Fretting and Plucking Issues

Hi all,

I am a beginner and I am at Chapter 3 of Fundamentals 1.

I tried to play melody (5 miles out) without looking at my hands but I regularly press the wrong fret or pluck the wrong string. I tried to play while looking at my hands, but I still mess the fretting and plucking up.

I don't know what I am doing wrong and hopefully someone can give me some advice?

Thank you all.

Sincerely,

Zac

Hey Zac, you aren't doing a thing wrong, it's just not easy to do this at first. You are doing totally different and completely new things with each hand. You're going to want to be looking at both hands almost constantly at first, and of course it's impossible to look at them both at the same time, but you will probably feel like you need to do exactly that. At the same time your brain is trying to process it all at the same time. Your notes won't sound very musical at first either. You'll pick the wrong string half the time. If this sounds like what you are going through, welcome to the club!

You did ask for advice, so my advice is to just try to be patient with yourself first. Reset your expectations now that you are discovering that this is harder than it looks. Let yourself get better very slowly. Celebrate and let yourself feel good each time you make a tiny improvement, because it is all about gradually piling up one tiny improvement on another over a prolonged period of time. You aren't going to get it in a few weeks.

As tricky as the physical parts of playing can be, the mental challenge is easy to overlook. This is like learning a new language with a totally different alphabet. So, the notes are letters in the alphabet. Chords are words. You have to learn the alphabet and basic words before you can start learning to read and write this new language.

Now, despite the fact that I have given this same sort of general advice to several people, I constantly have to remind myself to be patient with it. I started learning just about 5 months ago and I keep getting frustrated, feeling like I should be a lot better than I am. Sometimes I go into a funk for a few days at a time, but one thing I will not do is quit. If I quit, then I am just another person that can't play the guitar! If I keep practicing, it may take a long time, but eventually I will be a guitar player! [br][br]

So, long reply, but the takeaway is you are in the same place everyone is at first. Stay with it.

Someone else will probably have much more practical advice than this, but I hope that what I am saying will help you feel better about what you are experiencing right now.

zac,

im a six month beginner on GT too. i have completed core fundamentals one but was so frustrated with chapter 3 tab reading and practice i skipped past it. i now know that its an impt part of the songs we all know well and have looped back around to patiently figure out tab reading and practice again.

you are not alone. it has helped me to pause the screen when the tab is shown to practice solo and to set the speed a bit slower then normal when playing with lisa and the band.

good luck. don't give up!. sometimes i think ill just jump in for a 15 guitar practice session and it turns in to a 2.5 hour event. im still having fun and playing often without looking at my left hand chords. its a great skill/ goal while we are all home bound too!

take care!

.

Originally Posted by: Zac24

I tried to play melody (5 miles out) without looking at my hands but I regularly press the wrong fret or pluck the wrong string. I tried to play while looking at my hands, but I still mess the fretting and plucking up.

I've been playing since 1982 and I still look at my hands pretty often. Most guitarists do. My wife says the same thing as she is just starting out as well.

I'm like; 'why do you care if you look at your hands?'. You shouldn't care. Time will take care of when you do and don't look. Blindfolded knife throwers don't learn blindfolded first. That would be crazy. Same with guitar (but safer!).

So absolutely don't spend a second worrying about not looking. It's not important to your learning.

I do realize that you also tried to play it while looking to. There, the answer is really just to take your time. Break it down in to sections. Build up from smaller sections to the whole melody. It also doesn't hurt to hum the melody while playing each note slowly.

Humming a melody while you play is a great habit to learn too. It helps your ear and makes learning less mechanical. Less about your fingers not cooperating, Though as an early learner, those fingers don't exactly want to follow orders!