Unfortunately due to having pretty sever ADHD that is almost impossible for me, though on days I take my meds or on my more autistic weeks I follow it to the letter, like when I did BLIM
Though I do play scales everyday
I’m right where you are at the moment, I’m grade 2 mod 8 learning power chords and I realised I could not play hardly any campfire songs so now the plan is to learn 10 easy songs while still continuing with the practice just split my time.so I’m going for the joker, let it be, brown eyed girl, free Fallin, hero’s, knocking on heaven’s door, be bop a Lula, I saw her standing there, the wanderer quo version, and that’ll be the day some I can play just need practicing I have about 4 hrs a week to practice so maybe 2 hrs on songs 2 hrs on lessons.
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Sorry to hear that must be very difficult and frustrating, I am sure you will gradually get to where you want to be with each song. 
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I feel you my man, I started playing guitar to play songs not to practise guitar but I’ve used learning as a gateway to enjoyment and relaxation.
Though I was recently asked at a pizza party to play something and realised I couldn’t.
I’ve started making a speadsheet today and I can actually play a few songs more than I released with help from my wife reminding me.
I think I’m going to follow Justins advice on nailing 10 x acoustic campfire songs and also 10 x blues/rock songs before I progress with new techniques.
Just dial back all the scales and bending and ear training etc for a while.
Like I said, blackbird has taken me months but I can’t stop playing it for some reason and has been my gateway into fingerstyle.
I’ve found the same with crossroads (though I’m still working on my shuffle grove)
My friends kid is a sick drummer and asked me to learn a few songs to play with her but sadly waaay beyong where I’m at.
Dragonforce, Iron maiden, megadeath.
I told her I wish but that has pushed me to. start messing around with dreamer songs witch is how I ended up playing blackbird
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well at the end of the day if you had family or friends round you would play songs that people can sing along to not heavy rock or metal; campfire is a good thing to have in your wheelhouse (whatever that is!)
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Then again, there’s nothing wrong with a good Medley! I spent my last year of piano lessons with a “Performance” teacher and she was really keen on selecting snippets of songs one really liked (and could really play) and just letting it rip (and no stopping if a mistake was made).
But thinking about my first comment, I glossed over the ‘insecurity’ part. There is much less … resistance … to running scales and arpeggios and such. Less pressure. A complete song? More time to learn; more opportunities to mess up.
It’s been interesting reading responses. We all seem to share some of the same difficulties, but have different reasons for the cause, and different ways to solve them.
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Hello Aaron,
In my experience, the real learning - the competency- comes when you integrate what you’ve learnt into a musical environment; whether that be scales triads,arpeggios etc…
You are hitting a wall, perhaps, because you are learning the ‘forms’ only; and essentially in isolation; and that’ll bore even the hardiest academic/theorest to death eventually. So my advice would be, dont pause this; just integrate it into the music where it belongs.
The fun, the variety, the competency building is when you try to bring these forms alive in the music. ie Function, which is virtually infinite.
I have been guilty in the past of getting caught up in thinking something like " Well, I have to nail all these triad/arpeggio forms before I can use them in a song/set piece/ improve etc. Otherwise I’ll sound like crap". These days, I know this is not only ego nonsense, but a barrier to real progress.
You say you’re learning triads. Find songs that utlise them alot…there should be a couple of million around. Additionally, you can play any song using triads really.
I was absolutely mesmerised when I began to discover how unbelievably musical and cool and melodic these little triads were; in both rhythm and lead playing.
As well as learning these songs, you can study them to find out exactly how these triads are being used; this then becomes part of your toolkit.
Things like arpeggios are somewhat harder to incorporate in my experience, and the road is longer. But, in your practice, you are likely playing the full arpeggio. In a musical environment however, you will mostly be playing just a few notes of the arpeggio/ connecting 2 together etc
In your warmup, try using arpeggios to play over a 12 bar blues.
My practice routine, every single day, has the same essential structure; some variation in practice of scales,chords,triads,arpeggios, rhythm,technique…then bring it all together at the end with songs and set pieces.
Cheers, Shane
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Hi Shane,
What method do you use to get around this problem? Just sound like crap or go super slow, or something else? My playing would be a total train wreck in many cases. I have been going super slow, but I lose the rhythm a bit doing that, and it is hard to make it sound like music when so slow.
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Start as simple as you need to. Everyone has to start here.
Eg. Say for triads; put on a slow one chord backing track in C at 60. Or just use a metronome.
Use only the top 3 strings; so you have 3 triad shapes to play a C Major. Move between these 3 triad shapes melodically. You will be surprised how musical you can sound just with this simple musical exercise, even at slow speed.
Then, perhaps introduce another triad; say the IV, F; then another. Eventually, you might start to use a note or two from the C Major scale to melodically move between these triads etc.
For more of a rhythm practice with triads, you could use a simple song you know well. Convert all the chords to triads and play the song. Slow it down to suit.
You can get some very cool arrangements doing this, and learn alot in the process.
Once you get OK at this type of thing ( and this could be weeks or many months; or longer), perhaps combine both.
Then try to stay in one area of the fretboard, so you’re voice leading from one to another.
Eventually, you’re playing basic rhythm and melody with triads over song you know; plus perhaps making up rhythms and melodies of your own.
And, importantly, you are increasing your competency at playing these triads; much more so than practicing them exclusively in isolation.
Of course, its a journey, and many elements are always a work in progress. And when we do hear that we sound like crap, that means our ears are getting better, so there’s upside there even…
Another important thing for me was realising that it wasnt necessary to learn all the triad forms rigidly, or to allot unnecessary resources to much less common triads. ie diminished and augmented. Sure they are useful, and I’ve used them; but they are much less common.
Cheers, Shane
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Thank you!. I have bookmarked this for further encouragement when I wonder what to do with the triads. 
this seems like an obvious way to learn how to use them, but connecting the pieces when focus is on remembering the tool just didn’t click. This makes good sense to me!
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I’d say it depends on what your goals are. For me, my goal was to be able to play songs that people would sing along to. Thus it was important for me to start and finish a song. That also meant having an idea of the intro and outro that I would use.
From a fairly early time in my guitar learning journey I started playing songs all the way through. Worked on different intros and outtros for songs so I had variety in how I did things. Same applied to strumming patterns and fingerstyle patterns.
It means I now have a decent repertoire and learning whole songs was in my view, quite key to that.
I come across others who’ve been playing a lot longer and while they have some fancier riffs and such, if you ask them to play a whole song they struggle. That’s fine if that’s what they want. 
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Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, this one particularly is very helpful.
Being completely honest with myself I have been practicing a lot of these skills or techniques in a vacuum.
I’ve started playing arpeggios over a 12 bar blues and working on making the changes, just 2 notes each change over the correct chord with the occasional lick thrown in for variation and because I can’t help myself over 4 bars of G
I’ll definitely look at something like knocking on heavens door for triads rather than just playing chord sequences like I am ATM.
They are helping me map the fretboard better but I’ve not used them in a musical context yet.
I’ll look into some more song choices 
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Another couple of good ones;
Jack and Diane (Jon Cougar Mellencamp)…virtually all triads. Great classic.
And for a bit more of a challenge, an all-time great I’ve been meaning to upload here for a while, Listen to The Music (The Doobie Brothers).
A real triad workout on one of the guitar parts in this one, a good study piece, and super fun to play.
Cheers, Shane
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Thanks again, both great songs so I’ll give them some real time
I’m kind of the same way. There are a bunch of riffs and intros I can play, but only a handful of songs that I can play all the way through from memory.
I think part of my problem is that I am terrible at trying to sing and play at the same time. Trying to find songs that are interesting to play all the way through without lyrics can be a challenge. Then there are number of songs that I can play all the way through, but without the lyrics they are very repetitive and thus not as much fun to play. I’ve been working on trying to sing and play a bit to remedy that, but it’s tough! Sometimes I’ll just play along with the original recording, but I’d also like to be able to have those songs that I can just grab the guitar and play for someone without having to start up a backing track or original recording for.
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At the very start I barely concern myself with rhythm at all. My fingers just need to learn the pattern, whether that’s single notes or a weird new chord progression. I think once you get below about 70/75% of full speed things sound increasingly less musical but if I can’t play the pattern in my own time then I definitely can’t play in sync with anything. I start to look at rhythm once I’m around that 70/75 mark and then don’t pick up the speed until I’ve got it nailed at that speed. I’ve found that once I’m solid at 75% and on rhythm that it’s relatively easy to start to push the speed up from there, ideally a few per cent at a time if you have software that does that
Certainly ego hates this approach. It wants to be playing quickly as soon as possible but my experience is that my playing is scruffy if I give in to ego and doesn’t improve until I slow down again. I think when you try to play fast too soon you only extend the time it takes to get good at a particular piece of music - this is how it seems to be for me anyway
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I totally get that, I’ve been told my whole life not to sing and I can’t sing and its really had an effect on my confidence.
HoweverI feel like this is a safe space so gunna do my best
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My old vocal instructor used to say if you can speak you can sing.
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I posted my first full song with my first ever attempt at singing, funny. I started and realised I’d spent 10 days learning the song and didn’t know the lyrics 
Oops, but the feedback has been really helpful and its the 1st time anyone has said anything close to kind about my singing.
My goal this year is to do an open mic but been afraid to sing and actually learn a whole song.
watching Justin’s vids ATM on singing.
Playing Guitar the last few years has changed my life and I can only imagine what it must be like to add singing
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Justin’s singing lessons are a good start, but they only scratch the surface, and don’t really get into the actual mechanics of singing – like breath support, singing registers, and so on.
I got a lot of value from Chris Liepe’s paid “discover your voice” course. As someone who also has ADHD, i find that having an in depth, structured course - like Justin’s - is extremely helpful.
Not sure that learning to sing will change your life… But it will certainly enhance your guitar playing!
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