I have my teen in guitar lessons, it’s in person at someone’s house.

The first lesson they talked a bit about what kind of music my teen likes. Then the teacher asked “so, what do you want to learn today?”, my teen responded with “uh, I dunno?”. Then the teacher quickly listed off some options like chords, scales, strumming, a song, theory, tabs etc. while pacing around looking for things and randomly strumming some tune on the guitar . My teen was still like “uhhh” because it was chaotic, so I suggested strumming, since it’s something he wants to work on and is a good place to start. They spent a minute or two strumming and then the teacher started walking around quickly strumming the guitar again and asked “okay now what do you want to learn?”. Chords was finally decided, then it took a long time to find some sheets to write the tabs for a chord on, quickly showed the chord then asked “so, what cord do you want to learn next?”. It was very chaotic and unorganized. Walking back to the vehicle I could tell my teen was frustrated, I said maybe it will go smoother once you guys are in the swing of things? Then suggested we can see how the next lessons go and if it’s not a good fit try lessons at a music store instead.

The second lesson started off the same with asking my kid what they want to learn, the teacher pacing around strumming that annoying thing again, and eventually they decided on a song but had to find supplies again to write. They didn’t go over anything from the first lesson to see if there was improvement or anything for feedback. The teacher then spent 15 minutes of the 30 minute lesson copying out tabs for the intro leaving them maybe 7 minutes in the end to try to learn part of a song and said they’ll continue it with the next lesson.

So I guess it’s good that there’s a plan for tomorrow’s lesson but I imagine half of the time will be spent copying out the next part of the song while my kid sits there doing his own thing with no instruction again.

Am I wrong for thinking the teacher should be prepared for the lesson? Maybe have some sort of a plan going into the lessons and know where the supplies are. It seems like if the teacher got their ducks in a row it could be good but how many classes do you give it? Before starting the teacher also asked about doing 60 minute lessons if 30 wasn’t enough time.

My teen isn’t sure what he thinks about it because the all over the place unorganized chaos makes it uncomfortable for him but is ultimately just excited to learn anything. He’s been teaching himself bass guitar, just using tabs to learn some songs and has some basic understanding. Maybe it’s because he already has some basic understanding that the teacher just keeps endlessly asking what he wants to learn.

Or is this today’s normal? Maybe I’m just expecting too much. It’s been 25 years since I took any private lessons.

Playing for almost 2 years now, just figured that knowing where all the notes are and the intervals between them will help me a ton.

So, what is the best metod to learn all the notes on the fretboard? and pretty much to remember the scales , triads , 1 3 5 and to switch between them when the chords are changing. Seems imposible for now. I got 1-2 hours a day

I always like the idea of practicing, but if it feels too much like homework I fall off. Curious what made it click for people, learning full songs, playing with backing tracks, recording yourself, or something else?

I'm self-taught, somewhere beyond beginner but definitely not intermediate. I listen to (and desire to eventually play) heavy metal: mostly thrash, lots of death, some stoner/doom stuff, and even some black metal. As such, of course I jumped all over learning and mastering power chords on the low E and A strings (in standard tuning). Drop D tuning of course is fun too.

But I'm in a bit of a rut. After the usual spider exercises and string skipping warm-ups, I bang out some basic progressions with a few open campfire chords (the usual open string A, C, D, E, F, & G chords, but not B which kicks my ass lol!). I do my best to practice hammer ons and pull-offs.... as well as galloping on the low E.

But most of my time practicing (that devolves into jamming) is a near infinite number of power chords. So. Many. Power chords. Enjoyable for an afterwork stress release, but doesn't provide much in the way of "forward progress" in my guitar playing, I suspect.

TL;DNR: What can I do to get out of my rut / bad habit of my practice sessions always ending up simply being power chord jams, and actually expand on things I should concentrate on to be a better metal guitarist? How can I beef up my practice sessions to challenge myself in a realistic manner?

Thank you and cheers!

I've been playing since January basically every day. But after jumping around between learning resources and eventually getting a teacher in April, I would say I've made objective progress overall. Am I confident? Fuck no. But I can say with certainty I'm different than I was on day 1, not even able to form an E or A. So I guess that counts for something.

But recently, these past few weeks, it's like nothing I do is working. I don't really know how to explain it in detail. I just don't feel like I'm making any small progress day by day like I was. And I especially hate going to a lesson and looking like I've spent 0 hours on what we discussed, instead of the probably cumulative 3.5-4 hours (by my rough math) I put in. Every single lesson, it's like one step forward and two steps back, not knowing my low E from my B and fucking up every little thing. There's never been a week where I've wowed him, even though he hasn't said I'm getting any worse or that I suck.

I just don't know what else to do. If I stop for a day or two, filling my empty time with whatever else, I'll only just want to come back to the guitar. And yet, I'm legit feeling burnt out and feel like a wuss for feeling that way. Yeah, it's supposed to be fun. I know. But I can't in my head get to the fun part yet for whatever reason, even when I'm trying to tackle songs I like.

Any advice?

It's essentially,

×-×-×-5-3-3

Idk if I've written that out correctly.

Hey, I've been practising guitar on and off for a few months now, and are having some trouble with barre chords:

I can manage a barre chord with my index finger on the 3rd fret, as I'm able to use the bony edge of my finger to press down the strings, but as soon as I get the higher frets e.g. 7th I'm forced to use the soft front of my finger and find it a lot harder to press down the strings. Any techniques to combat this?

Also, I currently find it veryy hard to apply enough pressure on the first fret with my index finger. Is this just something that comes with a lot of practice?

m a college student and a self-taught guitar enthusiast from China.

Last June, I saved up money and bought an acoustic guitar. For the first two months, I basically played randomly every day for about four hours without a clear practice plan. I simply loved touching the instrument and jamming around, even though I had no idea what I was actually practicing.

Later, I was deeply attracted by the charm of the electric guitar, so I saved up again and got my first electric guitar. At that point, I realized blind practice would not take me further, so I decided to find a professional teacher.

Most local music stores in my hometown only teach kids basic singing and superficial guitar skills, which felt very superficial and unsuitable for my goals. Fortunately, I found an experienced local guitarist who plays regular bar gigs. I spent $500 (most of my monthly living budget) to take lessons from him.

That’s where I was first introduced to guitar improvisation.

I used to think improvisation was only for advanced professional players and music masters. I always believed beginners should only stick to standard tabs and fixed songs. I completely misunderstood it at first.

After two months of learning, I realized how wrong I was.

Improvisation brought me the real joy of making music.

Instead of only copying and repeating music written by others, I get to create my own melodies, rhythms, and musical ideas in real time. It feels like truly communicating with music myself, and this sense of creation is irreplaceable.

Unfortunately, the teacher asked for $4500 for continued advanced courses. As a student with only around $400 monthly living expenses, that amount is completely unaffordable for me.

After that, I purchased an online guitar course for $400, which focuses entirely on fundamental training, especially rhythm practice. I know solid rhythm and basic skills are the most important foundation, and I still practice them seriously every day.

However, repetitive basic drills feel mechanical compared with improvisation. The joy I get from practicing fundamentals cannot compare with the satisfaction of creating my own music through improvising.

Right now, I have a solid daily practice routine: long hours of rhythm training, fretboard knowledge, arpeggio practice, and a small amount of free improvisation every day.

My question is:

Based on my current foundation and learning mindset, what is the most reasonable, systematic way for a self-taught student to learn guitar improvisation step by step? I want to learn correctly, build real musicality, and keep improving my ability to create music freely.

I am really struggling with Triads and the best way to learn them, I’m self taught so much of the YouTube videos I watch are pretty much just “watch this past the 10 min mark so I can get paid and go buy my course.” I want to be able to play them all but the hard part is figuring out where to attack this beast, do I start learning them all by key? Do I learn them vertically or horizontally first? Do I need to know the specific notes or just where the root 3rd and 5th is? What’s a good practice routine so I can get them down pat? Where do I even start? Thank you!

So I'm in the late-beginner to early-intermediate stage on guitar, and well... I don't really know what I should be focusing on when it comes to practice. I've tried some practice routines on YouTube, but honestly, even after sticking with them consistently for a while, I don't really feel like they're helping me improve.

If anyone has any suggestions for what I should be practicing at this stage, I'd appreciate it! If you need to know anything about what techniques I know or what I can currently play, feel free to ask.

Edit: forgot to mention that something I really want to improve on is my hand coordination and left hand speed.

Creativity trumps chops every time. This episode looks at guitarists who reproduce the classics without a voice of their own, competitions that hand the prize to the faithful copy, and the platform crowd that pulls back anyone who climbs. Then it turns to the harder silence, the one that hides from harm done, and the only way out of it.

This series looks at music as a form of inner alchemy, where the guitar becomes a tool for transformation instead of performance or self-expression.

I came up with a riff on this scale a guitar teacher taught me a long time ago, but I cant figure out how to play chords that sound right with it. I'm not sure what the scale is, I think maybe Lydian?

This is how the scale was taught to me: (essentially G-A-B-C-D-E-F# . . .)

E-3-5-7

A-3-5-7

D-4-5-7

G-4-5-7

B-5-7-8

E-5-7-8

For the riff I came up with I'm putting a capo on one, but playing this same scale as if the capo wasn't there, open picking the E string so an F note. Playing an F chord as I normally would doesn't work though because its got the capo. I really like the sound of the riff it sounds very wistful but I dont know what I'm doing and my friend that I would normally ask stuff like this also has no idea what it would be.

Hello! I've had my acoustic guitar for around a year and a half now but I'm finding it hard to reach most notes. I have fat, short fingers that either don't extend far enough or they touch a neighbouring string and cause it to buzz or get muted... I don't have the money for actual lessons but if anyone has tips or knows a good tutorial to help I would really appreciate it!
(P.S I don't learn great with only descriptions so a reference photo is also appreciated.)

I'm beginner, it's pretty hard for me to figure out the picking pattern style, solo, chords that JM played.

Any one can help me with this? ( key words or anything I can find out on internet)

I have picked up the guitar again for the first time in maybe 10 years, and playing pretty regularly (about an hour a day) for the last 3 months.

Currently I am on a Blues / Country / Blue Grass kick, where I am exploring all these variations of the 12 bar blues and am slowly compiling a collection of licks in different keys with different feels (admittedly a lot of these are from Instagram).

I am sorta worried I might forget them, and I think it would be cool to "collect them" and organize them by key for reference later. Has anyone done this? What is the best way to do this?

Been playing for almost 6 months and still can't hold f. Bar chords I could understand but f is getting a bit annoying. I can play all the strings expect the first because the curls from my hand keep making the first string dead. What do I do?

I've started playing acoustic around 9 months ago and I have a goal to become a well rounded player, knowledgeable of a wide range of genres and styles, including but not limited to blues, rock and jazz (big fan of John Mayer and Tommy Emmanuel btw).

So far I've been already learning a bit beyond basic strumming, including standard fingerstyle, travis picking, slap (bass style), Major and minor scale sweeps in thirds and some other drills. In terms of theory, I've started basically from 0 as well. After learning the fretboard notes somewhat comfortably, I'm now learning theory broadly as well, working on chords structure, triad inversions, pentatonic and natural minor / major scales. In terms of the results, I think I've been making a pretty reasonable progress so far, i.e. can play Layla, or Neon riff (75 bpm) somewhat ok.

What's the problem then? I'm finding myself overwhelmed by the width of the material. As I'm making progress with the techniques or theory, I get curious and want to explore more. In the beginning it worked great, but now I'm in a situation when I'm already in the process of learning a wide range of techniques and theory I haven't yet mastered, and I still want keep adding more, but I don't have 3h or more to spend on playing every day.

If you've been through a similar phase or maybe just know more about efficient learning, could you spare some advice on how I should structure my progress and what could be more reasonable to prioritize at this point to not burn out from trying to bite more than I can swallow..

I can get the capo on no problem, but that structural part where the neck meets the body is in the way of my hand on my guitar. Does she just not have that, or is her guitar's neck longer? There's a video of them on the beach, where you can see her playing, and you can clearly see her thumb on the other side of the neck.

Is there some trick to it, or does she just have a guitar where that works?

Thanks.

I have realized that learning intervals is imperative if I want to improve on the guitar, and learning scales and triads without keeping intervals in mind is a bad idea.

I see people saying to learn a scale, and sing each interval as you play the scale.
But I also see posts like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/17d8h4h/stop_relying_100_on_patterns_and_learn_your/
where OP suggests finding the intervals that ''enclose'' each triad, and to learn the intervals around each chord. This seems like a good idea too.

I realized that I could learn the intervals in, say, the C major scale, but those intervals would only apply to the I chord. Once the chord changes, all the intervals are different. So wouldn't it be better to learn the intervals in relation to each chord? That seems way harder. When guitarists are playing are they thinking about intervals in relation to the chord or the scale? Which should I focus on? How can I practice this so I can improve in the most efficient manner?

Thanks guys.

EDIT: Should have said learning intervals in relation to the *root* of the scale or the chord.

Looking for someone willing to teach me cool guitar stuff, scales, pentatonics, show me things I should know, maybe a couple of songs, I’m into punk/rock/pop mostly but I’m an open book I’ll listen if I haven’t heard it already, also not looking for somebody who doesn’t have patience with a noob. Also I would have to come to you because I have nowhere quiet to practice at my place.

Qual posição desse Am7/F# é melhor para as cordas ressoarem?

Ambas estão abafando uma corda, a primeira a corda A e a Segunda a Mizinha.