Stuck as beginner

An acoustic Vintage V300BK. It was a gift so didn’t choose it myself.

Others have not said it yet, but hear me out on this: get the Justin Guitar app for the karaoke feature. There are songs for all levels there, you can search by chords if you want, etc. Regular practice with a backing track is a good way to build your strumming skills.

Start with something simple, like just a downstrum on beat 1 of every bar, then maybe all downstrums, and when that becomes too easy/boring, change to a strumming pattern with ups and downs, such as old faithful. But do use the karaoke :slight_smile:

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acoustic can be big … usually when the hand gets cold its because something is pinched ( dunno if its a vein or nerve ) , the cold hand must come from your position when holding your guitar

maybe your strumming problem too

a video of you playig might help identify the issue :slight_smile:

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I’m too shy for that. :smiling_face:

we wont eat you promise ! :smiley:

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:laughing: I’ll think about it! :sweat_smile:

OK. Something quick. Sleeves were getting in the way but usually I’ll be well wrapped up and still cold hand too.

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its a tad bit difficult to see how you re sitting and holding the guitar :sweat_smile: :rofl:

Well yes, I know. You get my hand :sweat_smile: OK I’ll do a proper video tomorrow. Or I’ll try.

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I started with a 0.46mm pick which was very forgiving and once I was comfortable with that I progressed to 0.60mm which is a little more versatile if you want to pick some individual notes as the 0.46mm is really bendy!

Another thing I did was to practice strumming on muted strings. The sound of the notes is unimportant, it’s just about finding some consistency. Focus on one thing at a time.

I think you can grip the pick much more loosely than a lot of beginners think and the more you squeeze the pick the worse it gets. It introduces tension into your hand and arm, which sounds worse too and is more likely to result in the pick getting stuck in the strings (in my opinion). Get used to the pick moving a little in your fingers. I hold my pick really quite loosely and I never drop it.

Finally know that getting started on guitar is hard. It takes quite a lot of time to be able to consistently produce something that sounds good and fluid and musical. I’ve been playing a couple of years and a lot of the first year was spent just having to trust that it would come together eventually. It’s not hard to see why so many people give up on guitar but with persistence it will come.

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Welcome to the community Laura :slight_smile:

You have received a lot of good advices. :guitar:

Congratulation for coming back to the guitar world. I’m sure that the strumming will come back soon.

I feel like the progress with guitar is sometime slow and we may not feel like we are making progress after each practice. But, then some time later, we eventually get a AHA moment and the progress suddenly shows. It happened to me recently.

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I grew up painfully shy and still have a hard time shaking it, but I did make 2 videos a year or so ago. You don’t have to show your face, if that helps, we just need to see your hands. :smiley:

oops I see you did do something, lol

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I hear you—it’s super frustrating when something you could do before suddenly feels impossible. It sounds like your muscle memory just needs a bit of a reboot after the inconsistency, which is totally normal. Maybe try slowing everything down, focusing on a really light grip on the pick (too tight can actually make it worse), and experimenting with different pick thicknesses to see what feels best. Sometimes, a tiny change in hand position or even pick angle can make a huge difference. Don’t stress too much—your progress isn’t gone, it’s just buried under a bit of rust, and with some patience, it’ll come back!

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On the subject of videos, the ones in my learning log have the camera deliberately pointed down so my guitar is in shot but generally not much above that. I don’t want to see me in a video, i end up being too bothered about what my face is doing, whether that’s intense concentration or little tells when I hit a wrong note!

It’s worth posting something, even if it’s just 20 seconds of simple strumming, I’ve had lots of useful feedback from my videos and has been worth the cringe I feel when I post them!

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being able to see how you sit and hold the guitar is enough , you can cut your head on the video :slight_smile:

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Funny how you posted your vid and most of the commenters after didn’t see it :wink:

Your strumming sounded pretty decent. You might be overly critical on yourself. Some issues to fix, though.

Your main issue, though, is how you’re holding the pick. It looks like you’re holding it between your fingertip and thumbtip. That’s going to be pretty inaccurate and at times, janky. It’s also making your hand more vertical than is typical.

It should be nestled between the side of your thumb and side of your first finger. Justin has a really good lesson on how to hold a pick - of course - look it up and hold it like that. It will probably feel weird at first, but after about a week of daily practice it will feel more natural.

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Wrong!

The comments relate to the issue of the video being very close up or the experience of being uncomfortable on camera

That’s a bizarre response to my comment. And doesn’t help OP.

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Hello Laura. And welcome to the Community. You’ve already seen how fantastic, supportive and helpful our community is to new members and to people who are struggling with the challenges that we all faced at one time or another.

Kudos to you for posting a video. I edited that post a little so it shows fully as an embedded video not just a link - people can’t miss it now!

Here is a screenshot from the first few seconds just before you begin playing.

Your pick hand looks relaxed and you have the three spare fingers hanging nice and loose, not curled up in a fist position - good.
I notice one main thing I will ask you to look at and try to adjust.
This pic shows it best without the blur of motion when screen grabbing a moving picture. Your elbow is pulled a little bit behind the front of the guitar body. Do you see how the fleshy bit of your forearm, just below the elbow, is a little squashed out due to that soft flesh taking the pressure? Do you also see that your wrist is positioned at a small distance away from the strings on your thumb side? Your writ is having to make tiny rotations and adjustments as you strum to compensate for the fct that your arm is pointing slightly away from the strings rather than sitting a little more flush and hovering almost flat across the body and towards the strings.
Try to push your arm a little further and have the crook of your elbow hanging over the edge of the guitar where the side meets the front. This will allow your strumming motion to operate in a slightly flatter arc and may help ease some of the issues you have.

I hope that makes sense and it helps.
:slight_smile:

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ps

see if this recording of my live club session has any tips you can use:

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