Can anyone relate to this? Is this normal?

[mikeinsun]

Hi gang, my names Mike and I live here in the sunny Algarve Portugal. Hence the name mikeinsun :-) Except today we are covered in a thick blanket of cloud and the wind's picking up!

Anyway this is my first post here and I hope you guys can give me a few pointers in how to learn to play my fourth guitar! Still a complete beginner, but I really think this real cool site is gonna help me crack it. I just started getting through the vids and I notice that my fingers have a life of their own. I mean I am playing those simple basic riffs in the beginner videos and my fingers seem to want to pick any string, unless I stop myself and force myself to think which string to play! It's as though my brain is not sending the information quickly enough to my fingers so they just go anywhere! I think it is also synchronisation between left and right hand? Is this a usual newbie thing I have to get over?

Can anyone relate to this? Is this normal?

I feel progress is painfully slow but I'm thinking that it will all gel soon!

Mike(intheclouds)

[Benoit]

Perfectly normal, I had to struggle with this a lot when I first started and believe it or not, I sometimes still have to.

This is what we call muscle memory. Once you learn a new riff or lick, you muscles needs to adapt to it. They need to learn when to contract and when to release. Once they learn it and it becomes "memorize" and the next time you play it, you don't have to think about it.

This is why we always say to start an exercise very slow and increase in speed as you go. Playing at slow speed insure more accuracy while your muscles are learning how to play the lick or riff.

[Fret spider]

its perfectly normal. this is the boaring stage where many give up. once ur over it it gets better and better and better. juat ask any right handed guitarest to play left handed and watch him struglle to play a simple chord progression or set of notes

[fuyu]

I'm also having this same problem! I also am just starting as well, so I'm not sure, but I think the problem is mainly because of being right handed. Your left hand just isn't used to being relied on so much. I've never used my left hand this much in my life. :o Finally being put to good use though right? :D We just need to train our lefty into cooperating!

[BrokenJera]

this will happen forever. but dont worry it gets easier. i got 'lucky' early in life since i broke my right arm twice. so im almost ambedextrus (i didnt spell it right).

there are some finger independance exercieses that will help some, but it will still take a while to get used to it. you dont really need to do them because just practicing will be enough to build the proper control.

one exercise is tp take all 4 of your finger (1 2 3 4 ) on a certain group of frets al play notes in different orders like 1 2 4 3, 1 4 3 2 , etc around the neck. as you get better start skipping strings so 1 2 on the 5th string and 4 3 on the 2nd kind of thing.

another exercise my guitar teacher showed me is to:
place all your finger on the 3rd string starting at the 5th fret. pick the finger you want to work on (3rd finger for now) and keeping your 3 other fingers lock on the 3rd string play the 7th fret on the 4th string 7th fret on the 2nd string 7th fret on the 5th string 7th fret on the first string 7 th fret on the 6th string.

im not sure if writing it out is going to show you how to do it. so if you need a tab for these just ask and ill write one up.

[fuyu]

im not sure if writing it out is going to show you how to do it. so if you need a tab for these just ask and ill write one up.Although I'm not the creator of this topic, I would love if you could make a tab for these exercises BrokenJera, as I'm sure it would benefit all of us newbies! :o I'm getting pretty frustrated with my out of control fingers (not in the "good out of control" way). :D

[mikeinsun]

Looks like I "Hit a note" with this topic then eh? :-) Great answers, gives me the drive to continue. I now see why I have quit trying to play the guitar so many times in the past.

Another "thing" that I find tricky is spanning my fingers down the fret board.
In the beginner lessons, one lesson is asking me to hold my 1st finger on the 3rd string 2nd fret and then my 3rd finger on the same string 4th fret and finally my little finger same string 5th fret! Now I have large hands and long fingers but I started to think have I been sold a guitar with a longer fretboard than everyone else! This felt extremely un-natural and getting that little pinky to push that string down near that 5th fret was and still is a challenge!

So I guess from what you guys are saying that "this too shall pass"? And I guess that this is a big part of what learning to play the guitar is all about.

Yes to the last post, the tabs on the fret board exercises would be useful, thanks.

Thanks again

mikeinsun

[Benoit]

Although I'm not the creator of this topic, I would love if you could make a tab for these exercises BrokenJera, as I'm sure it would benefit all of us newbies! :o I'm getting pretty frustrated with my out of control fingers (not in the "good out of control" way). :D

Altho not exactly what BrokenJera was talking, this tutorial by Lisa has some good exercises to work all those fingers :) The last lesson gets a little into what BrokenJera said by breaking away from the 1-2-3-4 sequence.

http://guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=424

[Stephen Pengill]

I feel your pain Mikr in the sun! I looked at the B major chord and wept like a girl..I have a really short attention span too so i am trying my hardest to stick with this until i can play a tune or two... Once i get to that stage i should be alright... I am repeating part 1 of the beginner tutorial for the second time to make sure i soaked it in..

As an aside i downloaded a tab for Desire by U2 and Rocking all over the world. I found these are both easy to play and acually sound pretty cool with my amp on overdrive :) Sorry neighbour!

[BrokenJera]

here are the exercises i was talking about with some explanations about them.


||-------------------------------------------------|
||-------------------------------------------------|
||-------------------------------------------------|
||-------------------------------------------------|
||---------1-3-2-4-------------------2-3-1-4------|
||-1-2-3-4--------1-3-4-2----1-4-2-3-------------|

||-----------------------|
||-----------------------|
||---------------3-------|
||-------4---------2-----|
||-----3------1----------|
||-2-1------4------------|
for the first exercise you can move it around the neck and up and dwown the strings. the numbers are your fingers not the frets. if you want the rest of the exercises take a peice of paper and write the 1-4 in as many different combos as you can( there are 20 unique groups i think). the second part of exercise 1 is an exaple of string skipping you can write your own as you get more and more comfortable. as you get yo be a better guitar player you should move this up the neck past the 10th fret to improve you comfort level up there. as your doing this if you can keep your fingers on the last note played, in the first one (1 2 3 4) you should have all 4 of your fingers on the fret board when you play your pinky. you should get a metronome set it to 60 bpm and 4 beats you play along with it. speeding up the metronnome as you get better with them.

||----------------3----|
||-------------3-------|
||---1-2-3-4----------|
||-----------3---------|
||--------------3------|
||-----------------3---|

this second exercise is a little different. keep 3 of your finger on the 3rd string and dont lift them. i used my 3rd finger for the example because thats the one i have the most problem with, you can and should do this with all of your fingers. again these are finger numbers not fret numbers. the neck gets wider as you move away from the nut a good place to start is the 5th fret. you can move this to the 4th string but no lower or higher than the 3rd or 4th string. you should get a metronome set it to 60 bpm and 6 beats and try to play along, as you get better speed up the metronome.
as with any exercise this will take a long while until you see the results you want. dont try to do these all day long as that would be incredible boring and possbile painful. the best way to use these is as part of your warm up before practice and your cool down after parctice. DONT spend more than 10 minutes a day on these. Dont attempt the second exercise with cold hands (not played in a few hours hands), you should see a big difference in your flexability from begining of practice to the end.

if you have any questions just ask ill try to answer them.

[fuyu]

Thank you SO much for making this for us BrokenJera!! :D I'm printing it out and will work on this daily!!

[Sing4LTS]

Cool exercise man...I've been playing for 15 years (self taught) and even I can get some use out of this.

[ren]

Check out Steve Vai's 10 hour (or 30 hour!) guitar workout - it's full of exercises like the ones Jera posted... ;)