Here we are, a winter’s day in 2026. It’s 4 PM and it’s getting dark outside.
I don’t think it’s even 24 hours ago that I wrote my first topic in this community to introduce myself to all the wonderful people that are on the same path as I am.
I am an introvert and a quitter, at least that is what I was. There were so many times that I have picked up a guitar, started to learn basic chords and strumming until a few weeks later I quit again. Reading some topics from other people in this community, it’s not uncommon to just quit until you’re done quitting.
In 2024 I used an app called yousician for a couple of months, found a private teacher and had a streak of 5 whole months before I quit again.
The guitar I bought for the lessons, a Yamaha FG720S was on a dust-eating diet again.
That was the last time I quit. In June of 2025 I brought her back from the attick into the living room again and started teaching myself with the help of YouTube. Lyin’ Eyes by the Eagles was the song I was determined to learn. I wanted to be able to sing along with it and that was not easy at all. To this day, I can’t still play and sing it.
Instead of bringing my guitar back to the attick again, I chose another route: find myself a teacher that gives me private lessons and shows me what I am doing wrong and what I can do to improve. The teacher’s age is 18, he has about 10 years of experience of his own and is having the time of his life playing in theaters across our little country.
The first lessons were about figuring out what I have learned sofar, what my goals are and what kind of lessons we’re going to have. I opted for 1 hour every 2 weeks. I thought I would have a chance to practice more between lessons if they were 2 weeks apart.
However, it turns out that 1 hour of lesson is enough to cram more techniques in than you can handle in two weeks of practice: Am Pentatonic improvisation, arpeggio’s, strumming, fingerpicking and all that fun stuff I wanted to learn.
So, we both decided that it would be more manageable to have lessons of half an hour every week. Since fingerpicking to ‘Freight Train’ was too dificult, we started off with ‘Dust in the Wind’ and I got hooked on this song! For 2 months I did nothing else but trying to get my fingers on the right frets and plucking the right strings. After one month the intro went kind of smooth, but the verse is something that I still struggle with. Changing from C to G still doesn’t go fast enough for the speed I want to play the song in.
Currently I still play the verse each day for about 4-5 times and practice isolated C to G changes with a metronome, but progress creeps slowly.
Over the holidays there are no lessons and on radio & TV we have the TOP2000 greates songs of all times playing 24/7 between christmas and newyears. So sooo sooooo many great songs that I want to be able to play are in that list!
Whenever I hear a song, I try to listen if I can recognize the chord progressions and if the fingerpicking is difficult or not. Besides that, some songs have an enchantment over me that I can’t resist. Examples are: Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac and Blackbird by the Beatles.
So, as much as I can I try to play these. Again, progress is slow but I am determined to learn them.
Then, sitting by myself I was wondering: how are other people’s journeys going?
Are they bouncing around just like me, or am I the only one that is impatient and ‘ungrateful’ of the progress they are making?
How do other people pick, decide and stay on track with their learning path?
I myself find it very hard to not be side-tracked by songs if I follow the basic - intermediate - advanced track that Justin has laid out for us. Does this sound familiar?
On-topic again: my goal is to be able to play rythim guitar, play solo’s and sing. I think it would be so cool to master guitar and voice ( I recorded my singing and only hounddogs sound worse) and go out on the streets busking.
If this will ever become reality? I don’t know, but that’s my dream.
Go big or go home, isn’t that what John F Kennedy once said?
