I’m new to guitar, and im taking a class in my school. I recently had a bit of an emotional outburst from frustration from trying to play a C chord, and I’ve decided to seek extra help as a result. Every time I try and play a chord with more than 3 fingers, I end up muting half the strings because I either fat finger it, don’t press down hard enough, or both. How can I fix this? Because my instructor just said “you’ll grow calluses eventually and it won’t hurt as bad” and that’s it

I'm trying to play the theme of The Last of Us on acoustic guitar, but I keep accidentally plucking the wrong strings. Is it beacuse of having no long nails?

I'm self-taught, somewhere beyond beginner but definitely not intermediate. I listen to (and desire to eventually play) heavy metal: mostly thrash, lots of death, some stoner/doom stuff, and even some black metal. As such, of course I jumped all over learning and mastering power chords on the low E and A strings (in standard tuning). Drop D tuning of course is fun too.

But I'm in a bit of a rut. After the usual spider exercises and string skipping warm-ups, I bang out some basic progressions with a few open campfire chords (the usual open string A, C, D, E, F, & G chords, but not B which kicks my ass lol!). I do my best to practice hammer ons and pull-offs.... as well as galloping on the low E.

But most of my time practicing (that devolves into jamming) is a near infinite number of power chords. So. Many. Power chords. Enjoyable for an afterwork stress release, but doesn't provide much in the way of "forward progress" in my guitar playing, I suspect.

TL;DNR: What can I do to get out of my rut / bad habit of my practice sessions always ending up simply being power chord jams, and actually expand on things I should concentrate on to be a better metal guitarist? How can I beef up my practice sessions to challenge myself in a realistic manner?

Thank you and cheers!

I have been playing and practicing for 3 months straight now. Where should I be in terms of skill? I want to know if I am behind or right where I need to be.

Hey guys, i have my first guitar lesson in a couple of hours and im bringing my first act guitar. I feel embarrassed to bring it honestly, but i just started learning so i didnt wanna drop too much money on my first guitar just in case it wasnt for me. Be completely honest, is it embarrassing to bring it? Like should i just not bring one because they have guitars there? im just a little more comfortable with mine yk? any feedback would be appreciated.

Hi I recently got an electric guitar passed onto me and I don't want it go to waste, but I'm a bit unsure where to begin. I've heard the usual "pick a song and start playing" but maybe I'm overthinking things but I'm worried I might not take away a lot from that - like learning how to play it but not really understand most of what's going on, or just pick up bad habits from doing it blind. So I wanted to ask for some pointers first, things to focus on and general advice how to proceed.

Looking for beginner to intermediate melodies that aren’t just scales or solos. Parts of songs that are fun to play and would help improve overall dexterity timing and overall playing. I’ve learned the stairway solo recently but I’m looking for something more in the way of repeatable melodies. Hope that makes sense. Open to any genre- Thanks all

So I’ve recently decided to play way more often with a metronome to get my rhythm playing tighter. I really thought i was doing pretty well until I recorded myself just doing some dead notes to a click. Much worse than I thought! I’m rushing so much and can’t even tell.

I know it takes lots of practice but what can I do to land precisely on the beat consistently? I count the subdivisions in my head, sometimes out loud. Bounce my foot, relax my body etc. do I just need repetition?

I’ve been practicing some of my favorite songs and I would LOVE to try and play Destruction of a Statue by Suicide Silence. Unfortunately, a lot of their songs including this one are played with a 7 string guitar and I don’t have one. The song is in drop A, is there a way I can still play it with only 6 strings?

I was trying to practice scales and found I couldn't find them cleanly anywhere, so decided to ask ChatGPT for some assistance and collated them all into a word document format. I will be printing this in a ring binder.

Also asked it to highlight root notes in parenthesis and to show which notes to omit to make pentatonics.

Link below if it's helpful for anyone

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FfLLyZlT1JCJX1acZ4I-FZ-XBX6f2It8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102152694781950204653&rtpof=true&sd=true

About myself - I can play the drums enough to make myself happy. I actually got good at hand feet coordination after my college, and never played the drums in a band. I played the Congo and Octopad with people.

Now onto my question - I tried learning the Guitar online a few years ago. Back then I found is extremely mechanical - I was trying to get used to all these chords etc, but I never understood WHY did musicians decide a chord works. Also, I felt any tune can technically be played with just one string, why do we need 6.

I thnk the questions I'm asking belong to music theory. I also have always been really into jazz and will want to play jazz music, and I think I need to understand music theory to get a good feeling of jazz?

So yeah, I thnk I should try to understand music theory to make my guitar learning experience better. Are there resources (hopefully books) that can help me?

Edit - I also need to mention that on drums/Congo/cajon, I can often listen to a song and start jamming. I feel it's probably much harder on a guitar, but I want to be able to do that. While I was trying the guitar the last time, I always had to look up a sheet music to play along. I didn't really like that.

If it matters - I'm 29.

I've been playing for 5 years but REALLY ON AND OFF, so mostly i'd say one proper year, One of my biggest struggles right now is getting my picking and fretting hands to stay synchronized, especially when playing faster riffs.

For example, when I'm playing the main riff from War by Burzum, I've noticed that my picking hand sometimes gets ahead of my fretting hand. I'll have already picked a note before my fretting finger has even reached the fret, which obv results in it sounding sloppy as hell

I know the obvious advice is to slow down and gradually increase the tempo with a metronome, and I've been trying to do that. However, I'm wondering if there are any specific exercises or techniques that can help improve synchronization beyond just repeatedly playing riffs at slower tempos.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Hey everyone!

I'm looking for some blues songs by Freddie King, Gary Moore, or Albert King that would be suitable for a beginner to intermediate guitarist.

I'm hoping to find songs that aren't too difficult to learn but are still fun to play and help me improve my blues phrasing, bends, vibrato, and soloing.

Which songs would you recommend, and why? I'd love to hear your suggestions, especially songs that are good for building blues guitar skills without being overwhelmingly difficult.

Thanks!

I have been playing keyboard for 3 years (took lessons, hated it) and guitar for 1.5 (entirely self taught). I think I am pretty good at guitar considering im self taught, but I feel like that might be because I have had keyboard lessons, that supplied me with sufficient general music theory for me to further grasp guitar. there’s a guy in my class, who wants to learn guitar and is asking me if he should do lessons or learn at home. I don’t know what to tell him. I feel like lessons start feeling like a chore sometimes and then you lose your interest. also, in my current school year the academics are difficult and incredibly hard to keep up with, so he will not be able to focus on his lessons if there we exams at school or something. but I cant give him an unbiased opinion, since I knew music theory before I played guitar. so what do you think?

I'm learning about intervals and triads around the neck. I'm practicing playing triads right now, and playing the intervals that ''enclose'' each triad's root. Like I'll play a minor triad and find the flat seventh and second next to the root, the fourth and second next to the flat third, etc.
I'm practicing playing triads along with this song (''Hold on Magnolia'' if it matters.) The song is in the key of E. The chord progression goes I vi iii V IV I IV. Ill play the I chord, then mess around with that chord's root's second and fourth and stuff. Then I'll play the vi chord and do the same. Then I'll play the iii chord, and I'll mess around, but then I hit that chord's root's second, it sounds really weird. I can't make it sound good along with the song. It's an A#, which I know isn't in the key of E, but it is in the key of G# minor, and its G#m's second. Why does the G#m's major second not work over a song in the key of E, even though G#m is in the key of E?

I thought that was what playing with the changes was-- playing the corresponding scale for each chord, because even though some notes might not be in the song's key they'll sound good with the chord and it causes tension and tasty stuff. But this A# never sounds good. Why not? Only playing the A along with the G#m sounds good. Apparently I've really misunderstood what ''playing with the changes'' means. People say that to really advance, you should learn to do more than just play the key's scale over the whole song. So how do I really know which notes are good and bad?

Thanks a lot guys. I didn't really know how to ask this question so I gave a lot of information so that i hope yall can find what im confused about.

Hello guys,

for a bit of context, im studying music production, but found out im in love much more with guitar and to be an instrument. Currently pursuing both. Playing for about 2 years, and played almost everyday so i can already do all the basic stuff, learned some basic rock/blues stuff in guitar classes like hendrix and clapton, then recently i recconected with math rock and i love it. I've been learning tricot songs (for a good example of this style, take this POOL - Tricot ). I've learned some songs of them, i compose stuff that im happy with but aiming for 2h of daily study with the guitar. I play songs, write my stuff but at the end im always unsure of what to study and start getting a bit of anxiety when the time to study comes because i never really know what to do. (Worth to say that i aim to get better technically since its a technical genre)

Would love all the help from the people with some years of guitar behind their back!

Hey y'all, might be a stupid thing to ask, but i noticed that when i start singing while strumming on the guitar, i become way less consistent. I usually manage to stay in time, but i just miss some strums or i do some where i don't mean to. Focusing on the right strumming distracts me from singing again.

I know most guitar advice boils down to "just do it a lot until you suck less" but do you know a method of practicing in a way that makes me better at this? I guess i'm looking for a way of automating my right hand a bit, i dunno if i'm making sense, hopefully you know what i mean.

Thanks in advance!

Does it sometimes seem to you that ear training and theory are things done exclusively by reclusive wizards in hidden enclaves where no one actually plays music? How does this stuff come down to earth and get practical, and maybe even fun, I wonder?

I've been playing since January basically every day. But after jumping around between learning resources and eventually getting a teacher in April, I would say I've made objective progress overall. Am I confident? Fuck no. But I can say with certainty I'm different than I was on day 1, not even able to form an E or A. So I guess that counts for something.

But recently, these past few weeks, it's like nothing I do is working. I don't really know how to explain it in detail. I just don't feel like I'm making any small progress day by day like I was. And I especially hate going to a lesson and looking like I've spent 0 hours on what we discussed, instead of the probably cumulative 3.5-4 hours (by my rough math) I put in. Every single lesson, it's like one step forward and two steps back, not knowing my low E from my B and fucking up every little thing. There's never been a week where I've wowed him, even though he hasn't said I'm getting any worse or that I suck.

I just don't know what else to do. If I stop for a day or two, filling my empty time with whatever else, I'll only just want to come back to the guitar. And yet, I'm legit feeling burnt out and feel like a wuss for feeling that way. Yeah, it's supposed to be fun. I know. But I can't in my head get to the fun part yet for whatever reason, even when I'm trying to tackle songs I like.

Any advice?

in this example i’m looping g minor and c major and playing short phrases with one shape of the g minor pentatonic scale. the main thing to listen for is where each phrase ends, especially when the chord changes.

when the c chord comes around, i’m landing on a c note and letting it ring for a bit. it’s already in the pentatonic shape, so there’s no need to switch scales to follow that change. picking a landing note gives the phrase somewhere to go and helps it connect with the chord underneath.

try it with a simple two-chord loop and just a few notes from a shape you already know. leave some space between phrases so you can hear the chords, then practice ending on the root of whichever chord is playing. keep the phrases short at first and pay attention to how the same note sounds over each chord.

Jazz musicians don’t always think in scales. Wes Montgomery called what he played 'a sound'. This arpeggio is all over famous jazz solos, and it doesn’t come from a scale, but it does give your playing that real jazz tension and energy, and it is surprisingly easy to play and move around.

Hope you like it!

Content:
00:00 The Scale Myth
00:25 How The Arpeggio Changes The Sound.
01:12 The Arpeggio And Where To Use It.
02:20 You've Already Heard The Legends Use It.
05:08 3 Easy Ways To Use The Diminished Arpeggio.
08:45 The 3 Scales Where This Arpeggio Is Found.
11:50 The "Boring" Triads.
12:02 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!