How Far Could You Get In Two Years

Hello

How far is it possible to get self teaching guitar with 20 - 30 minutes a day practice?

I want to be able to get to a good standard before I go to uni (2 years! :O), so I can have lessons for a year and do exams etc. then be at a place to start teaching guitar within 5 years.

What kind of targets should I be setting myself? Basically I am a bit stuck on the kind of things I should be learning/where I should be going after learning chords and chord changes etc.

Thanks for any help,
Sophie

Having been self taught (..and am here to gather the backlog of things I didn't get be doing so), two years isn't much time with such a light practive schedule. I understand that a half hour is a chunk of time in everyones life but to get guitar, it seemed to me that in my first two years of doing exactly what you just said, I did 'ok'. I could play songs but no where near being able to teach. It wasn't until I really bore down and got to practicing one hour a day and then even when I was sitting watching TV, I would go through physicality drills to allow me to physically play what I wanted. It wasn't until I did that that my playing really accelerated.

The flaw with my self taught plan was that I missed massive amounts of theory and technical understanding. I was lucky that my ear worked well enough that I figured quite a lot out but even now with the ability to actually play, I always felt very weak in my ability to really broaden my playing without understanding the theory. Thus being here.

So, if you want to be self taught, I'd suggest a little more time dedicated to practice and if you aren't looking to have a teacher, be sure that you are or remain a subscriber to GT and dig in to the lessons from the ground up or you will be me and need to re-learn what your ears want to know. Otherwise, like me, the most you can teach are beginners. Quite limiting when I did it.

If you like playing the guitar, why would you only do it for 20-30 minutes?

If you don't like it, why would you do it at all?

In 2 years you can go far, but I reckon you should spend at least an hour at least every other day.

Maybe in the first 2-3 months you only have enough to do to keep you busy for 20-30 mins. But once you are any good at all, it's just not enough.

GaJ

I can understand someone just beginning to play the guitar practicing for 20-30 minutes. My fingers hurt like hell until I started to build up callouses. That being said; If you want to make progress you really do have to practice a lot. I've been playing on and off for 40 years and I practice 4-5 hours a day. Granted, I am retired but when I was working it was more like 2-3 hours a day. I do the same thing Jeff does - I practice scales while watching tv or sitting on the porch. If you not into scales yet- try playing all the chords you know 10 times. The key is repetition. Playing the same thing over and over will build muscle memory and it will also train your hearing so you will recognize a chord when you hear it played. I also taught myself to play but I wouldn't encourage anyone to go that route unless they had to. If your goal is to teach guitar I would strongly suggest you get a good teacher to show you how to play and teach.

OK I'll rethink my practice time then, get up an extra half hour early and do an hour each morning.

I do have a pretty hectic life, guitar will be my third instrument. Theory is no problem, it is just applying it to guitar and learning some more guitar specific stuff.

I think I just need a plan, like knowing what to practice and what to learn.

Originally Posted by: MESophieOK I'll rethink my practice time then, get up an extra half hour early and do an hour each morning.

I do have a pretty hectic life, guitar will be my third instrument. Theory is no problem, it is just applying it to guitar and learning some more guitar specific stuff.

I think I just need a plan, like knowing what to practice and what to learn.

GT has the courses to help you learn in the proper order (Fundamentals 1 and 2). Although I didn't begin learning guitar from them, it is a reasonable curiculum for the order. But you will need to supplement with outside drills, exercises, as they don't really provide that, which is what a live teacher would give you(For example , a live teacher would give you various songs or drills to learn incorporating the skill).

Originally Posted by: guitarplayer196GT has the courses to help you learn in the proper order (Fundamentals 1 and 2). Although I didn't begin learning guitar from them, it is a reasonable curiculum for the order. But you will need to supplement with outside drills, exercises, as they don't really provide that, which is what a live teacher would give you(For example , a live teacher would give you various songs or drills to learn incorporating the skill).

I can't pay for a subscription, but I'll try and find alternatives around the internet.