Noted.
But for the record, his posture was fine, his spine was normal as far as I could tell, and he never showed an inkling of back pain after a lesson.
Just to be clear - I am not recommending this, and have no intention of doing it myself. I just present it as another option that people can try and see how it feels.
Use at your own risk, YMMV, yadda yadda yadda
That would make my leg go numb so fast!
Hi Tom,
You couldn’t tell from my crooked spine when I sat or walked (many years ago), and it didn’t hurt me either…only the neurologist noticed it when I stood bare-chested,…
Greetings,Rogier
How did you make out? I still trying to find the best way to sit and hold guitar, though I do not have the issue you do. Can’t help you with that.
I’m not sure everyone really understood the problem with ‘sitting like a guy’
I got a chuckle
Well thank you for asking! I have a few thoughts.
I cannot do classical position. I just kind of hate it.
I have been trying to keep pushing the guitar out to my right side to bring the headstock closer to me, to bring the elbow in. I can’t get used to having my right knee pointed outward, but it is a good position, so I am still struggling there. I actually find it really comfortable to sit with my right leg crossed over my left. It somehow lets the guitar sit in a good spot. But then I cannot tap my left foot along with the music, which I don’t like. I want to be able to tap my left foot.
I can’t seem to keep the headstock raised with any consistency, so I am still not doing the best thing for my wrist.
I think what happened is this: Justin did a great video on how to hold a guitar in the first set of G1 lessons. I only had an acoustic at the time. When Nitsuj did his unboxing of his electric, that is when I switched to electric. I didn’t go back to review how to hold a guitar, I just used the position of the acoustic, which seemed to be closer to the middle of me than it was out to the right.
And to top it off, I tried out a Martin Jr 10DE something at the shop the other day and it was actually a really good size for me, and my elbow was nice and tucked. It felt good. But Im not sure if buying a short guitar is the solution while I am just learning. And I don’t really want yet another guitar (or two, bec as soon as I get a short acoustic I am going to want a short electric). No more room for any more in my guitar room.
Having said all this, what I am also trying to do is let go of what is right or wrong sitting position, or right or wrong wrist position, and just do what what feels comfortable. But I am getting a little bit more used to the guitar being rightward.
Isn’t it funny that its not easy figuring out how to sit and hold the instrument? Like playing it isn’t hard enough! What struggles are you having, particularly?
Like you trouble with guitar position. I’m always makin slight changes. Using different chairs.
My strumming looks so rigid no matter how loose i feel.
I finally started playing my electric more. And standing. There’s Not so much to think about when standing. I’ve been at the acoustic for a year. I used to have a dreadnaught (way too big).
I’m going into power chords now. Which seem to be easier. And also pedals. I struggle finding the right tone. It’s one rabbit hole after another.
Yes rabbit holes indeed. So many things still seem so awkward, I had no idea that after the better part of a year I’d still feel so clueless. So I know some chords and am brute memorizing some theory. I still can’t play very well. I can’t do anything cool on the guitar. I can’t even figure out how to sit right!
I think, like learning anything else, we learn how to position the guitar and get comfortable with it. I feel pretty comfortable how I sit now, but it took a lot of wrangling and frustration to find it.
And about 1.5 years trying!
I also feel that I went through a period where I felt that my struggles playing were due to my difficulties with holding the guitar. That wasn’t the case, naturally.
However, with a comfortable playing position, I have fewer excuses and can get on with it.
Yup you are not alone. I am on the grade 2 strumming sos course. I think it is/will help me a lot. every song I try always sounds the same and it’s not that good. The sos course should change that.
I thought by now, I’d have narrowed down what I really want focus on when I play. But no, there is so much more I want to do instead.
I’m sort of hoping one day it will just click and I’ll be able to consider myself a decent guitar player.
The I am almost there! YAY. 
I completely think you’re right. I mean, I know it’s just a matter of perspective. Perspective that takes time and experience to gain, and neither of those have I yet put in or gotten out of the relatively short period of time I’ve been learning. It’s just quite frustrating, as you already stated.
Yeah, another 8 or so months and maybe I will be able to say the same.
I intend to do the strumming course too. I can’t do it right now, though. My brain is already trying to marinate too many other things. I am also at the power chord lessons. I am starting to feel bored with practice but I don’t think I’m ready for blues chords yet, so I just have to get some concepts to feel like they’re no longer taking a lot of brain power before I move on from power chords.
I feel where you are at. There is always so much. I am a couple months longer than 2 years and for the last 3-4 months, the only lessons I have been doing are reviews of old lessons and material. I can get better at plenty of things before moving on.
Hi Stacy, I wonder sometimes if I’ll every find a comfortable sitting position! Then on other days everything feels good. I guess that’s part of the learning process.
I’m also at the power chords lesson. I thought I’d be excited to learn them, but I too find myself feeling bored, and simultaneously overwhelmed. I can’t even think about learning blues chords!
To keep my enthusiasm up I’ve been working to refine things I’ve already been introduced to: strumming (doing the SOS course, still on Grade 1), revisiting old songs (it’s embarrassing how fast I forget them!) and trying to apply embellishments (within my abilities), and learning new songs. This is feeling satisfying to me for now - sometimes I even feel like I’m doing something cool! Hoping the inspiration to get back to “lessons” returns soon, but this is fun for now. Thanks to you and @JasonBuk for sharing your experiences.
HAHA! This should solve all our issues!
The sitting / posture stuff aside - I tried lots of different ways until finding what worked - this part stood out to me.
FWIW, I’d ditch the theory beyond theory grade 2 for now. It’s not needed for playing IMHO.
What is cool to you? What cool stuff would you like to do? What songs have you learned?
I think it’s really important to try to keep yourself interested as well as grind out the basics (and hopefully fall in love with the grinding).
It’s good to know that it’s common to take a while to figure out something so seemingly basic and fundamental as how to sit and hold the instrument.
You aren’t the first person to suggest delaying theory for now. I could, but I’m not finding it particularly difficult, or that it’s taking time away from practice. I actually kind of like thinking about in the background. I’m letting the mind process the concepts slowly without drilling activities too hard. I made some flash cards, I flip through them during evenings, its light and easy memorization. During times when it feels like I’m not progressing, I need to know I am at least learning something guitar related.
What is cool to me? Plenty, but its mainly all advanced or intermediate at the least. What do I think is cool that could be even remotely close to my skill? Embellishments between chords like adding in supplemental notes when transitioning. Twiddles. That’s probably all I think could be realistically achieved at my level.
The rock stuff- playing the strings in such a way that it doesn’t even look like chords, it just looks like magic. Knowing what frets to go to, meaning, at the very least knowing where the root notes are, I assume that is going to be helpful and make progression easier (not faster, mind you, I’m not in a rush). Learning dexterity with the fretting hand- particularly muting along with chording…my perception is that rock stuff isn’t going to sound great when it’s all muddy/too noisy. Picking with accuracy, picking fast, and on the right strings. I don’t even want to do tapping or shredding, that kind of stuff isn’t even on my radar yet.
The bluesy stuff- particularly, how people can sit and improvise so effortlessly. The blues intro lessons are next for me but I saw there’s introduction to 7th chords. I’m not mentally ready for 7ths yet. Or getting into the minor versions of chords- that’s why I’m slowly marinating the triads theory (the minor, augmented, diminished), thinking that can only help when I’m needing to drop a flat or raise a sharp.
I’m sure we all have these thoughts that this is all complicated and don’t know which direction to step. It can be paralyzing. I’m sure everyone gets stuck in different modules when they start to feel it all piling up. It can’t all be learned at once, i totally get that. I don’t not like the grinding. I guess its just that all the cool stuff is hard (makes sense) and it will take a long time to get to them.
What songs have I learned? Not very many honestly. Why? I don’t know, I guess my mindset has always been that my goal wasn’t to learn songs so much as it was to learn to play the guitar. Songs are a bonus, I guess. Let me see- Wish You Were Here is getting decent. I picked up These Boots Are Made For Walking. I suppose I could say I Remember You by Skid Row. Easy strumming songs like King of the Road, Cover of the Rolling Stone. House of the Rising Sun, the simple four chord progression, that is. Stuff like that.
That is a great skill. It really adds to your playing.
I still don’t have 1 song that I would say,
‘I can play’ Or would attempt to play in front of someone
I’m into triads now. I have been working on making a chord chart to help me learn these Now I’m starting to see patterns it’s not just dots everywhere
I condensed pages of diagrams I made. Maybe it will help you.
@artax_2 Plenty to unpack in there Stacy, if I’m looking for a theme, it’s that I’d encourage you to spend more time learning songs. But there’s a bit more to it than just learning the chords.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of your AVOYPs but from your posts I imagine you can’t be that far off the skill level needed to get into some of your cool stuff. Just needs some focused practice.
IMHO part of learning songs is not just the chords and lyrics. It’s the little riffs. It’s the embellishments. It’s hard to fully “get” these just from isolated practice. Yes, there is some of this stuff later in grade 2, and also in grade 3. But there’s no reason to not get into it now.
I’m just going to give you a bunch of ideas that helped me along the way…
Try Hey Joe, the beginner open chord version. Look at Justin’s lesson, he has a riff in it you can do in open chord position. Sounds pretty cool, mixing the riff with open chords.
Big Me by the Foo Fighters. Easy open chords, with pinky down embellishments. A bit harder to find a lesson on it, but this one comes to mind because one of my old AVOYPs was just dug up and has two vids in it, one with just open chords and the other with pinky down bits.
You’re also doing power chords now… they are boring if you don’t learn songs. Learn the cocaine riff, with the single string slide. Learn Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz with the slide or hammer on. Quite fun to play, Try Basketcase with it’s palm muting and accents.
Wish You Were Here - do you do the hammer-on, riff bit as well? That is fun and not so hard with some practice.
Oh, Good Riddance by Green Day. Find a tab (or watch the video lesson) and try to pick out the notes in the intro, you already know the chords… When I first tried this it was SUPER hard. As in staring at the strings and trying to get the right one, slowly! But it comes together.
The cool stuff is in songs.
The only way to get there is to try it, and try it slowly. Pick some songs that have cool riffs and learn the riffs. Getting the right strings under your fingers is hard, and takes a lot of time.
Californication - learn some more of the riffs beyond the one introduced in the grade lesson. Enter Sandman, some awesome riffs in there that will take time to get under your fingers but they’re not the most complicated once you get them. Highway to Hell is also a good rock riff that’s not too hard.
I’m pretty early into improvising, but do a bit of it. Improvising is a skill that comes in time. A lot of what you see isn’t made up on the spot. It’s based on a scale, and licks that the guitarist has already learned, used together. You can make your own ones up.
The 7th chord stuff - this is your theory practice putting you off! They’re really easy. Well, just as easy as learning some new chords, no harder than that. Forget the theory, it’s just new chords and different fingering. The blues is fun. In this module there’s also some riffing lead lines to learn, some chunka-chunka swing rhythm stuff. Nothing to be scared of! And you will be improvising by the end of that module using the Am pentatonic scale. Which you don’t need to know the why or wherefore of, or even the notes - just the fingering and the sound.
This is where you’re stuck. The learn songs thing isn’t just a mantra. It’s how you actually learn to play. Without it, you’re just learning a bunch of concepts. Chords, notes, scales, techniques. Actual playing is playing songs. And making your own songs, if that’s your thing.
I know you do piano. My daughter is learning piano. In quite a traditional way. How do they do it? Learning songs mainly, each slightly harder than the last introducing new techniques.
So what do learn? Just pick one song at a time. One that you’re learning in detail, and once you know it well enough to practice it on your own (still far, far, from mastering it), learn the next one.
Some of these things you’re missing are closer than you think.
