Frustration setting in. 5 months in like I’m in a rut. practice, practice, practice and not getting any better
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Sometimes helps to mix things up a bit from time to time. I felt myself getting into a bit of a rut after about 5mo or so of following only online lessons. I got a private instructor and started taking lessons in person around that time. It changed up the routine a bit and kept me engaged.
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Hey Bruce,
Welcome my friend.
The guitar is not an easy instrument to learn; and early days particularly can be frustrating. You are in good company here.
If you stick with your committment though, regardless, she will reward you in spades 
.
And now that you have posted your frustration, a breakthrough is certainly just around the corner.
Feel free to elaborate on specifics, and you’ll likely get some focused advice.
All the best
Cheers, Shane.
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think often about putting $$$ towards a teacher but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.
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one main reason is alot of tension in fretting arm and hand resulting in hard presses. Also slow chord changes 20 - 30 per min sometimes less.
Hey,
Can you tell us something more about your goals and what you exactly practice?
Do you work towards a repertoire with complete songs? Or are focussing on on specific metric targets?
You might be focussing on the means instead of the goals.
Combining practice of techniques with the songs you can use them in works in two ways.
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goal is to play the songs with the chords A,Am,C,D,D6/9,E,Em,G. For now. I can play these and practicing chord changes. Changes are slooow
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I started in mid-2022. I wish I had an entirely different routine on top/in addition to Justin Beginner 1 and 2.
That routine would have centered on playing rhythm with the picking hand alone, strings muted: 15 min in the morning, 15 in the evening. DUDx gallop. DxDU gallop. variations of all sorts. Learning to keep a steady right hand at low speeds. Then, later, learning to master empty space like 1 measure of just down strokes, then 2 measures of silence, then 1 measure of gallops, a slide, silence, trills, etc. I still cannot do trills correctly in time because of how I practiced earlier.
Had I known to do that kind of work, I would have developed far better and far faster than by struggling with barre cords and whatnot stuff that I do not actually need personally.
I practice 1/16th notes metal riffs at 140-160 bpm for 30 min straight with minimal rests. BUT I cannot do barre cord stuff at more than quarter note at 60 bpm! And I don’t care.
Even open cords I cannot manage at anything close to power cord speeds though those diads are not just P5s, they vary with the root and the 3 or flat 3, flat 5, flat 6 or 6 or root and 4th or whatever. So various fingerings, but diads, or at most 3 notes. That’s for me. Others may not use those at all. So it is important to know what you want to use and not bother with stuff you don’t need, none of us is trying to be a studio cat LOL.
I learned the hard way that overfocusing on the fretting hand, which logically struggles far more at the start, can lead to severe issues with the picking hand.
My mindset was “Oh my, will I make this cord change in time” which meant manipulating the picking hand and getting off time, whereas the mindset should have been “Am I as steady as possible with the right hand?”
Screw the cord change if you must but having to fix the picking hand later like I have had is not fun.
By the way, I attended a fest two days ago and the sound was so bad across all bands due to venue/sound guys that the only thing anyone could have done to be a noticeable screwup would have been timing issues.
My 2 cents.
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Sorry, one more. I also agree with the others on the importance of in-person or Zoom lessons, even if just once a month, but you absolutely want a teacher who wants to “take you from where you are” and help you get where YOU want to go, do not get a metal guy for jazz 
But, yes, paying for the right teacher over gear would be a great idea.
If I were starting right now knowing what I do know now about gear, I would focus on the exact guitar I want and get a Tone X (even just Tone X one) plus studio headphones and a bigger studio monitor (or a power amp and a cab) and spend the rest on the right teacher for me.
Don’t give up, just complement your existing practice routine with something that is 1/ super important and 2/ not as frustrating or physically awkward.
Those of us who started with older and less then pristine fingers are bound to have far harder time than anyone who began as a teen.
Keep it up! It is incredible fun and stress-relief activity once you can start doing what you want with the sound you like!
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Yep, been there too. Now, after a few years of playing and eventually enrolling in a teaching program, it get’s better. (but only after spending time and effort. A lot of time and effort).
The key thing here is not giving up. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Don’t expect to become Hendrickx after 6 months, or K. Richards after a year. (take a look at their life… They started young, but the key is, practice practice practice… and then some more practice.).
Slowly but surely does the trick. Getting frustrated not getting anywhere? Stop playing for a day or two. Go and do something completely else. Your muscles (in your arms, hands, fingers) are getting new impulses and your brain needs time to adjust to all these new inputs.
That too, takes time. How much differs from person to person.
Relax, take it easy and above all, enjoy playing/learning. Having fun doing this is THE most important thing there is.
The rest will come. You can be sure of that. Hang in there!
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I would add one more thing. Re slow chord changes, I found that I got a song I liked that had the chords in and started practicing the chord changes via the song. I would play the backing track/song and strum 1 chord per bar. This very quickly became two chords pwer bar and so on. I think my chord changes got better a lot quicker that way as they had context rather than just going back and forwards for no reason.
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I think you need some variety. Something that has helped me it’s finding a few simple melody/vocal line tabs for songs I like and including in any practice session. And when I say simple I’m talking picking single notes.
Don’t know if this is going to be a logical explanation but I find it
gives me some focus on fretting and hitting specific notes/strings and gets my brain gets out of the combined “have to land all these fingers at once here, here and there” mode and “right hand must…not…stop…” into a much more relaxed “hey this actually sounds like a tune” mood.
Fretting fingers have to move around quite a lot depending on the song, up/down picking comes and goes according to what feels right, makes for a good rythym/timing challenge too when playing to a backing track. Same process as learning a strummed song, start slow, memories a few bars, time them right and then start stringing them together.
California Blue (Roy Orbison) is my latest ‘reward myself’ tab with added bonus of chords and strumming to work on as well.
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Unnecessary tension is a real killer, and it’s something I struggled with early on. Keep at it.
Cheers, Shane
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Hi Bruce.
Several things are common to every single person that learns to play guitar - they include frustration and hitting occasional plateaux.
I’ve just looked back across some of your other posts and topics to get a broader sense of where you are in your learning and playing. Your common theme seems to be chord changes and struggling to make them quick enough to play songs. If I was to spend time with you, analysing your playing, I’d ask you to strip things right back to basics - short sections of songs with two chords and one strum on the first beat, at a reduced tempo. That would be with a view to finding where your comfort zone of chord changes sits in terms of speed and to get a sense of where any tension might be stemming from. Making chord changes in time and at a satisfactory speed is vital. Rhythm underpins everything. Being relaxed and physically comfortable is a big deal too. You don’t have any videos - maybe that could lead to something useful. Even if you record and watch for yourself only.
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I look back over a year sometimes and I think I haven’t gotten any improvement either, but it is definately there it is just hard to see sometimes how bad I was.
What is meant for encouragement is that this is really a decades long exercise. Yes, you should be seeing improvement after 5 months but also,… it is only 5 months. Take the tips above and keep rolling. You will get there.
Good Luck Bruce!
♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.
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I’m only a couple of years into learning so the struggles of the first year are still quite fresh in my memory. After 6 months I definitely still felt like a complete beginner, only really knowing a few very simple songs with quite basic strumming. I could do the chord change exercises but then trying to apply them to a song, maintaining a strumming pattern and keeping in time with a backing track were still almost impossible for me.
My approach was just to stick with it. As much as I hadn’t got to where I wanted to be, when I looked back there was progress. I found Justin’s songs app to be very helpful to give me songs to play along with and to take the guesswork out of where the chord changes fell.
I didn’t take lessons because my thinking was that if my hand doesn’t make chord shapes by itself then there’s only so much a teacher can do for me. While I’m not saying don’t go for lessons, there’s some things that only practice, every single day, will solve. Some days that’s only 10 minutes, but it’s 10 more than zero.
Definitely stick with it. Maybe try to change some aspects of your practice if it’s getting a bit stale but know that learning guitar is hard but you will turn the corner if you keep going.
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Don’t get too upset. Lots of us hit a point in their journeys where everything seems to stagnate. That’s pretty common. And it will happen again and again.
When it comes to chord changes, don’t only play them back and forth. Search for very slow songs that have a chosen chord progression that repeats over and over or just slow down the speed of a backing track. The lessons and songs app is extremely helpful for this. Playing songs is so much more fun than chord changes.
Concerning the tension: put aside a few minutes every day to get conscious how hard you press down on the strings. Try to loosen your grip and the chord still rings out properly. Record yourself and check the position of your wrist and also other body parts. Look at yourself like a third person. And: with time and more confidence you’ll get more relaxed anyway. Keep on keeping on!
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I found that this helped me, as well. Over time the chord changes finally started getting faster.
Also, take a break for a couple days.
For the tension in your arm, you may be sitting badly, rewatch the early, early video on how to hold your guitar.
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Thanks so much all for the great advice and encouragement! This 70yo is gratefully appreciated. I will continue on along with the cussing and walking away with my mind in a frenzy only to get back at it.
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Haven’t got to the gallops, a slide, silence, trills diads P5s or flat 3, flat 5, flat 6; yet, need to research lol.