Saying Hi! Asking for help for a frustrated guitarist

[urkel-os]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and to guitar! I've been playing about a year and a half, and I've logged about 150 hours with my guitar. So I don't play all too often, and I have a pretty busy life going to school, but I still try to practice as much as I can. Recently (past few months), I've been getting more and more frustrated with my abilities on guitar. I feel I perform very poorly. For instance, I don't even know how to play a single full song on guitar. I mean I can barely strum open chords along with the beat of a song. I've tried to practice changing chords, but my practice doesn't ever seem to improve my skills.

I also practice a lot of scales and exercises, and I try to concentrate on what I'm weakest at. Recently I've been practicing getting my bends in tune because I feel I'm lagging behind compared to the rest of my skills. I try to avoid playing easy material and try to challenge myself with material that I don't play well. I play very slowly and stress accuracy over speed when I practice, but sometimes I can't even keep up with a metronome set at 40bpm. Progress is so slow that it always seems as if I am not making any at all. I just feel like I should be much farther ahead of where I am after this full year.

I've been self taught using video series online this whole time (I don't know if that's the source of all my problems?). I recently contacted an instructor in my area who has been teaching for quite some time and I hope he can relieve some of my frustrations and improve my playing. But in the meantime, do any of you have any suggestions? Am I not practicing enough? Do all musicians go through this? Am I where I should be?

Oh for an example of what I can play, look at the Minor Pentatonics Phrasing Lesson 2. I can play the solo at the end cleanly at around 55bpm. That's after around 1 hour of practicing it. If that's the skill level I should be at, then lemme know and I'll be happy. If I'm behind or ahead lemme know that too!

Sorry for the rant, and thanks for any advice!

[Mark Wein]

Frustration is normal....at least it can be for me. One thing that you have to do to succeed on the instrument is learn to manage frustration.

The best way for me is to play music I enjoy, which I think brings me to something that you should think about. From your post it sounds like you work on things that you feel will make you a better guitarist, but you don't work as much on the music that probably inspired you to play in the first place. Try learning a few simple songs in their entirety...and just play music for fun. Don't worry about improving your skills...just jam a little. If you have any friends who play get together with them and try to jam a few tunes. You will be amazed at how you will improve (or learn what it is you really need to work on to improve) just by playing some music and not spending all of your time on the instrument practicing.

I know this sounds funny coming from me (since I am all about structure and regular practice) but it really seems like the thing you are missing from you muscial life is the simple joy of just playing some music... :)

Hopefully the teacher you are starting with will also help you with this and also finding where your actual weaknesses are so you can focus on that material.....let me know how it goes! Maybe I can set you up with some stuff to get you rolling....

[urkel-os]

hi Mark!

Thanks for the advice. Getting back to just playing songs was a lot of fun and now I'm excited to go back to guitar exercises. I like rock and metal music but I don't mind playing any kind of music on guitar. So playing a lot of power chords and strumming to some acoustic rock reminded me of why I picked up the guitar.

I never really got in touch with that teacher, because school picked up and I've been really busy. I might try again (we just finished our first test today) to contact him. but in the meantime I had some questions about practicing.

I feel somewhat embarassed saying this, but my goal with guitar is to become an excellent solo guitarist. I want to be able to shred songs by my favorite band (metallica...more embarassing), but also to play solos by bands like Led Zeppelin. I feel like practicing exercises and scales is the best way to go, but my practice seems to be getting less productive. I can only play up and down scales so many times before they get monotonous. And when I try to play solos I have a lot of trouble moving around the fretboard quickly and skipping strings.

Plus I can never get up to speed with most solos--they are usually either too easy or too hard for me to play. I can't seem to find solo pieces that are challenging but playable; usually I just end up playing very fast solos at a quarter speed.

Do you have any lessons that may help with soloing techniques? Do you think I'm going in the right direction as a guitarist? I mean I want to learn to play rhythm guitar, but I feel like that is relatively easy in most rock songs (a few power chords or whatnot).

Thanks for the help!

[BluezOldy]

... I feel somewhat embarassed saying this, but my goal with guitar is to become an excellent solo guitarist. I want to be able to shred songs by my favorite band (metallica...more embarassing)...


Urkel, speaking of pros, embarrassment & Metallica in the same sentence, you might find this video interesting:

http://www.iguitarworld.com/2008/07/02/kirk-hammet-embarassing-blunder/

[Mark Wein]

hi Mark!

Thanks for the advice. Getting back to just playing songs was a lot of fun and now I'm excited to go back to guitar exercises. I like rock and metal music but I don't mind playing any kind of music on guitar. So playing a lot of power chords and strumming to some acoustic rock reminded me of why I picked up the guitar.

I never really got in touch with that teacher, because school picked up and I've been really busy. I might try again (we just finished our first test today) to contact him. but in the meantime I had some questions about practicing.

I feel somewhat embarassed saying this, but my goal with guitar is to become an excellent solo guitarist. I want to be able to shred songs by my favorite band (metallica...more embarassing), but also to play solos by bands like Led Zeppelin. I feel like practicing exercises and scales is the best way to go, but my practice seems to be getting less productive. I can only play up and down scales so many times before they get monotonous. And when I try to play solos I have a lot of trouble moving around the fretboard quickly and skipping strings.

Plus I can never get up to speed with most solos--they are usually either too easy or too hard for me to play. I can't seem to find solo pieces that are challenging but playable; usually I just end up playing very fast solos at a quarter speed.

Do you have any lessons that may help with soloing techniques? Do you think I'm going in the right direction as a guitarist? I mean I want to learn to play rhythm guitar, but I feel like that is relatively easy in most rock songs (a few power chords or whatnot).

Thanks for the help!


Have you tried any of the "practice etudes" in the technique section of my site? What is nice about them is that you can work them out at a slow tempo and then gradually bring the speed up, and they aren't just scales...you actually are playing a single note piece of music...I actually wrote them (and might write another book on the subject) to help keep my interest up when I was practicing.

Direction-wise with your practicing you are doing OK,. although if you were one of my students I would end up having you also go through the Ross Bolton "Funk Guitar book:

http://www.amazon.com/Funk-Guitar-Essential-Private-Lessons/dp/0634011685/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221526447&sr=8-2

The rhythm guitar skills you learn will greatly improve your lead guitar skills....

The most important thing I think it to keep in a direction that makes you happy...you will figure out what your weaknesses are and adjust your path accordingly if you really want to improve!

[urkel-os]

Hey Mark,

Thanks for the advice again. I haven't even picked up my dusty guitar in the last month because I've been so busy studying. So I'm gonna try to get back into it with an hour a day (or maybe half and hour! haha). I'll go through your video lessons on this site. I've been using a few of them, but maybe I'll try to master them all by Christmas break. I'm probably shooting too high, but better aim high than low! If you have any interesting tidbits or lessons, post em here and I'll look for them.

And I found that metallca video interesting. I don't know if it was staged or not, but it was funny either way!

I'll be around,

Urkel

[Mark Wein]

Cool! Its good to see you back, even for a little bit smi

Let me know if you need a hand when you gte back to working the lessons...