Hello...and some questions for y'all!

Hey folks,

[br]I wanted to introduce myself and ask a few questions. I’ve been lurking on the forum for a couple months, and it’s a great community and resource for GT users. I hope to look for advice on this forum in the future and add some value of my own eventually. First of all, before I lose anyone, thank you to the active users, such as Christopher S, maggior, and JeffS, who I’ve already learned from.

[br]I’m definitely a beginner, but I took a few lessons about 20 years ago as a young teen. Unfortunately it didn’t stick that time. A year or two ago, I started working on Justin Guitar, but family life got in the way. In November I decided to commit to learning and got a live teacher who I see every other week. We work much more on songs than fundamentals. Having live teacher keeps me accountable and engaged.

[br]I’m pretty fired up at this point and just bought my first electric guitar. I got a PRS SE Custom 24 with a Fender Mustang GT40 amp, although I really don’t know how to use the amp. But it allows me to stream songs to play along with and listen through headphone output which makes my wife and three sleeping little ones happy. I honestly haven’t been this excited about a new toy since I was a kid.

[br]I joined GT in January or so. I’m in the middle of Christopher’s GF2 after going through his and most of Lisa’s GF1. I think my plan it to go through her GF2 and fill in any holes, then move to Rock. I haven’t spent a lot of time learning songs on GT. I should probably putting in much more time there.

[br]My musical interests are broad and not all that deep though - it’s hard to put my interests in one genre. I like classic rock, southern rock, lots of jam bands, and some older country. My list of songs that I’d like to play someday include songs by My Morning Jacket, Warren Zevon, Widespread Panic, Steve Earle, The Band, The Allman Brothers, .moe, Little Feat, The Replacements, Squeeze, The Pixies….I’m not sure if there is a common thread here.

[br]One issue that I have is that I’m not exactly sure what my goals should be. I certainly want to keep them realistic given my time constraints. My rough plan is to pick up the guitar everyday for a few minutes at a minimum, and schedule 30-40 minutes of practice 3 times a week. At this point, my goal is to just start making some musical sounds that other people and I can enjoy as soon as possible - my right hand isn’t that rhythmic at the moment. But eventually I would like to be able to play with other people. Maybe join a dad band down the road and be really solid on fundamentals. Also I’d like to develop my ear and be able to transcribe.

So for anyone who made it this far, I have a few questions:

[br]-Are my goals realistic with given the amount of time I hope to practice?

[br]-One thing that I have seen addressed in the forum is some confusion around the song difficultly levels. But I was really confused by the lesson for Backwater by The Meat Puppets. I was pumped to see that song with a level two difficulty. After opening the lesson, I realized it was WAY out of my league. Is the level two a mistake on that one or just a song from a different time when that was considered easy? (I just checked “I Ran” also. It has level two difficulty but seems pretty advanced.)

[br]-Any recommended books related to guitar? I’m not really looking for instructional stuff along the lines of what is on GT but rather stuff to just keep me interested in guitar and music. I have Zen Guitar, Guitar Zero, and The Music Lesson. Maybe something on music theory that is fun and not too technical would be good.

[br]-Any other advice? Am I on the right track here or making some obvious mistakes in my game plan?

Thanks!!

Welcome and thanks for the shoutout. Glad the lurking has helped and anytime you read a Chris post, you'll always learn. The man has a real heart for teaching.

With that said, I'll toss out some thoughts on those questions:

Goals:

Funny thing about guitar, it's not like a work project or a race where there is an end or a winner. Ya know, a clearly definable goal. Guitar is harder to really place a specific goal. Over the years of playing guitar I've learned that goals tend to be situaional. I never had an ultimate end goal other than to not be crappy. After I cleared that hurdle it became more of what kind of things I wanted to learn. Whether it be a technigue, style, riff or a song. The first thing was to be able to get myself to the capability where I could point to a 'thing' I wanted to learn and know that I could do it. Even then, there are limits I have to work through.

Goal number one is to have fun playing. Period. Do not make it drudgery. Sure, there is some part of applying yourself and working on things that don't immediately seem fun but save time to just bash away too. Playing is ultimately an emotional experience so let your heart kinda do the leading and use your head to navigate where your heart tells you to go.

Strumming:

Read here about my recent experience. Hot tip of the day; play along with stuff. Your timing might be naturally good but when you play to an actual song, that'll get you up to speed. That streaming songs thing you mentioned is a great idea.

Part of being better at timing is when the other parts of playing are more natural. Chord changes, notes and all that stuff will make you have to think about it when you're starting out. When it becomes more natural, you will find a natural swing will come to you. Right now, it's likely you're inside your head a bit and not just groovin'. Which is ok, the brain is an amizing thing but still..focusing on multiple things is hard.

Books:

Though you have some good song and instructional stuff, read general guitar stuff like at Guitar World. Don't spend all your reading time learning stuff. Hear what guitar players say about their life with guitar.

Advice:

Have a good time all the time. Ha!

Ok, there's that..But really, you're playing because you want to enjoy it. Don't forget that. I used to really apply myself in my shred days and really get my playing down. Really grind out my technique and try to be fast and clean. It was what ya did in the late 80's. It worked. But the truth is, I would always just bash away at some point when practicing for the looseness and physical release too.

Think of it this way, you go through the rigamarole of traveling to a new city, when you get there, you probably want to do something cool. Otherwise, why did you travel? Don't foget that as you travel in your learning that that every once in a while to enjoy something at the current destination of your playing journey.

Note: I went on a group trip with friends and 'friends of freind' back in the 90's and seriously, some of those 'friends of friends' were total sticks in the mud. Never wanted to do anything but sit around the hotel(s). I mean, why bother?

Thanks, Jeff. Great advice in general about enjoying the process and remembering why I'm doing this in the first place. And like much great advice, it is obvious but needed. It is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. One of my motivations for taking up guitar as a hobby is to have something that I can do as a bit of a release, use the right side of my brain, and be human. But it is easy to get caught up in analyzing my actions and the learning process. I'm sure this is often true for beginners. But I am already at a point where I can play along with some songs and just enjoy the music.

On the right-hand rhythm issue, maybe it is a lack of feel rather than timing. I think I sound much better when I use my hand rather than a pick, so maybe it is something that is just going to come in time.

Thanks again!

Hi Jackson,

Good to hear from you - and I echo the advice of the others: ask yourself this question: "What is it I would love to be able to do on the guitar? What songs? What styles, what grooves, what skills?"

And then craft a pathway towards that goal.

I totatlly agree - it is all about the joy of making music.

Best wishes, Lisa

Thanks, Lisa! And I've enjoyed your GF series so far. Headed back to your GF2 soon.

I guess that sometimes I question what my goals can or should be. One is that I'm not dead set on a specific style. As I mentioned, I like Southern rock, classic rock, a variety of jam bands, alt-country, etc.

Secondly, I guess you could say I'm not well calibrated to understand exactly what is reasonable and possible. It might be analagous to a novice golfer saying, "I just want to go out there, have fun, and birdie every hole." Well that isn't exactly an appropriate goal at this stage. And neither is, "I just want to have fun and shoot under 200." Well, if that is your goal you won't be having fun.

I think this kind of relates to my question about Backwater and how it seems advanced with only a level 2 difficulty.

I suspect that this second issue will take care of itself over time as I learn what techniques make what sounds and as skills are demystified. For example, until fairly recently, the idea of improvising a lead was completely out of reach. Now I have an idea of what it is, and it isn't so confusing.

Could somebody please remove my account? I never use it & I don't want to recieve random emails from something I don't want a part of.