I’m Marco, 26 years old from the Netherlands. My musical journey started at the age of 12 when I began drumming lessons. Played the drums for 6 years and then just kind of stopped. Two years later I started keyboard lessons with the same teacher, though after about 1.5 years he stopped teaching. This was around the time I was finishing my study and starting my first fulltime job so I never really picked it back up.
I’ve been wanting to try and learn playing the guitar for quite some time, but never really made the move. At least, until the end of january of this year. After seeing many people online recommend JustinGuitar I checked it out and could tell right away that Justin’s style of teaching clicked with me. After doing a bit of research I pretty much just visited a music store after the covid lockdown to buy my first guitar (electic) and start the JustinGuitar course.
My favorite genre is metal, pretty much all across the spectrum in terms of heaviness. There’s one heavy metal guitarist in particular who made we want to play guitar. This guitarist is Alexi Laiho from Children of Bodom (sadly gone way too soon…). So naturally one of my goals is to play most of his work, though this will be very challenging. Other goals consist of developing good transcribing skills and explore and learn from other genres as well.
Compared to some of the other posts I’ve seen here I’ve realised I go through the course a bit fast. Reached grade 3 module 15 about a week ago but I’m looking to setup a schedule now to start consistently developing some of the grade 1 & 2 stuff.
One of my biggest challenges so far has been to play along with songs, most of the earlier suggested songs didn’t interest me and looking at my own playlist a lot of it was either too difficult or way too many unknown chords. Though I think the main part that was missing were slash chords, so I think I can start tackling more songs now.
Anyway, I’ve been very much enjoying my guitar journey and thankful there’s a great community on here as well.
Welcome to the Community, Marco. You are in the right place to learn to become a guitar player, and over time that can become a guitar player who plays metal. As uninspiring as you may find the songs in the early grades, I think still worth learning to play some of those songs to lay the foundation. And once you hit power chords and starting getting riffs under the fingers, then I expect you’ll be getting closer to at least metal rhythm play.
Great stuff, and welcome to the community. For me, learning songs, especially the early and easiest of songs, gave me much needed motivation to not only keep at it but also to increase how much I played each day. Those easier songs weren’t why I started, but they gave me the foundation to get where I am now which is well past where I expected to get to when I started.
Staying with it is a very personal thing so if learning songs doesn’t do it for you, don’t worry about it, find what works for you and keep doing that. It’s a great journey!
Hey Marco! Welcome to the group!
Sounds like a decent musical background, which probably helps with rhythm at least!
I fully understand the beginner song issue, had a bit of the same thing in the beginning where the songs didn’t really speak to me.
I discovered that there’s actually quite a lot of songs in there, that are such a part of musical history that even if you don’t actively listen to the genre, they’re just fun to play.
On a side note, I just discovered songs by Blink182, which are far removed from metal, but they definitely have a funkier vibe than country or pop! Big step up in speed as well!
Hello Marco, a very warm welcome to the community.
Drums, keyboard, guitar.
Fantastic - who knows where the three disciplines will take you.
I would urge caution on rushing. To become accomplished in any genre you need the same fundamental skills. Those skills are learned singly in micro-pockets of practice time then reay consolidated and made real in the context of songs.
Learn songs, learn songs, learn songs.
Yes, the songs presented on the site at grades 1-3 might not be to your taste but I am certain that learning at least some of them will benefit you a lot.
Cheers
Richard
@tony for me it’s actually practicing the material that has been motivating, I can easily practice scales for 30 minutes and say I had fun doing it. Though I agree with the general opinion here that it is worthwile for me to at least try to learn some beginner songs.
@Richard_close2u it never reallly felt like rushing to me, but then again I did skip playing songs often. My current plan is to see if there’s any skills I need to work on by testing myself through songs, i’ll take a look again at the beginner songs and will try some with different chords/techniques.
I will still progress grade 3 at a slower pace but I definitely won’t be going into intermediate stages before being able to apply everything in songs.
One exception though is fingerstyle I don’t know why, but every time I try to practice it it makes me want to stop practicing all together. I do want to be able to do it, but it’s the only thing so far that I don’t enjoy doing. Hopefully I can sit down and practice it in a later stage (and have at least somewhat fun doing it).
@Aaronwith2dots I’d say Blink182 isn’t that far off metal, though it is more modern punk. Earlier punk rock and hardcore punk were quite influential for new wave of british heavy metal and thrash metal, which in turn are very important subgenres for most of todays heavy metal.
Marco, if you’ve not bumped into @alexisduprey yet then maybe take a look at this recent AVOYP Tao of Metal - Troy Stetina Then you can dig out his other topics which you may find helpful and perhaps inspiring.
Yeah, phrased that a bit incorrectly I guess! It’s definitely not that far from metal (depending on the type of metal as well oc). That’s actually why I brought Blink182 up, they have pretty accessible songs to play that might be more suited to your metal preference than a lot of the recommended songs!
Hey Marco, welcome to the community! I’m a metal fan too and yeah Justin doesn’t really have that much Metal content and the stuff he does have is in the higher grades. Justin’s foundational courses are sooo good though that they are absolutely a must!
If you interested in going deeper into rock and metal I’d suggest going through Justin’s short but good: Master Rock Power Chords | JustinGuitar.com course. 14 tracks with tabs and backing tracks to go a little deeper into power chords than his grade 2 module.
I’ve been playing for 8 months and this community has also been super helpful along the way offering advice, suggestions, or even just watching me play in an AVOYP and dropping a like has helped with keeping me motivated. Looking forward to seeing you around.
Hello Marc, and a warm Welcome to the community . I smiled when I read that you started your guitar journey due to the inspiration of a particular guitarist. It was the same with me. Learning to play the guitar was on my bucket list for ages, but it needed to watch Tim Walters (from the Dire Straits Experience) play with so much joy and ethusiasm, to finally subscribe to my first course .
I wish you lots of fun along your guitar journey .
Nice of you to say, without Justin’s teaching I’d have given up a week in! I don’t know about you but I’m surprised at how fast time goes by. I still remember vividly watching Justin’s first lesson the day before my guitar arrived.
Yea time goes by really fast, for me I usually think back of the first week of lessons. How impossible it seemed to make even a single chord and the finger pain…
Luckily time goes fast though, that will allow me to buy a new guitar sooner Three weeks after buying my guitar I was already tempted to buy another one. Have been holding it back by telling myself I wouldn’t buy another one in 2022 (financial damage control haha).
Hoi Marco,
Welkom and i wish you a long lifetime of guitar playing,…
You already have a nice musical basis and you will really benefit from that
Greetings,Rogier
Seems like you have a good musical knowledge and I hope you enjoy your guitar journey. Make sure you get those basics down though. It will help in the long run.
Hi Marco, welcome. Although your goal is to play metal you can choose from the songs Justin proposes on each module at least one as a test that you are fluent with the techniques introduced within each module and if not you can go back and practicing the lesson again. Your previous musical experience may have helped you to glide over some of the lessons but once you actually try one of the songs you are aiming for you may find that your foundations require some reinforcement.
. I smiled when I read that you started your guitar journey due to the inspiration of a particular guitarist. It was the same with me. Learning to play the guitar was on my bucket list for ages, but it needed to watch Tim Walters (from the Dire Straits Experience) play with so much joy and ethusiasm, to finally subscribe to my first course 
.
Three weeks after buying my guitar I was already tempted to buy another one. Have been holding it back by telling myself I wouldn’t buy another one in 2022 (financial damage control haha).