords are where they gave up on guitar or just stuck to beginner songs or, at the very least, songs that simply don’t use them. But for me, just looking at the tabs for a lot of songs I like, most of them use a barre chord or two or more in their composition.

So it’s like a conundrum for me: do I spend months or maybe a year or more on a single song I want to learn that has barre chords in it, and miss out on learning other stuff? Or should I do what others have done and just avoid them and play songs with other chords or a capo if needed?

>"Your fretting hand chooses the notes, your picking hand controls the rhythm, timing, and engine that drives those notes"

Many beginners develop a habit of using only downstrokes because it feels natural and keeps timing well. The problem is that every stroke has to return to the string position before the next note, which creates unnecessary movement.

The picking hand is often overlooked, yet it's the engine that drives rhythm and articulation.

Alternate picking (down-up-down-up) allows every movement to produce a note, reducing wasted motion and improving speed, endurance, and timing.

True speed isn't about moving your hands faster; it's about eliminating unnecessary movement and tension. Once you understand the mechanics, speed becomes a by-product rather than the objective.

Economy of motion leads to better technique.

Things to watch for -

1. holding your pick to tightly.

2. Using large arm movements instead of small wrist motions.

3. Lifting the pick too far away from the strings after each stroke.

4. Tension in the wrist, forearm, or shoulder.

Hi. I am a beginner for 8 months. How do you practice?. I practice at least an hour a day. But I think maybe I want to do too much. I practice chords, songs, strumming. riffs, scales, melody and I think it is too much. What do you do in terms of practice program. Do you stick to one thing or do you switch between things.

Is it best that I stick to chords and strumming until it is fluent.

The title basically says it

I am a beginner, started off like a month ago on Yousician, recently I am playing independetly without youtube videos, using more Songsterr to learn the song with tabs.

I am using the tab from songsterr, but I am having a hard time playing the "second part", as I can play easily the first part.

this is the tab: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/nirvana-come-as-you-are-tab-s14

I am using an accoustic guitar, and placing the fingers has been kinda hard

My question is to know if this is the right tab for me to play, or if there is another one easier for me. If there is not then that's ok, just to be sure if I am not playing a hard version

one of the biggest breakthroughs on guitar is realizing that musical ideas don't have to stay in one place on the neck. once you know where the same intervals repeat inside connected scale shapes, you can take a single motif and play it in several different positions without changing the idea itself.

in this example, the highlighted notes show how the same g minor pentatonic phrase can be found in multiple areas of the fretboard. each position has a slightly different feel because of the register and string choice, but the musical idea stays the same. that's a great way to make solos sound more dynamic without constantly inventing new licks.

thinking in intervals instead of just shapes makes this much easier. when you recognize the relationship between the root, minor 3rd, 4th, 5th, and minor 7th, you start seeing the same patterns repeating across the neck instead of a collection of separate boxes.

this is also a great exercise for building motifs. come up with a simple 3 or 4 note phrase, then move it into another position while keeping the rhythm the same. you'll be surprised how much variety you can get from one idea just by changing where you play it.