Hi, I’m 58 and been learning the guitar for the first time with Justin’s app. While I love it, I find it incredibly frustrating as my progress is so so slow!
I’m OK with most open chords but bar chords, finger picking and now, power chords, seem a bit overwhelming tbh.
Anyone else been there?
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Hi Brian
Learning guitar is a gradual continuing process that never ends unless the person learning stops trying new techniques. Songs, solos, styles and so on.
Barre chords are not the easiest to learn and there is a technique involved, @Richard_close2u just did a lesson Vintage #34 on them Barre Chords made easier . Fingerpicking is fun and can be quite rewarding with just simple patterns, Justin does some good lessons on it, just start slowly and it will come.
I picked up a guitar again after over 20 years and trying to play for over 50. I practice everyday and some days are good and not so good. Improving technique, speed and accuracy goes in fits and starts, and can be frustrating but that feeling gradually passes. If something particular is becoming annoying I will do something else on guitar and return to it and often that helps.
Keep at it and have fun
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No worries! We’ve all been there (I’m still there, ha). Try not to take on too much at once. If you have specific questions on techniques, feel free to post threads! People here are very helpful.
Yep
Yep
Do I have any answers?
Nope
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The only advice I can really give is what works for me: build yourself a routine with daily exercises that are genuinely focused on practice, even if it’s only 20 minutes a day.
Play easy stuff, sure, but also keep pushing on the things that block you. Little by little, it starts feeling more natural. One day, you’ll look back and wonder why that particular thing ever felt difficult.
Learning an instrument is definitely a journey full of ups and downs — the important thing is just to keep going.
For me, the real key is consistency. That daily routine that puts your brain into “focus mode.”
At least, that’s what works for me.
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At least I’m not alone 
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That’s helpful thanks Ritchie
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So, there’s some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that this is completely normal. Everyone, absolutely everyone goes through this. It’s the reason so many households have a dusty, unplayed guitar sitting in a corner of a bedroom.
The bad news is that this frustration doesn’t stop. You’ll get barre chords down, you’ll sort power chords and finger picking, but then you’ll be working on the next ‘impossible’ thing, and progress only gets slower 
However, this is the joy of guitar - there’s always something new to learn and with dedication and practice you get it and move on to the next thing.
There’s already been some great advice above, lean into it and learn to enjoy the process.
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You’ve already reached a major milestone with open chords, congratulations. My advice is to focus on developing a solid sense of rhythm, playing songs at this level, and having fun. That’s a solid foundation for everything that comes next, and you can be very proud of it.
With bar chords, fingerpicking, and power chords, you’re taking on three big topics at once, so it’s no surprise that it feels overwhelming. Work on these topics one at a time and practice slowly, precisely, and consistently in small steps maybe 10 minutes a day, no more. Muscles, muscle memory, and neural pathways simply take time to develop.
Cheers Withold
Here’s a realistic estimate of the time required to learn guitar from scratch, expressed in total practice hours.
| Expected Level | Approximate Total Hours | What You Can Typically Do |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute beginner | 0–20 h | Tune the guitar, keep simple rhythm, play first open chords |
| Functional beginner | 20–80 h | Play a few simple songs with basic chords |
| Solid beginner | 80–150 h | Change chords more smoothly, start barre chords |
| Lower intermediate | 150–300 h | Play most simple pop/rock songs |
| Intermediate | 300–700 h | Basic improvisation, scales, decent rhythm and timing |
| Strong intermediate | 700–1500 h | Play solos properly, fingerstyle, cleaner technique |
| Advanced | 1500–3000 h | Strong technical and musical control |
| Professional / elite | 3000–10000 h | Studio/live performance mastery |
| Practice Time | Time to Reach “Intermediate” (~500 h) |
|---|---|
| 15 min/day | ~5.5 years |
| 30 min/day | ~2.7 years |
| 1 h/day | ~1.4 years |
| 2 h/day | ~7 months |
What people usually underestimate
Progress is not linear:
- The first 100 hours bring very visible improvement.
- Between 200–500 hours, many players plateau.
- Practice quality matters more than raw quantity.
Realistic statistical perspective
Most amateur guitar players:
- quit before reaching 100 hours
- become “good enough for casual playing” around 150–300 hours
- very few exceed 1000 hours of serious structured practice
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I really doubt this chart … you do not become an intermediate player in 7 months with 2 hours of practice 
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I have at least one friend who got really good in just one year, so it is possible.
But you shouldn’t compare yourself to those exceptionally talented people, or you’ll just end up feeling down.
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Ryan did it but he practiced 5 hours every night
Hello there.
If there’s one thing you should print out and hang on the wall of your practiceroom, it would be this: It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Everyones journey is different. Everyone progresses slower/faster/not at all/in chunks/…
Don’t worry too much about how much progress you make at what time.
The second thing you probably should print out and hang on your wall, right under the first one is this: Have fun playing!
That’s it really. Everything else will come, you can count on that.
Have fun!!
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My advice would be to set goals
like : what songs do you want to learn which use these technics ?
find the songs first , and have fun learning them
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Those are just statistics, so they’re both true and false at the same time. It all depends on the person, the method, and the goal. But one thing is certain: you shouldn’t expect to reach a good level very quickly or very easily.
There’s always effort involved. Pleasure too, eventually, but effort first, always. And honestly, guitar is still considered one of the easier instruments to learn…
So yeah, clean barre chords usually start to come after 100 hours or more. There’s no real secret to it.
And yes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Have fun!!
No, absolutely not! Have you ever run a marathon? After two-thirds of the way, all you want to do is to die, and you only keep running because you know it’ll all be over in an hour.
If you subject yourself daily to this torture, you won’t last 100 hours of practice. You’ll only stick with it if daily practice becomes a habit and you enjoy it.
100% agree
You can’t say it enough
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Hi Richard
Ha ha … so you see, I think 100% differently about this … 
2 days or so before my guitar was delivered and I decided to learn to play , I was already really looking forward to it to start learning it and felt the pleasure flow true my whole body 
…
and I also have never felt frustration while learning guitar … the first months (and longer too )were a great rush of joy and pleasure ,
Greetings, Rogier
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It’s going to be highly variable. I played in junior high and didn’t get very far. Decades later, now, I’ve been playing for 2.5 years. I spent the first two trying to learn everything all at once. I became good at nothing. So, I started Justin’s course. By that chart above, I’m a Lower Intermediate. Yet, I have double the hours. I’m probably at 500-600 hours total time practicing. But, like I’ve said, I practiced a billion things at once for the first 2 years. If you count 2.5 years, you’ll say, heck that guy is slow. If you count only the last 5 months, I started here on Dec 20, 2025, you’ll say lower intermediate? heck, that guy is fast. I wish I had 2.5 years of practicing the right way. But that’s the past. Just keep moving forward.
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Not a literal marathon. I mean this in the way of “distance”. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people i’ve encountered, just starting out and thinking they’re going to be a guitar god within 3 - 4 months. And then get dissapointed that it didn’t happen.
It’s going to take a lot longer than that.
I’ve read biographies of some of the great players (hendrix, van halen, srv, etc…) and if there’s one common denominator, it’s time.
They all spend huge amounts of time practicing.
Van Halen, for instance, recounts somewhere in the book that one evening, he was fiddling around with his guitar in his room and his brother went out to party. He remembered that when his brother finally returned, he was still fiddling with his guitar…
Same with the others. They all spent a huge amount of time, practicing.
Time, in this case, serves as the “distance” of a marathon.
So again, it’s not a 100m sprint, it’s a 52km marathon.
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