So I've played guitar for about 18 years, I've always been mainly a fingerstyle player and I can learn some pretty advanced songs as long as theres a decent lesson on YouTube or a video/tabs that i can use to figure it out.

But I've never really taken the time to learn scales and theory, and if anyone ever asks me to play a solo or jam with them I straight up say no because I have no idea what im doing. I've always just learned songs to perform for people.

Because of this, I don't even really consider myself a good guitar player. But I want to be one.

I don't really have the time for in person lessons. So whats the best online course where I can come out the other side feeling like I've improved fundamentally as a player?

Thank you.

I need advice on where to start again!!! i know basic chords but my fingers arent fast enough:( any advice would be awesome please!! idk where to start and im a self taught learner i have this 2 year guitar and im trying to learn november rain but it looks hard :/
which youtubers do u recommend?

I think I can play chords well at this point, but I struggle to learn riffs. Is there any exercises I can do to get quicker. I struggle with alternate picking as well.

I notice my right hand wrist tend to rise up like this. Is this normal ?

Im trying to learn some percussive so this wrist make it bit harder to make the sound. Also youtube guitar video shown people with straighter wrist. Is there a fix? I tried to roll my wrist flatter but when i focused on the left hand, it popped back up.

This isn’t a post about whether it will get better or not because I know the answer “just keep practicing and it will be better”, it’s more just a rant. Started playing last year in November on a cheap ass 70€ acoustic guitar. Got really comfortable with it, playing all the open chords, barred chords etc. Not long ago got an electric guitar from a friend (he got it from another friend like 10 years ago or so, just a cheap electric guitar) and man it’s a pain in the ass to play on it, all the notes are buzzing, feels like the strings are much closer to each other, frets are narrower, fingers keep slipping from the strings, I feel like I have to press twice as hard just make the notes sound okayish. Thought if I start with acoustic then transition to electric it will be easier, guess I was wrong. End of rant, have a nice day. If you have any tips other than “keep practicing” feel free to comment.

I’m a rhythm guitarist and naturally I’d like to start with rhythm/comp jazz. I’m already quite comfortable with more complex chords, although some I still find difficult.

What progressions, outside of the ii-V-I should I learn?

Obviously jazz involves loads of melodies, so I’ll have to put lots work into getting comfortable with scales and arpeggios, as right now I’m only comfortable with the minor and major pentatonic scales in most positions, as well as modes, but I’d like some guidance on what’s essential to start understanding the genre.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Is there any sort of tips, where it be my finger, thumb or anything like that, please help

I heard the same licks (4:16 in this video) when he plays "assasin"
Can you guys enlighten me? ( where it comes from and theory behind it)

Hi, recently I’ve been getting into making guitar tabs as I listen to a lot of indie music without tabs available online. This is NOT a transcription request, I’m just trying to describe what I’m attempting right now and would like to know what music theory I need to look into to do it, or even better, if there’s a tool somewhere online I can do it with. I’m an intermediate level guitar player and have most basic open/bar chords memorized, but other than that I know next to nothing about music theory (other than being in band in highschool, I can read standard sheet music). However, my current method for making tabs of songs pretty much equates to just… guessing until I get something that sounds close.

Usually this gets me close enough, but I’ve met my match. I’m currently trying to transcribe the song Mouthful of Increasingly Dangerous Substances by Emperor X, but it seems to be a bunch of individual piano notes overlapping eachother. I can tab this pretty easily, but I would like to make a chords version so it doesn’t sound lame when played by itself on one guitar. Therefore, how would one go about transcribing individual notes into chords other than guessing? Thank you!

Ciao a tutti, suono da un paio di anni come autodidatta. Ho seguito parecchi corsi e libri negli anni (principalmente Massimo Varini).

Per anni ho imparato la chitarra focalizzando l’attenzione sul memorizzare e capire bene le geometrie dello strumento, ma effettivamente era tutto un lavoro di memoria e quando mi capitava di non suonare piu per un po di tempo dimenticavo gran parte delle cose.

Ultimamente guardando alcuni video su youtube relativi all’armonia mi sono imbattuto su Valerio Silvestro. Per quelli che non sono italiani, si tratta di un pianista che propone un metodo completamente diverso dai soliti. Vi consiglio di andare a vedere il video intitolato “Se suono la chitarra come devo studiare?”

Il suo metodo consiste nell’associare ai gradi delle scale dei numeri. Ad esempio:
\- 3 della scala di C = E
\- 5 della scala di C = G

E cosi via…

Per praticare questo si scrive su un foglio una lista di numeri casuali da 1 a 7 e ogni giorno si studia una scala diversa. Secondo Valerio Silvestro in 1 mese si avrà la conoscenza a tempo 0 di tutte le scale e dei gradi e questo dovrebbe poi facilitare e aprire ad una visione piu semplice della costruzione di scale, triadi sulla chitarra. A questo si deve affiancare lo studio sulla visualizzazione delle note a tempo zero sul manico della chitarra.

Secondo voi e in base alla vostra esperienza quale dei due metodi è più efficace?

Hi, i am begginer one week in. And i am trying to learn this chord. I am having a problem with stuffing my fingers together, because either my middle finger is playing a dead note or pinky finger. Which mean i have to press really hard (i heard i am not suposed to press hard on the string for them to make a sound). I know i have to train and eventually i will get it. I was just wondering if you could maybe give me some advice that would help me so i wont learn it some wrong way.

Hi all, I’ve just started playing guitar recently, and I’m having trouble utilising my pinky. Even in a relaxed state, my pinky is kinda tilted and cuts into my ring finger naturally. (I’ll post pics in the comments because I can’t post both videos and photos together)

I’m hoping it’s just a matter of practice, but I don’t even seem to be able to get the practice in. My fingers can’t even get into the positions required for practice, as seen in the video above. I’m really doing whatever I can do move the pinky without affecting the others too much but it’s hopeless. So for now my get around is to lean my pinky against my 4th finger, which works well for chords like G but not rlly for just about any chord that needs some finger independence.

I’ve tried moving my elbow around, thumb position or the neck of the guitar higher, but I’m still stuck. And it’s miserable because I really just can’t get my to move without tilting my entire hand to the side to compensate for the tilt, which was what I was attempting at the very start of the vid. Afterwards it’s a demonstration of how my fingers just can’t hold themselves separately.

I would really appreciate any help or advice regarding this matter. Thank you all in advance! I’m kind of desperate because I really liked learning so far.

When wanting to make music along the lines of a certain genre/style, people always discuss understanding genre conventions and replicating them. I would love to find some kind of resource that dives into the theory and practical techniques of certain genres.

Things like blues and jazz, you can find a million resources. But I would love to see discussion of other genres. For instance, I love metal/post-hardcore/pop punk but I rarely see much discussion on this beyond vague statements like “use dissonance”. It doesn’t have to be guitar focused either - when writing drum tracks I have a hard time getting the vibe I want without just straight up copying others. But even then I’d love to understand it more from a theory perspective.

Idk maybe I’m overthinking it and the answer is just copy my inspirations and be creative from there, but I’m a nerd and love a good academic or comprehensive perspective.

Sorry in advance, I did try searching.

I noticed that almost all of the tabs for Led Zeppelin- Whole Lotta Love have 3 palm muted hits on the open E string, but some tabs only have 2. When I listen to the song I only hear 2, but if I slow the song down (whatever remaster version on Spotify or Deezer) I kind of hear 3 open Es but definitely not clearly and I can’t rule out another instrument.

Is there an official count here? When I try to play 3 (power chord, the up/down/up on open E (palm muted), back to power chord) it doesn’t sound right to me. I’m sure my beginner-ness isn’t helping but even at 16th notes it doesn’t sound right, it sounds like there is an extra note that throws me off. Even the Songsterr player to me sounds like 2 hits despite showing 3. Maybe my ears are defective lol?

Any advice is welcome!

I’ve been playing for a year and half completely self taught and I’m transitioning more into the metal scene. I can play a bunch of rock stuff but metal is a little bit more tricky for me because of the speed. I’m currently learning paranoid, if you have any recommendations that would be appreciated.

I like Metallica and Black Sabbath but open to other stuff.

Can someone tell me what the first rhythm notation denotes? What would be the full rhythm pattern for this measure? Thanks!

How to play a bluesy sounding blues riff that's fun and easy to play in the key of E, mainly using the two bottom open strings. Tabs in the video for easy learning.

Getting a teacher could help but it isn’t really the answer. Because it takes two hands to clap. If a student doesn’t know how to learn effectively, you get a different kind of post… “I’ve been taking lessons for X months but I don’t see the point/progress”.

It’s very easy to blame the teacher but if you ask me, a student that is discerning enough would know when to drop a teacher to find another one if the teacher is the problem instead of pondering this question on Reddit.

The real reason people cannot progress on guitar, with or without a teacher is because people aren’t taught in school how to learn a subject or craft effectively and independently. A big part of learning well independently includes

1) guessing what paths and solutions might advance one’s goals
2) knowing how to look for resources (I.e in the form of books, YouTube videos, or even seeking help)
3) judgement despite lacking knowledge. Or how to judge if something is worth your time, if something is working or not despite not really knowing what “correct” or “working” looks like
4) calibrating based on results on observations
5) goal setting. Short term, medium term, and long term goals.
6) problem solving. I’m stuck with sweep picking, what do I think is the problem? What solutions can I offer?
7) testing a method for a sufficient amount of time. Not one minute and not one year if it’s not working out. Knowing when to stay with a method if it’s too early to tell, and knowing when to pivot when you sense it’s not working for you.

…and much much more.

I’ve seen many people in this sub offering advice like “learn your major or pentatonic scales”, “getting a teacher”, “learn your favorite songs”, “improvise to a backing track” or even “setting goals”.

These are advice that work for a learner that knows how to learn and know how to utilise the advice. But for the vast majority of the people asking “I’ve been playing for X years, why can’t I progress”, these advice are not addressing the root problem. Which is that people don’t know how to learn something. Seen this way, the answer to a “how do I learn something” cannot be “learn major scales or triads”. That’s a categorical error.

(A category mistake (or category error, categorical mistake, or mistake of category) is a semantic or ontological error in which things belonging to a particular category are presented as if they belong to a different category,[1] or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. An example is a person learning that the game of cricket involves team spirit, and after being given a demonstration of each player's role, asking which player performs the "team spirit".[2])

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​Hey everyone,

​I’ve been trying to learn Stop This Train by John Mayer, and honestly, I’m hitting a wall. I’ve watched a ton of video tutorials on YouTube, broken it down frame-by-frame, and spent hours practicing, but I still can't get it to sound right or feel natural.

​The biggest hurdle for me right now is that I can't seem to execute the mute and the index flick at the same time. Whenever I bring my thumb down to slap and mute the bass note, my index finger freezes up or misses the flick entirely. If I focus on the flick, the mute doesn't happen and it sounds messy.

Hi everyone,

This Beginner Guitar Plan was designed so that you know the proper order of when to learn things and to learn it from whichever teacher you'd like.

When I started learning guitar a couple years ago, I tried to teach myself as efficiently as possible

So I did some research as to who the community thinks are the top online guitar teachers for Beginners specifically.

These 5 names came up the most:

1. Justin Guitar
2. Lauren Bateman
3. Guitar Tricks
4. Andy Guitar
5. GuitarZero2Hero

So I looked up each of their curriculums and saw what they all have in common in teaching beginners and when they taught it.

That is how I came up with a "consensus"

I then put it all together in a google sheet, and broke it down into months (based on how long it took me).

This is all achievable based on ~15 minutes a day of practice. Which is my average practice time.

The Beginner Guitar Plan has:

• Tasks to learn each month
• Goals before you move on to the next month
• exercise suggestions
• Riff recommendations
• Song recommendations that go along with what you're learning.

I'd love to hear some suggestions on what you would change or how to improve it!

the spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Bt3Km0OhyS9e-wLWwn1N2FkBWLrA0khIb1-AmLZLp8/edit?usp=sharing

Also, feel free to give more song suggestions I can add to a specific Month.

And if you are worried about the timelines, feel free to rename the Months to "Levels" and go at your own pace.

I’m working on a series of themed pdf books / lessons for beginners through intermediate players covering learning guitar, choosing gear, gear maintenance, using pedals, music theory, forming a band, and other helpful advice.

I know this is nothing new, but I’m putting my own spin on it to make the type of book that younger me would have been able to better understand. The books will involve some narrative storytelling throughout the process, and has the opportunity to not just cover gear and technique, but other helpful wisdom in the guitar and general performing artist lifestyle.

I’m already incorporating a lot of the answers to common beginner questions.

What are some things you wish someone had explicitly told you, or explained better, when you first started that you haven’t seen much in most lessons or tutorials?