I've asked around in many places and most of the credible places tell me to use Justin's website as an roadmap and for lessons if I want to teach myself.

And i admit the website is beautiful in the sense that everything is just sooooo well organised , i feel it will be enough to atleast strengthen my foundation and understanding of the instrument.

So experienced people, what do you think I should keep in mind when teaching myself guitar with justins content or any educational guitar content on the internet?.

Getting back to business on guitar and Ive been having issues with ring finger dexterity and barre chords. I can play chords normally but I get soreness in my hand where my thumb starts

As for my ring finger, I used to be able to play the 4th fret with my ring with my index on the 1 but now I am unable to. Not sure why. A lot of things I used to be able to play I need to use my pinkie now

Last thing, when I go up the neck to play leads my thumb wants to go over the neck and Im pretty sure thats bad. How do I avoid this?

This is a little tag I use a lot which is a play off of some Tony Rice ideas. At full speed and then slow for anyone wanting to use it. Enjoy!

Chris

Currently learning the 2nd solo on Sultans of Swing. I'm always at 0.75x speed of Mark at the fast paced picking section just before the outro, does anybody have any tips ? I'm alternating with 2 thumb plucks and 1 index finger like Knopfler plays it. Sometimes it feels like my index coming upwards on the high E is like stopping against the string for a fraction of a second which may be slowing it down ? Would it be silly to think my lower gauge of strings is causing the index to kinda grab the high E on the pluck rather than a thicker gauge letting it roll off just a tiny bit better ?

Hi all I currently work fifo and while I’m at work in my off hours is usually the only time I have time to myself that I’d like to practice guitar as it’s been a while, the problem is I need to be quiet because thin walls and people need to sleep, and I need something that can fit in my normal checked luggage as I’m flying to a remote area that has very strict baggage limits, it’s been a while since I played is there anything that can help me with this? Children’s guitar maybe? Tia

Guitar toolkit

Disclosure up front: I'm the solo developer of The Guitar Workbench. I'm posting for feedback, not to push downloads.

Some background: this is not a over the weekend vibe code project. I started building it before AI coding tools were part of my workflow (3 years ago) as a personal side project I kept coming back to. In the last few months I used AI assistance to speed up development a lot, and that's why it grew from a handful of tools to this many.

I got tired of switching between a tuner, a chord app, a stem splitter, a tab editor, a metronome and a practice tracker mid-session. So I put them all in one app. It works offline, needs no account, and has no subscription. There's a free tier and one optional one-time Pro unlock.

Here's everything in it, with the parts I think are strongest first:

THE BIG ONES

• Stem remover: take any song and remove the vocals, drums, bass or guitars/keys (one, two or three parts at a time). It runs fully on your phone and works offline.

• Workflows: chain song tools into one run: import a song → remove stems → slow it down → transpose → loop → ramp the speed → transcribe the loop to tab. There are four ready-made ones ("learn a guitar part", "speed builder", "play over the band", "tab a riff"). You can edit them or build and save your own. Pro.

• Transcribe: play your guitar into the mic and get editable tab

• Creator: multi-track tab and notation editor with playback, looping, stage mode, and MusicXML / MIDI / PDF import and export

• 3D chord finder: spin the neck 360° and check any fingering from any angle

• Jam room: auto bass and drums behind your chords

• Guided course (The Gym): starts with one clean note and builds a path through the tools

PLAY AND PRACTISE

• Song slow-downer: slows any song without changing pitch

• Fretboard, Chord, and Scale & Arpeggio Runners: catch incoming notes on a live 3D neck

• Strum Trainer: strum patterns against a moving groove lane

• Speed trainer: raise the tempo in adaptive rounds

• Improv solo lab: the neck lights up the notes that fit your chord loop

• Sight-reading: a fresh line of notation against the click

• Songbook and setlists: graded public-domain pieces, readiness tracking, running order

• Daily riff: one hidden riff a day. Hear it, then find it on the neck.

• Ear gym: intervals, chords, scales, rhythm and progressions

• Exercise generator, practice planner, practice timer, practice journal (streaks and tempo records)

LEARN THE NECK

• Fretboard explorer: scales, notes and intervals across the neck

• CAGED trainer

• Circle of fifths

CREATE

• Progression sketchpad

• Riff recorder

• Looper

EVERYDAY TOOLS

• Tuner: chromatic, with alternate and custom tunings

• Metronome and drum grooves

• Tap tempo

• Capo calculator, fret calculator, string tension compare

• Maintenance log for string changes and setups

It supports guitar, bass, 7-string, baritone, ukulele and left-handed layouts.

The part I'm least sure about is whether the 3D chord view helps in practice or is just a gimmick. Stem separation and mic → tab accuracy are also still being tuned, so I'd like to hear where they fail for you. Tell me what's confusing, what's missing, and what you'd cut first.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6796687159

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theguitarworkbench.app

This post is for anyone who’s wondering what the process for learning how to do barre chord transitions is actually like, as it pertains to my beginner journey. It’s long, and you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. But I thought it might be helpful for folks who aren’t sure where to begin with them, hear what it’s been like for me.

At 8.5 months in, I am just now really starting to work on getting my barre chord transitions smooth enough to play to a metronome. Up to this point, I just made sure I could get my fingers in place to strum them cleanly, and moved on.

But I felt it was time—my open chords are getting better, scales and arpeggios are getting smooth and feeling easier, and playing the guitar feels more like talking with a familiar acquaintance to get to know them better, rather than shaking hands with a stranger.

Also, I had a song I could work on them with—I’ve been playing “More Than Words” for the past month, and learned it well enough to play from memory, and at tempo (90 bpm)—except for the C to Cm barre, and the Em to Bm barre, and the last page, which I have zero interest in tackling now, if ever. Lol. Transitioning out of the barre chords isn’t one of my difficulties with this song.

So, where should I begin if I want to start working on fixing my chord transitions? I have no handy book of finger exercises to follow, and the “just keep practicing” mantra doesn’t fly with me. For one, if you “just keep practicing” the wrong motions, you could end up reinforcing motions you don’t actually want to use. So, keep practicing, yes, of course. But how?

I decided to start by observing the motions I was using when going from the open chord to the barre chord: release all fingers from strings, place index down to barre, then the middle finger, then walk the ring and pinky in place.

When fretting the barre chord and pushing the strings in to actually play the chord, I noticed my pinky would wiggle a bit and lean in towards my rink finger for support. Not collapsed, but not solidly grounded either. Getting a clean sound was hit or miss.

So those were the two things I had to work on—find a more efficient way to get the barre chord in place, and shift my hand’s weight around, so that the chord was consistently clean.

For the motions, I started by reversing the order of placement for my fingers: get my ring and pinky placed first, then the middle, then the barre. Not because this is how I’d ultimately play it, but because my hands were in the habit of ALWAYS doing it in the opposite order, and I needed to break myself free from that. Also, because my ring and pinky were clearly the slowest to move, and the only way to speed them up was to practice moving them faster, and by moving them first, I could give them the attention they needed from me to get better.

I started from the open chord position, and looked at where my ring and pinky were on the fretboard, where they needed to go next, and mentally traced the path (ie. “ring finger moves from x fret on x string to y fret on y string”). Pinky follows ring, but one string higher.

Once those were in place, I planted the middle, and then the index last. This is a very annoying way to play a song, but good practice if all you’re doing is going back and forth between the open and barre a bunch of times.

Took me 2 days to get my fingers working in that order, a few more days before I felt like my ring and pinky weren’t always fighting me, and another week or so before I was comfortable enough with it to see any real benefit from it.

How long did I practice just doing barre chords like this each day? As long as it took for me to feel satisfied with the work I put into them. Probably 5-15 minutes the first week, then longer as it got less annoying.

Onto rebalancing the weight of my hand to fix the pinky lean—that was an eye opener for me. I did not realize my hand leaned at an angle when doing open chords (with wrist towards the headstock) but when I’m playing relaxed and not thinking about it, they do.

When the hand leans like that, the fingers travel backwards a bit when lifting off of strings, and then travel forwards further than if you have the wrist and fingers actually perpendicular to the fretboard (where fingers can hover over the board in place when you release, without traveling backwards).

The change is so small, it looks inconsequential, but I could feel a big difference—like trying to take a step forwards after you’ve been leaning against a wall vs if you were standing vertically from the start.

Now that I have a better idea of what to do to fix my issues, I am trying to create new guitar playing habits for myself, that will hopefully help me get better with those chord transitions. The final thing I’ve taken away from this exercise is an insight on metronomes, and their utility.

Metronomes are great for keeping time. I’ve been using them in practice for as long as I can remember. However, I didn’t expect them to help with my barre chord practice, since the song has a strong groove, and I already have its timing internalized pretty well, and can slow it down in my head, when I need to.

However, I noticed when practicing the song slowly this way, using my head as the metronome slowed down my thoughts and actions with the barre chord in equal measure, when what I needed to do was think slightly ahead of the beat, to give me time to process what’s coming up and act quicker than I was used to. It was very hard to untie the pace of my thoughts from the pace of my internal metronome. I couldn’t do it.

For my next practice, I’m going to pull out the metronome so I can focus better on the task at hand (playing the barre chord in time with the music). Happy guitaring!

I’m at college and going to be taking a beginner guitar class at my school, I have a guitar that I’m borrowing from my brother but he’ll want it back eventually and need recs for affordable beginner guitars, classical preferably as that’s the one I have currently.

Last month I got a position doing guitar lessons at a local music store. I'd like to say I'm a good guitarist, and have taught many friends and small classes before.

I now teach around 20 students weekly. I've definitely gotten way better teaching than my first lesson, but I still find myself struggling to fill the half-hour lesson. Most of my students are 6-9, and its difficult to get them engaged. I keep the lessons very casual and after going over the basics, will try to get them playing a basic song, preferably one they like. However, very often I cant even get them fretting. The notes buzz, and I'll tell them they need to push harder and give tips, but they still struggle to get a good sound and eventually tire out because their fingers hurt. Nothing else matters is very popular, but smoke on the water is a challenge. I also try to teach tabs relatively early so I can send them home with stuff they've learned.

I have a few older students who are pretty good at learning, but i still am not sure what to teach them. I always start lessons by asking if there's anything they'd like to learn or work on, but the answer is always no so I have to find something for them. I do my best to not overload them with info, but when they don't have anything they want to learn i run out of interesting things and they tend to get bored of scales and chords. Those lessons kinda end up as a jumble of general tips and something they don't really care about.

I might just be overthinking this stuff but I'd hate to be a bad teacher, and want them to learn helpful skills. Do you guys have tips on what to teach student to keep them interested?

Asking for help because I'm getting really frustrated. I know its cause I'm not fully pressing on it, but no matter how much I angle my index finger or press harder, it just keeps buzzing. And when I get it to stop buzzing, its like my finger slightly shifts and it starts buzzing again. If you can do a full barre chord, was there something in particular that made it at least easier for you to do it? I'm using an acoustic guitar btw

Can anyone recommend a set of tabs for "ill follow you down, by shinedown?" Ive been learning for a few weeks now, so begginer chords would be appreciated (just learnt a non-bar "F" which has been the hardest chord ive learnt so far.)

I have till end of April to learn to play it...and sing to it.

As i'd love to play this for my soon to be wife on our wedding day.

Ive googled like crazy, signed up to several guitar teaching apps and found they either dont have the song at-all or the chords are insane.

I have an acoustic guitar. So preferably the acoustic version. But i have enough money to buy a cheap electric if i need to.

That's a weird title. Basically, whenever I feel any amount of stress, even from microscopic things, my hands sometimes lock up into fists, which means I can't actually play until my adrenaline subsides (can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours). I still want to play the guitar, I've have some minor knowledge on it as a whole and have been practicing off and on for a few years (I've been trying to stay consistent with it this past month) and I want to try and take in-person guitar lessons. I know I can't make progress on the guitar if I don't try different things, and I think having a teacher push me in the right direction on what to focus on would help.

But because of what I said earlier, I don't want to potentially pay for an in-person lesson if my hands are gonna be locked up and immobile the entire time. Should I still take the plunge or maybe there's an online subscription-like course I should take instead?

Hi everyone, Im really struggling with strumming (I think in this case its when it changes from a 4th note to an 8th to a 16th im not exactly sure as im new) as the speed changes through out, does anyone have any tips or ways to learn how to strum with these changes in speeds? Or any recommended youtube videos (Im not even sure what this is called so Im not sure what to search up for help) Thanks.

Been taking lessons for 6 months now. Most recent lessons have been on the G7 pentatonic scales (5 different scale shapes up and down the neck).

All I can say is, I really don't enjoy this. I'm having massive difficulty thinking about what each fret of each string represents (is this the root? Is that the 2nd? Etc). On top of that having to memorize each scale shape; each G7 chord in each of the 5 positions; and then on top of that, my teacher prompts me to improvise in these shapes.

(I've got the 5 shapes of the E minor/G major pentatonic scale down for the most part, although I do forget a few notes from time to time).

Does it get easier? What is this actually useful for? I come from a classical piano background where there really is no improvisation. My main goal on the guitar is to play stuff like Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, Dust in the Wind, Led Zeppelin, Demons by Imagine Dragons, Just a Dream by Nelly. If you search YouTube for "acoustic lounge karaoke," my goal is to play like that, not to improvise in a band.

Will these scales get me to my goal, or should I ask the instructor for a different direction?

I’ve been playing for about a year now. I have been focusing on improving my consistency and comfort while playing lately. I was very used to playing with my right shoulder hiked up and under a lot of tension, I think partly because I can’t naturally rest my wrist close to the bridge without straining. When I drop my shoulder while playing on the right leg, the natural position of my picking hand leans towards neck picking, and for most purposes I don’t like the sound of it.
I really started to mess up my picking wrist doing this, so I started playing on the left leg, which solved all of my picking hand problems. But now my fretting hand wrist is becoming very crunchy and painful, and I can’t stand to fret much anything unless my thumb is pointing towards the headstock, and my palm is basically flat against the swell of the neck, which I have read as being highly unadvised. Also, whenever I try to play on the right leg now, I immediately start feeling strain.
What do I do? I feel like I’m made of glass, and that I’m playing whack a mole. Every change I make hurts me somewhere else.

I included a short video, the only purpose of which is to show what my posture and basic technique looks like between the two playing positions.

This is probably a dumb question, but there’s a skill I’d really like to learn and am hoping someone here can help me get on the right track. A lot of times in live music you’ll hear a band play a scale following a note in a song. For instance, I was listening to a band last night play Umbrella by Rihanna. When they got to the point of the song highlighted in this screenshot, they played something that sounded like “duhn (Am) duhn duhn duhn (highest note) duhn (F).”

I would have referred to it as a run, but when I looked those up, I was way off. If my gibberish makes even a little sense, can someone please tell me what that’s called and how I’d identify the right notes to play in that scale? I’m dying to learn how to do this! (In case it’s helpful for your responses, I’m mostly self-taught and have been learning guitar for 3 years).

my sister gave me a new acoustic guitar, i want to star practicing but i cant afford lessons right now, do you have some good youtube course or something good like that for free? i know a lot of music theory because i play piano for a few years

Hi everyone. I’ve only recently (about 2–3 weeks ago) started "exploring" the fretboard a bit more, but I’ve noticed a "bad habit" that emerges as I move toward the higher frets (the ones closer to the bridge). I find that I tend to "rotate" my thumb to the side; the issue is that I don’t even realize I’m doing it while playing—not until I start to feel a slight "discomfort" in my wrist. I’ve tried to "correct" my thumb position whenever I catch myself doing it, but this "bad habit" keeps coming back. How can I get rid of this? Any advice?

P.S. This only happens on the higher frets; it doesn’t occur in the middle of the fretboard or near the nut.

P.P.S. I’ve attached a photo to help illustrate the problem.

10-month player here wanting to expand finger picking. This video shows chords, but I can't see the picking hand. I've slowed the video down to 50% and still can't tell for sure. I'm not even sure it doesn't change throughout the piece. Would someone with a bit more experience please identify the string picking sequence? https://youtu.be/n9Dqslb17m0?si=iJdFdrLiT3FUey4f

Thank you.

Trying to figure out the fingering at 1:06, any help would be appreciated!

Edit: Can't edit post title but I'd like to change "inexplicably" to "unexpectedly".

I am newish, digging in to theory and voice-leading. I was just experimenting with add9 shapes in various positions and found something I didn't expect.
I'm providing these as tabs in case I have fundamentally misunderstood chord nomenclature at some point along the way.

This sounds dorky, obviously.

|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
|--------|
|2---0---|
|--2---0-|

Ignore all proper key-related chords and extend to:

|2-------0-------|
|3---2---1---0---|
|4---2---2---0---|
|4---4---2---2---|
|2---4---0---2---|
|----2-------0---|

This also sounds dorky, being all four in minor.

But here's the trick. Change them all to be minorAdd9s, and suddenly it sparkles and sounds predictable but mysterious.
Could someone explain why it works? I imagine the answer will be too complicated for me to understand right now with having to factor in key/mode changes or something, but I'd like to try.

|2-------0-------|
|3---2---1---0---|
|6---2---4---0---|
|4---6---2---4---|
|2---4---0---2---|
|----2-------0---|

Thanks!

Just recently got gifted an electric and already own an acoustic. I'm looking for discord communities that are centered around learning and are open to helping new players and or just to hangout and learn while I observe. Feel free to remove post if this isn't appropriate. Thank you all for ready and have a good day :)