Hi guys,

Well, I suppose my post title is fairly self explanatory. I REALLY need some advice on how to get ma ass in gear and practice my guitar. First off the low down:

I´m 25 years old and have never played an instrument before. My dad, however, is an amazing guitarist and I grew up around blues, and country music and spending my weekends with him and his band at concerts etc. I LOVE the guitar, I love it´s versatility and the way that you can create such an amazing array of sounds from one instrument. It is only recently , however I decided to buy myself one (a cute black and white fender strat) and put my love of all things blues and rock into practice.

Now, I have had the guitar for 6 or 7 months and even started with a teacher (who is great but I can only afford classes 2-3 times a month because of the prices!) the thing is…in class I really start to get into it and I always leave thinking wow…man I can´t wait to get to a good level and play some of those Rifs ma teacher plays with such amazing ease…but then when I get home I can´t for the love of good seem to pick ma guitar up and get into a decent practice session. It’s as if I have all the desire to learn…but neither the patience nor motivation to get over the ´beginners hump´ and just sit down and bear with it. I am certainly NOT a naturally gifted musician and I sometimes feel as if I will have to surgically alter my hands to form the correct shape to play some of the more difficult chords…especially bar chords! Argh!

Please help! I can´t bear to give up on this but I just don´t seem to be progressing past the 7 or 8 basic chords and a few blues scales (maybe I´m an anomaly but I LOVE practicing scales. Especially blues!)

Anyway, if any of you guys have any advice etc please don´t hold back. I unfortunately don´t have any friends that are also learning so I´m missing that element of group motivation´ and I also live in a different country to ma dad so its kinda hard to find anyone to sympathize and help me on this!

Thank you in advance!

Guitar Lessons with a good teacher are great for motivation and to aspire to be able to play riffs just like the teacher. It takes alot of patience and what seems to be a long time to get to where you want to be. I do not think you will ever get to the point where you think of yourself as a great guitarist, there is ALWAYS something new to learn. Just do not give up and try mixing up your scales a little bit and adding your own flavor to them. Once you get out of the basic scale and start adding bends and hammer, pulloffs, it totally changes things and it becomes fun to get a little creative. The sky is the limit to what you can imagine with a single scale and the million different ways it can be played. Just add your own flavor to it and go from there!!!

Guitar lessons will help, listening to your favorite guitarist will also help. Go out and checkout some bands, learn some covers... In other words there's tons of things you can do you get the ball rolling.

The best advice is have fun.

I never practiced how to play chords or scales...I have no patience or motivation for that and never did.

You have to learn songs that are easy to learn for the type of music you play and eventually you learn new chords along the way without even knowing it.

Practice by playing your favorite songs.

it also helps to play your favorite songs on your stereo and play along with the CD/record.

thats the best way to learn and use tabulature if you need it...you need to start jamming to easy songs...thats how you get better.

Practicing scales is cool and all however i could never get into it...it bores me...i basically play by ear anyway so im not saying dont practice scales however playing with emotion and what sounds good goes along way as well.

Hi guys thanks for your replies.

You know, I wrote this post a week ago and just kept looking back at it and thinking…wow..I sound so whiney! Learning the guitar is something I really want to do and I should just be having fun with learning..not looking at it as such a challenge. (As guitar 101 said..the best advice is to have fun!) So…last class I asked my guitar teacher to give a few pointers on a few of my favorite Clapton songs ( wonderful tonight, tears in heaven etc..) and whadya know!?! I haven´t been able to put ma guitar down in a week. Haha..I think maybe I just had to admit to myself that my lack of practice was through to pure laziness and bad time management rather than lack of motivation!

I´ll let y´all know how I´m getting on in few weeks time and if this new found enthusiasm continues! (new advice is still very welcome however!)

L

Thats awsome!!!! Good job on finding your passion for it and good luck on your journey too becoming a great guitar player..