I have had a guitar for 10 years now and during that time I also had guitar lessons for like two years. The problem is that my teacher was some old blues playing dude who just gave me shitty pop songs I did not want to play.
In those 10 years, I hardly ever practiced; maybe two or three times I sat down for one hour to learn a specific song, but most of the time I fool around not getting anywhere.
I am at a point where I technically know a lot of different stuff (when no guitar is around I could pass as a decent guitarist in a conversation), but my play is horribly imprecise, my timing shit, and my dexterity nonexistent.
How do I get out of this?
I cannot afford guitar lessons at the moment and would need a clear structure to systematically work on my problems.
Has anyone been through this? Do you know any good youtube channels that provide good videos that step by step move from the very basics up? That way I could start with things I no but get the details right.
tl;dr never practiced, now stuck as a crappy guitar player - what do?
I have a little practice amp, a nice Takamine western guitar and an Epiphone Dot (pic related).
If you have bad habits, break those bad habits then practice more.
>>63513451
You need to do those "sit down to learn a song" more often. That's it
>the problem is
You didn't start playing classical guitar and weren't diligent.
>>63513496
But how to break them
>>63513537
Yeah, so what do I do about it?
>>63513549
Learn from various youtubers, try to find out if you have any bad habits then force yourself mentally to not do those bad habits. for example a bad habit would be something like not curling your fingers enough when doing a chord or not giving the proper amount of pressure to the fret board. learn what you're doing wrong and then do it right and practice and practice. set goals for yourself. even try learning really easy songs first. the first song i ever learned was played only on 1 string
>>63513573
Good points made I guess. It is hard to motivate myself though, at times I get almost depressed when I look how much time I wasted, also I lack the gratification that I used to get from playing easier songs.
Any song recommendations though?
And thanks btw, I appreciate you people spelling out the obvious
>>63513549
Grab a nylon string guitar and call up a teacher, your local college shoul have one around, they usually also teach lessons off campus.
You'll learn how theory works along the way too, so composing becomes a less of a chore, or at least makes it so you know why something sounds good.
literally practicing
>>63513597
I feel that I am way to far down the road to go back to a point like that, I have a pretty clear image of what I don't enjoy playing, finger picking stuff on nylon strings is one of the things. You reckon there is another way to get unstuck?
>>63513589
from your profile picture i'm assuming you are playing electric guitar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap2oXTQBSfk
This was the first song i ever learned, literally played on 1 string. Anything by this band is pretty simple and not too hard to play
The strokes album "is this it" is not that hard to play either. Some of them can be a bit tricky, but most of them are pretty straight forward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42xCKFk-c2s
This guys videos are really straight forward and helpful. if you have trouble you can slow down the speed to 0.5 and watch closely to what he does
>>63513618
>profile picture
i meant just picture not sure why i typed that
>>63513626
Don't worry, I know what you meant. Thanks a lot for the two songs, I just set myself the goal to master them for the sake of it. Especially the Strokes are perfect, I really like their stuff.
>>63513639
you don't have to be a master of the song in one night either. take your time if you have to take a break so you don't get burnt out. even some easy songs can take a bit of repetition to remember all the way through.
Yeah I've felt that way before. The thing is there's no right or wrong way to practice. The people that are really good at playing go there because they loved playing so much it is all they would do. So to get to that level you have to love playing. You can't fake it. You either do or you don't.
Thats another thing is to try to have fun with it. don't get mad if you mess up one little tiny note just try to go with the flow and have fun with it. it will get to a point where you can be confident and it will make your playing better
>>63513660
i feel if you're getting stumped with a song you're trying to learn, it can be helpful to leave it and come back to it the next day, so, i agree, definitely don't burn yourself trying to learn a song in a day
>>63513451
>The problem is that my teacher was some old blues playing dude who just gave me shitty pop songs I did not want to play.
The problem was you
Pick up a different instrument and come back
When I started playing guitar I had no concept of rhythm. Like when people would say I had no rhythm I had no idea what in the fuck I was doing wrong. Eventually I figured it out by practicing simple songs. Then I started practices songs in guitar pro with the built in metronome. It's an extremely long process but it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll.
>>63513734
My problem in the last years was that there was always too much flow and not enough work though.
>>63513750
The only reason why I am still crap is of course myself. But independently of that, guitar lessons should not be
>"Hey there, how was your week? Today I have something new for you."
>*hands over sheet with chords for "It's my life" by Bon Jovi*
>"It's a nice song and you should already know the chords"
>*proceeds to play and sing the song while I kind of join in with the chords I know*
Should I have said something more often? Could I have asked him to help me improve my technique? Yeah I guess, but very soon I was caught in this standard procedure of going there, sitting through 30 minutes of that and just leaving again.
>>63513809
I actually had really good rhythm in the beginning and when someone else is fucking the tempo up, I always notice. Even worse that I can't keep the tempo anymore...
What's your experience with guitar pro? That's downloadable software, right? Is it worth it?
>>63513952
I downloaded the pirated version from a torrent. But it has a lot of different features like you can set the tempo to whatever speed you want or you can set it to where to it gradually speeds up. There's loads of different ways to practice with it.
>>63513995
sweet, I will check that out, thanks!
I think if I find something like that it can keep me motivated for a bit and as soon as I actually get better, playing will be more fun again I guess.
The first time I played guitar I figured out Tornado of Souls in about 10 minutes.
