For me, itās plateaus in learning songs and in skills development ā well, learning anything really. A recent example: Iād been working on Greensleeves, and by the end of October had it fairly well committed to memory. Someone asked me to play it during a Christmas performance mid-December. āPiece of cake!ā I thought, having six weeks to work on making it good enough. Despite all my clever practice techniques, I pretty quickly reached a certain level and got stuck. I couldnāt reliably play it smoothly in practice, and opted not to perform it. I find these plateaus occur with most songs and skills I work on, and theyāre frustrating as heck! 
6 Likes
It always sounds a bit corny when people say it but this is the point where learning to enjoy the journey is important because otherwise you are 100% right.
(I realise this is you answering @jacobbonde but Iāll continue anyway)
In my opinion, the first months of playing guitar arenāt that much fun. Thereās the initial novelty and then it starts to dawn how long itās going to take. Practicing chord changes day after day and struggling to produce anything sounding vaguely musical is hard for sure.
And I think this is why Justin emphasises learning songs because thatās the fun bit. All my practice sessions now involve some time trying to improve something new and some time playing something Iāve already learned. This way I get some enjoyment every day from my guitar. If you focus only on the destination then thatās the hard wayā¦ and the chances are youāll immediately decide thereās another destination thatās also a distance away. We have to enjoy the journey
2 Likes
I need to take some more time to read all your repliesā¦
ā¦
ā¦but I just wanted to point out that in a few days this Frustration thread got more replies than the Achievements one in a few weeksā¦no no nooooā¦this is no good! 
Please think about your achievements before 2025 comes and stay motivated 
(ā¦no need to share them if you donāt want to).
3 Likes
This is a great one.
For the most part, Iām a firm believer in āKeep at it, and youāll get better,ā but it really is an asymptotic curve that has decreasingly small improvement from one day to the next. Then, one day, Iāll suddenly do better than ever, and then that becomes the new baseline (except for the ābadā days).
I wonder if this is a cue for dropping it for a while, working on other things, then coming back to it later. I do sometimes find that I do better with that break. (Other times I find that I become worse at it.)
3 Likes
This is the way I (try to) deal with the plateau. And while Iāve come to accept the frustration, I think an additional feeling is disappointment in my inability to reach my goal!
2 Likes
Perhaps frustrations arenāt so bad, as long as we donāt let them get the better of us. For some of us, Iām sure itās part of what drives us to keep practising and working on getting better. I think frustration is a valid feeling when striving to improve and trying to reach our goals, especially if they are a bit ambitious.
I think the advice to āenjoy the journeyā is in general good, and certainly well intended. And an enjoyable journey takes us through interesting places and hopefully allows us to reach many wonderful destinations along the way. And sometimes we have to walk through a bit of rain and mud to reach the next warm inn - and itās ok to feel a bit grumpy about that.
If we only ever care about just keeping on walking and never about where we would like it to take us, we could be missing out. Goals and ambitions are important and motivational for learning. Perhaps we are setting ourselves up for failure when we set a goal that might be out of reach - but we might also learn more than we ever expected, just trying to get there. And how much sweeter the feeling of achievement, when we have struggled through our frustrations to make it there.
1 Like
Itās step one to identify some things to work on, how to find alternatives, how to broaden the basics that fit below the source of frustration etc.
This is a splendid time to re-assess the goals we once set and re-evaluate for the upcoming year.
2 Likes
Iāve been thinking on this one for awhile. Probably the most frustrating thing for me is how long it takes to develop the finger dexterity, control, and flexibility to do the things that my mind wants me to be able to do.
Iām managing this better within the past year, but this is the thing that stymied my previous attempts to learn guitar.
3 Likes
Iāve had a difficult time deciding how to answer this one. Frustration, after all, is not only to be expected but beneficial to our learning as Justin described here:
The disappointment that it takes more time and effort to master new things is just part of being a human trying to learn something complex. I enjoy those challenges and marvel at seeing the infinitesimal improvements add up with time.
What I consider truly frustrating has been the physical discomfort that resulted from the most extreme stretches at the bottom of the neck, the F barre chord being the very worst. I could play it, but while seated it always required a very awkward and uncomfortable twist of my body, and even then my wrist would be bent in a way that clearly was not what it should be. Pretty quickly, my wrist was hurting throughout the day even when I wasnāt playing. This problem was nearly eliminated while standing, so Iād eventually just stand while playing anything involving the F chord.
But, in general, I never felt physically comfortable with the guitar while sitting. It felt like everything was shifted too far to my right and the neck was too low. The classical position was in many ways ideal - except for what it required of my legs, which brought about a different discomfort that I couldnāt tolerate.
I can easily say that troubleshooting these ergonomic challenges has been my greatest frustration for the past year. āI just want to play guitar!ā And I donāt think this frustration enhanced my learning, except thatā¦
It led me to pursue a wide variety of approaches to improving the ergonomics of guitar-playing. Iād really hoped to find a solution with my original guitar, but it just wasnāt happening. Eventually I committed to getting a Strandberg guitar, and it arrived at the beginning of December.
Iām not prone to hyperbole, but this guitar really has been life-changing. Since getting it, Iāve been practicing/playing 2 to 3 hours every day, including the F barre (still difficult!), but I have no wrist pain, even while playing. And I can sit straighter and more comfortably in ways that were impossible with other guitars.
While I consider this a huge victory, it has a downside, too. My special needs apparently preclude me from playing the majority of guitars that exist. I guess the other benefit is that I wonāt become a guitar collector.
1 Like
This used to happen to me a lot. At the moment in the very first phases of learning a new piece I try to contrast mussel memory to establish too early and I try to find the notes with my ear without bothering too much about timing (which I add later on). Iām a bit obssesed with this and I know that at a certain point I will have to learn to trust my mussel memory more since I play the Classical Guitar and let things happen, but at the same time I feel itās more crucial for me now to learn to be there while they happenā¦and that requires much work to be able to stay focussed. That said I play only short pieces, I canāt be foccused for more than maybe 2 minutes ( but it used to be way less, so I donāt live it as a frustration but something I can improve).
1 Like
You can be reassuredā¦I get the idea 
Iām not getting what you meanā¦can you explain further?
What?! Trust me 8/9 minutes is really a lot to me! My mind starts wandering at minute 2! 
Some unwanted noise I have too, but itās more than that you describe as string noiseā¦it happens way more while strumming and itās irritating to my ears.
Welcome to the Club!
I love this way of describing it! Donāt worry, it just requires some practice, doesnāt it Andrea @Helen0609? Very likely way more than you could imagine, but I find it consoling to think that the reward will be huge!
2 Likes
I have been incorporating justinās minimal movment excersize in to my major and pentatonic scale work. Its mostly the chord changes. Lol videos of myself made me more aware of it.
1 Like
Iām not getting what you meanā¦can you explain further?
[/quote]
I know what to play, I just miss. the āi thinkā part is because maybe my recall is not quite fast enough to play the right stuff in time. Maybe it is poor positional awareness of my fingers? I really donāt know.
1 Like
I can relate to thisā¦and since my timing is not too bad as well I let the note go and keep on with the next one keeping the beat, in the end the playing is not too bad but itās not accurate as it should. Maybe itās like you say , and a better allignment of the fingers on the fretboard will help to be āmore readyā to catch those missed notes in time. Iām working on this aspect at the moment, but I still have a lot of work to do before moving the fretting hand efficiently becomes a habit.
1 Like
Really relatable, thanks for adding the ābeing gratefulā part!
This is also something I can relate too, I get too easily tempted by trying new things that inspire me because I think I could do them this or that wayā¦then it turns out that anything requires a lot of time to be accomplished properly!
Same here with my Classical and Acoustic guitars! But Iāve learnt to appreciate the time that is availableā¦well thereās no much alternative, right?
Ah Brianā¦come on, you donāt play crappy! But I totally get your pointā¦often I think with all the hours I put I should be able to do better!! Nevermindā¦
For anything on the guitar!
evil evil evil Bflat, I agree! I always tranpose to A 
I give this one up for the moment, without even trying.
3 Likes
Toby what evil stuff is this? Do you divide the beat in six as James auggests?
I was happier before knowing this stuff existed Now that I think about it Iām pretty sure there are chapters about it on the Rhythm Book! In a few years of tapping maybe I might develop a feeling for the sextuplets 
You know what to do then 
Good luck (you might need it!)
This happened to me in the past few months with a songā¦and t took me a few months to decide how to procede
For a lot of good reasons too for me. But Iām sure that while going slowly youāll get steady and far and be able to accoplish the faster passages as well.
2 Likes
My biggest frustration is not being able to memorize songs that I can easily perform for family/friends. Every year that is my goal, but I fall short. There is always the balance between memorizing songs you have started and learning new material/techniques. Obviously I havenāt balanced that correctly.
Oh well, 2025 is almost here and it is a great goal!
2 Likes
Hello Silvia, I really like your threads! 
You always come up with such interesting topics ā¦ and in this case it is also very comforting to read all the contributions here and thinking āOh, so Iām not the only one!ā 
This can be quite a relief, because my own list is quite long and contains a lot of aspects that have been mentioned here already.
But you asked for āTop 1ā, and for this one I donāt have to think about a lot, because it is so obvious.
āFrustratingā starts with the letter āFā, and this canāt be a coincidence!
My most frustrating aspect still is the F-chord.
What a mean little fellow! 
Sometimes I can manage it after a few tries, played slowly and isolated and with a lot of effort.
But still no chance when played in a fast chord-change
To be honest, this aspect isnāt āguitar relatedā, it is āme relatedā, so I donāt blame my poor guitar and take this aspect as a challenge for next year.
Have a great 2025 - with no frustrations at all! 
5 Likes
Hello Brian, maybe it can be of some help to you to know that this is a common struggle. After a few years Iām starting now to find it a little bit easierā¦I forget tempo and patterns and just try to actively listen to the chords Iām playing and that helps a lot to know in my ear what chord comes next. This approach requires practice, just like anything else, but works really well for me to feel a connection, to be there in the Music Iām playing. I gave up memorising songs ācognitivelyā, itās too difficult and demanding, I just fail at that.
Good luck Gunhild with this pesky chord! Are you sure itās not related to the guitar fretboard action (if acoustic)? Itās very often the case with acoustic guitars!
Absolutely
All the best for a 2025 with much Music Magic! 
1 Like