I tend to learn songs at too fast of a tempo and quickly go off the rails. The only way that Iāve been able to slow down is to use a metronome set at a slow tempo or play the song in YouTube or Transcribe at 50% tempo at first.
Iām a little late to the party - or was I just entering very slowly? 
First of all, I am so happy for you, Nicole. The way your husband received your mood after the lesson puts it perfectly and itās just great to read, how well it actually went! 
Your teacher seems to be a really good one, pointing out the one thing you need to focus on the most and what will be the most rewarding for you when you follow his advice. Great stuff. 
And rest assured, you are definitely not alone with being impatient and constantly remind yourself of slowing it down: I am with you in this and guilty as charged. But I also can assure you: once you are really aware of it, it will get better - but it will take time, though.
As you asked about our own experiences with slowing it down: Remembering my piano lessons as a teen, I already had that issue and my teacher kept pointing it out each and every time when learning a new piece or skill. I tend to go all in from the very start resulting in sloppiness. Over the years, it slowly sank in and I started slowing the pieces I learn down and get them right, before speeding up again (for piano, but also for guitar). But it took me years (I blame being a teen back then 
) to really ingrain that habit.
When getting back at guitar a while back, I straight away did the same mistake of rushing again, but being older (and wiser 
) I recalled my piano lessons and also carefully listened to Justinās advice on slowing things down, so it took me less time to raise awareness of my impatience and overcome it in the due course of learning itself with baby steps - still a work in progress. But now, when tackling a new song, I not only slow it down, but also break it down to digestible pieces to study on their own (an advice already given along the thread), before I put all of them together and gradually speed up again. Turns out, it is working fine that way. It takes a little longer to āfinishā, but the result is definitely worth it, for the following reasons:
It is built to last much longer (in memory), it is less sloppy and I reach a level of performing confidence rather sooner than later with regard to true performance (i.e. finding my voice/making the given song my own) compared to songs I learned my āoldā way just rushing through. It is noticeable for me while playing and I actually really would have to relearn certain tunes to be happy with how I play them - which is way harder then building them gradually and with more patience.
Sorry for this long-ish rambling. 
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Rushing things? GUILTY.
Played sloppily as a result? GUILTY.
Got discouraged? GUILTY.
Put down the guitar for months/years because it would not āhappenā for me? GUILTY.
Found JustinGuitar & went āBack to Basicsā in order to unlearn old bad habits & relearn things in order to build a better foundation? Happily ~ GUILTY!!! 
I used to āknowā 20-25 songs by heart. None of them were good enough to play in front of other peopleā¦ I was a bit embarrassed when people found out that I had been playing at playing guitar for years because I sounded like a total newbie. Now, doing things similarly to what Lisa S. describes above, my songs are sounding much, much more recognizable & enjoyable to both play & listen to!
Slow down!!! Learn it right!!! Then, speed up!!!
Tod
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Yes to this. The goal should be to play the music that is in your head. Sure, take your time getting there as you get some skills under your fingers. Beware that cranking away on things at a snailās pace in search of perfection can be demotivating.
Gibberish is ok as long as it is your gibberish. I think thatās better than a note for note carbon copy that took a long time to approximate. There are tons of gibberish songs and jams out there that people seem to like.
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yeah, so many previous instructors of mine are guilty of going too fast (for me)!
namely, theyād START farther ahead than I really was. I was so thankful to find online lessons that started where I was. I was cranking along at these lessons for the past several months and came to the realization that I needed to slow down and consolidate material. Iāve been working on a few songs the past few weeks and spending the time to correct little errors. Itās been helping a lot with a variety of techniques that these songs have been emphasizing. being at the point I am now, Iām starting with an in-person instructor tomorrow, also. hoping that he can give me a wider variety of songs to play that will exercise skills Iāve worked on and work on a few things that the online lessons either havenāt covered at all yet or havenāt covered to my satisfaction.
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I agree that thereās value to learning things with your ears. But not everyone can really make much headway doing that as beginners. Want to talk about demotivating? Someone who really struggles with playing by ear being forced to only play by ear. I struggle sometimes with teasing out the notes in a song. The chords? fugetaboutit! BUT, the more I play things by looking at tabs and stuff, the better I get at the listening part. So, itāll come. I donāt see the value in forcing this to happen too fast.
Yes to this. The goal should be to play the music that is in your head. Sure, take your time getting there as you get some skills under your fingers. Beware that cranking away on things at a snailās pace in search of perfection can be demotivating.
As a beginner, you donāt need to seek perfection. Lots of amazing musicians arenāt perfect. But āplaying the music in your headā might just be asking too much for beginners, too. Thereās no chance that Iāve learned enough about the guitar to approximate any music playing in my head. You have to walk before you can run.
I get a great sense of accomplishment every time I nail some little thing thatās new to me. My first hammer-on? WOW! That was cool! My first bend? WHOOO! First time I start āfeelingā a new strumming pattern and can just keep going on autopilot? YES! Thereās so much more that I want to play that Iām just not ready for. Jumping too far ahead and getting stumped and stymied is pretty demotivating, too. Iāve definitely been there more than once in my 20+yr journey with guitar.
Gibberish is ok as long as it is your gibberish. I think thatās better than a note for note carbon copy that took a long time to approximate. There are tons of gibberish songs and jams out there that people seem to like.
Thereās quite a difference between the gibberish that Iām going to put out and the āgibberishā someone with a lot more practice is going to be able to put out. I teach a variety of outdoor skills for a living. Itās endlessly frustrating when I get beginners who come to me disillusioned because experienced people forget what itās like to be a beginner and still needing to learn the absolute basics and they get plunked down into stuff thatās WAY over their heads. difference between what I teach and music is that getting in over your head with music isnāt a possible life threat or a risk of injury the way many outdoor skills are. but Iām starting to get a feeling that the same phenomenon of experienced folks forgetting what itās like to be learning the basics is still out there.
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Thanks @Lisa_S Yes, he said something that he is telling his young students all the time to slow down. This in combination with Justinās video Silvia posted shows that I am finally on the right track. If it takes an external real life corrective aka in person teacher in addition to following Justinās lessons, then thatās what it is.
It seems thatās me in a nutshell as well.
I hope, one fine day I can adopt your new approach as well, because it does make perfect sense.
That sounds so familiar @CATMAN62 - and given the stress at work it happened to me even when I was already learning part of the community and learning with Justinās lessons. āYou have played earlier. You know all that. You should be better. You should go fasterāā¦ that was driving me for the most part even when I knew somewhere in the back of my mind it was wrong. In the end that led to me not tackling old bad habits, becoming frustrated and in combination with stress at work to more breaks from guitar - not for years luckily this time, only months or weeks.
I will try to remember that 
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@CT we are very much on the same page here. Maybe itās a bit like painting a picture (not that I paint, but for comparisonās sake), it seems so much more likely to become a good picture if the artist has access to a number of tools and paints they know how to use.
No risk for that to happen. Perfection is always boring Itās not perfection Iām after, but itās getting a solid foundation.
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@Mustela Many thanks for your posts.
First of all: Lots of luck for starting your in-person lessons tomorrow - and hopefully you will be as lucky as me.
I had written down my wishes. After I had given the paper to my teacher, he said āIām already confusedā. So we started from the top of my list, which was changing to and from F-barre and at towards the end of the lesson came to the āstrum somethingā bit. Finally we decided together how to continue. Isnāt that how it should work? I mean, sounds like your old teachers werenāt very good if they only taught what they wanted to teach and didnāt listen to you resp. didnāt adapt to your wishes.
Reg. Identifying chords in songs by ear being difficult for beginners, I agree with you. I cannot do that yet, which seems logical since I have not invested any time yet to even try. Itās something I really want to learn
Thatās a great comparison. Thank you I think it really shows how difficult it is to be a good teacher.
Hi Nate
Itās a very unfortunate if this demotivates you and others ā¦ but it is the most important skillā¦ I canāt even begin to count how many times Justin says this in the beginner course and of course start with baby steps like he shows so often, and for example the entire beginning of the Blues course is full of it (the first master class in blim etc etc) and there are also a lot of beginners who have a lot of difficulty with it and olso a lot advanced players (5+ years) who never really started because tabs were always so obvious ā¦
Justin says he recognizes fairly advanced players by his ears or they have learned to play while they picked out songs by their ears or learned to play with tabs, I heard him say 2 weeks ago without any hesitation ā¦
and it doesnāt matter at all if you make mistakes or even many many mistakes in the beginning, see it as a challenge where you you canāt make any mistakes (in the Blim course he doesnāt even give the solution so if you think youāre close and it sounds good then itās goodā¦),
as you get better and learn more theory, figuring it out with your ears it also becomes much easier really a sunshine in a dark sky when I started doing it again halfway after the theory course
ā¦ Justin made an incredible number of mistakes in his first years with this and he still discovers them when making tutorials. ā¦ of everything you can learn, there is only one thing that is really important if you HAVE to choose, and that is thisā¦
But do you just want to play the guitar and strum around happily? Set your goals and the most important thing is having fun and playing a bit for your family and yourself and you donāt like this or can get your ears around it ? nobody force you ā¦ These are important lessons that will be repeated through all the site ā¦ but no one can force you, we are adults and you will encounter many annoying difficult things from Justin and others with skills they say you āneedā to learn that are very difficult ,but this one steps out ā¦and it is so difficult to commit yourself because everything is so easy to find online ā¦ I certainly do it too sometimes Because I have more to do , but the difficult stuff I do it all with a smile because I choose to learn guitar and i like it ,also the hard stuff ā¦and if it doesnāt work now, maybe next month/year ā¦
I encounter a lot of problems in almost every area with guitar (and physical things with guitar are the worse for me but that is an other story )ā¦ but this are not problems that are in need to get down ,I like and try to ā¦itās about you having fun.
But since this is a guitar learning site , so I wanted to highlight his most important lesson and what he talks about the mostā¦ (and the most established players or average players who have done or started this skill )
But keeping it fun for yourself is even more important than stopping of course ā¦and hopefully we donāt demotivate other people, that would be a shame ā¦
I hope this that this gives some light in the darknessā¦ just try, donāt despair andā¦
there are no mistakes in finding by ear if you like what you found at all in the beginning or even later, you have just put your own spin on a song,
Greetings
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@roger_holland This topic is so interesting. I wonder should we create an own thread for it where people could share their experiences and best practices with figuring out songs by ear? 
I for one have not started doing that yet, simply because I donāt know many chords and have not even completed Grade 3 in PMT yet. So I always told myself Iām not able to do that yet, which is probably maybe just lazy? 
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Hi ,
There are related topics about transcribing, it starts in grade 2 (I thought ā¦Edit: cant`t find it that quick in 2 so it is maybe only in beginner 3 ) with power chords in the easiest way there is ā¦ and in the beginner course 3 it continues ā¦ below that topic I think it is the posted a few things (no time to look up anymore)
If I got a cookie for every time I hear that somewhere 
ā¦ Oh wait when I look down I got that too 
No no no, just say that you are too busy and that you will start it quickly 
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I see, I see. Thatās transcribing of course. Not only am I a sloth but I do seem to have a potato brain as well 
I will do some research in the forum. Great idea to start doing this with the power chords. Looking forward to it already.
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I agree that this would make an interesting thread in itās own right. I learnt by picking out the melody by ear. Working out chords by ear is a lot harder.
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Because you first need to identify the key(s) in the song a song or certain sections and then need to figure which song might be included in the song and in which shape and form and where on the neck they are played?
Yes true. First you need to find the key by identifying certain notes. A good knowledge of theory will help identify which is the tonic (root) by working out the intervals. This sounds a lot harder than it actually is. Chord progressions tend to follow fixed patterns and once you know the key than working out the I, II, IV, V. follows. But being able to hear the difference between major, minor, 7th, 9ths diminished chords takes some doing. Nowadays occasionally a song has a random unexpected chord, when i get stuck I resort to looking up a chord chart on the internet.
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I have no idea if this is all, but it may indicate that it is important
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This is more complex and advanced. Some players like to play things up and down the neck for effect. But there is also the concept of āvoice leadingā which involves minimal movement in the chord shapes in order to hold certain leading notes in the same position. Luckily we have YouTube which, if there is a video, can show you where the artist place their handsā¦this is getting a bit off topicā¦
Edit: an example of what Iām on about might be the intro to āStairway To Heavenā
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It does sound really interestingā¦ and complicated. Meaning, this is something which I definitely need to give to time and will need to slow down a lot.
I guess finding simple melodies is a good start as well as starting with the Power chord detective thing. Some punk song good be a good start 
But slowly and all with good time and without pressure
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