Recovering Heroin Addict

Hello Everyone,

Just thought I would give myself a little introduction. I found out about this website about 2 weeks ago and started the free trial. Im already loving it! Ive been trying to learn to play my whole life but my drinking and bad habits have deprived me from this. ive got very close to 3 years (on sept 25). ive got quite alot acomplished since ive stopped using. but I been having problems trying to teach my self guitar .. i started out on you tube but the videos are all over the place and im losing intrest fast. so far guitar tricks has been keeping me on track. im starting at the intro stages. im on a mission to become a guitar player any help will be awesome. i really like rock , metal , punk , some country ( like hank 3) folk .

Having kicked a demon myself of the liquid kind, I find that guitar has become my healthy alternative, stay focused and on track you will see improvement in no time.

I'm with you. For me it's been 4 1/2 years of sobriety. I did it on my own after my best friend died of cirrhosis. I tried to help but was too late. Guitar came 1 year later. It's always something I wanted to do. Now I'm 61! I think this site is great. I have used it as well as Hal Leonard. I have had in person lessons but I think these are better. No complaints till today when I discovered loop wasn't working. Im sure its minor. Id really like to find some others with same level close to home to just jam along. Keep it up. I play every day.

Awesome ! Im going to give this site a try. i need healthy outlets to keep me grounded. ive always loved playing guitar but like i said that dope kept me locked up like a prisoner. i like that i can go back to the videos for help unlike a 30 min one on one with a instructor. i have had no known issues with the looping yet. i hope i dont either

Glad you swapped from using chemicals to the addiction of the 6 string kind. You've done a very hard thing and should be proud of this accomplishment though I imagine it's day by day.

That said...The most awesome thing about playing is when you become frustrated and can't 'get' something, playing is still awesome and fun. This is a great site to learn from. Even when you're maybe 'not in the mood' to work on a lesson, there's a ton of songs to learn stuff from.

If I could give one piece of advice for starting out; your hands don't do magic tricks. Sometimes stuff just takes a while to learn and your issues will be different than others. For me, the biggest breakthroughs came when I was overcoming the toughest stuff. Don't get discouraged when the hill gets a little steeper. Keep at it and remember, playing is for fun. You're not trying to win the Superbowl so it's ok to say 'hey, I just wanted to noodle around with that riff I just mastered'. It's good to keep your nose to the grindstone but it's not always required. Cuz you wanna have fun playing.

Turns out no issue! I was just hitting fulls screen simultaneously! Jeffs65 is so right. I just keep moving forward. My song list is pretty small for 4 years. Probably because I'm trying to learn notation too. I thought notation and theory would be good for the. 61 year old brain! Recently moving from 1st position to other places on the neck to play the same melodies. Point is I've been at it for 4 years! And I have a hell of lot more real estate to explore!

I'm a beginner too, been playing for about 2 month...I"ve found that using both Guitar Tricks and Yousician is an "addictive" combo for me...when I feel like getting some instruction and playing along with "the band," I sign onto GT. But if I just need some instant feedback, I log on to Yousician and use that app, which immediatley tells you whether or not you hit a note. Each offers a different, wonderful kind of high, and dissuades me from pursuing the chemical kind.

Good shit man, ive been trying to learn for awhile i know a few things, but lose focus quickly and need more direction. I hope guitar tricks does the trick.take care & goid luck

Interesting you are learning notation. I've been playing 30 years semi pro and thought I'd try it. Very hard ... maybe easier when younger, I'm self taught and had no music at school (unfortunately). I thought it may help get more gigs but it doesn't unless you do orchestra pit type work, even then the good sight readers are few. Fact is its tough on guitar, up/down as well as left/right unlike keyboards (they got it made!). Don't mean to discourage you but I abandoned it just because I have no need ... and I discovered feel and technique kind of take over.
Having said that I take my hat off to you! Good luck ...