Musings of a beginner

This is for anyone greener than me starting their journey here.

I highly advise going through all three "Fundamentals 1" versions here, including the discontinued version. While technically they all cover the same information, each instructor has some really valuable personal tips and tricks and philosophies. (p.s. the spell checker here seems to be broken). While I am waiting on my left hand to catch up to what my right hand and brain can do, I am working through all three, including the recommended practice songs, and my journey will be better for it.

Get a guitar that fits your hands and body: I was struggling with my cheap generic learning guitar that I started out with. The action was stiff, so I had to exert a lot of pressure to fret a note. I also have large hands, and my fingers did not fit in the frets. I bought a relatively inexpensive (but higher quality) wide neck guitar, and all of those problems went away. I gained months of skill in one day.

Find some cheap easy wins. For me, that is the two chord version of "Horse With No Name" for chord changes and rhythm, "Smoke On The Water" Easy Version for moving shapes up and down the neck, and a variety of riffs and basic melodies for single note picking. I have the first few bars of "Wish You Were Here" Theme 2 of "Hanuman" and "Happy Birthday" in my practice session.

Don't be afraid of music theory. I've read up on it, watched some videos. It's mostly Greek (or I guess Italian), but it is comforting to know that it is there in the background, and every once in a while you will get an epiphany of understanding that makes you feel smart.

Be patient. Have fun. Nothing that you are good at now, happened overnight. For most of us, that will be true of guitar too.

Hello David 

Great write-up, and great to see someone on the forum again who is so enthusiastic about guitar. 

Wishing you all the best with your studies 

Bill

I appreciate the support!

Hey, David.  Thanks for posting all that great advice.  These are great observations for any guitar student.

"Get a guitar that fits your hands and body . . . I gained months of skill in one day."

I've seen this over & again with students.

"Find some cheap easy wins."

Yes!  Play music in any way you can as soon as possible.

"Don't be afraid of music theory."

If it keeps pace with your practical skills it can only help.

Thanks again!  

Hey David,

i love your Musings of a Beginner! So well said. 

This jumped out at me: “Be patient. Have fun. Nothing that you are good at now, happened overnight”.

It is SO true, and as adults, we can be WAY more uncomfortable ‘not being good at something’ than we were as kids. Kids don’t mind being fumbly at first - they expect it. 

So learning guitar as an adult takes a certain kind of willingness, a kind trust in the process - that can go against the grain, psychologically. 

Along the way, as things that were difficult on 10/10/25 move into a category of “doable” and later, “easy”, be sure and notice and acknowledge these wins! 

So happy for you - have a ton of fun with this!

Be well, Lisa

Christopher, I humbly suggest that they change the label of your fundamentals course from "discontinued" to "alternate"
I got a lot of good information out if it as a companion to the "primary" course. Thanks for all of your support and feedback.

Lisa, what you said is so on point for me. I can't stand doing things that I am not at least competent at. Dealing with my struggling left hand has been a battle of will. It's analogous to the scene in Happy Gilmore where he is yelling at the golf ball trying to get it to tip over into the hole. "just go to the chord hand, are you too good for the chord?!" This phase has been the deal killer in the past when I have tried to learn guitar. I intend to push through it this time around. 

Hi David!

I love this.

I’ve been known to address my left pinky with sternness. “just DO it, would you?”

😅🎶

I am toying around with replacing my "spider legs" practice with a full fretboard of pentatonic scale shape transitions.

I tried last night for a couple of hours, and I felt clumsy. However, when I treated them as shape patterns, I could see the potential. It seems to me that it would give a similar workout to spider legs (if I intentionally use the pinky on some), and also drill on some scales.

Just checking in on my stream of consciousness thread here.

I have almost gotten the 5 patterns of the pentatonic scale memorized for finger warmups. Patterns 2&3 of the major scales get mixed up, but I am close on that.

I am also patiently waiting for my left hand to come on board as far as open chord changes go. Simplified songs, with whole or half note sequences give me enough time to build the chords, and I can feel the muscle memory almost ready to stick. It will be a major breakthrough for me when it comes together.

I am super excited about the "Transpose" chrome extension. Probably the last person to know about it, but it's going to really help with learning, and I am very thankful that Bill pointed it out to me.

Thanks to all for your support. 

Great to hear about the progress

I have been languishing on the guitar lately. My in person instructor dropped off the radar, and life in general has intruded on practice time. Originally my plan was to get up to speed on some basic songs before moving on to fundamentals 2, but I have not made the progress I imagined.

I am going to move on to the next lessons, and hope that it re-ignites some focus. I imagine my skills will come along eventually, and will not stop me from at least understanding what the lessons are trying to teach.

Yup. Keep it simple. Maybe work on a simple song to get you playing with the band. 

So, inspirational story (for me and maybe some of the other super green).

Around the 6th lesson into fundamentals 2, we are plucking on the open A string to practice root note strumming. I hit it a couple of time, and it triggers my melody tourettes. "You know that song" it tells me. I know from a lifetime of experience that all else in life must stop until I figure out what "that song" is.

I pause the lesson and start picking on the string, trying to figure out what rhythm or note progression set me off. I do my humming mumbly, talking to myself routine that I try to keep other people from ever seeing for fear of white coats coming to take me away. After about 15 minutes a word surfaces through the darkness, then another, then finally a third. That is usually enough for a google search, so I type in "song with (these three words) lyrics. Turns out to be Disturbed's version of "The Sound Of Silence"

I go look at Simon and Garfunkles tabs version on Ultimate Guitar. There is nothing with an open A string on the guitar tracks. I turn tracks on and off, and find it in the vocals track. Luckily, someone set those notes to tablature. If I ignore the bottom note on the ones that look like power chords (I am assuming harmony of two singers?), it is exactly what my brain has been humming on repeat for the last hour.

I have since printed out the pdf,  and worked through a dozen times and can play it well enough to quiet the tourettes. Maybe not well enough to play with a backing track, but not bad for one afternoon.

In the big picture, I am sure that it's negligible, and has the difficulty level of Happy Birthday, but it felt like a big win for me. I also feel reinspired to keep playing, and hopeful that I can actually make progress. 

Great, we have to take a win as a win.

Speaking of Happy Birthday, it took me weeks to learn Amazing Grace. Not a complicated song.

Everything else aside, I had fun figuring it out, and every once in a while I got a little chill from playing it correctly.

It will be something good to fall back on when I am frustrated from struggling with chords.

Anybody, here's my problem or frustration.!!!

I am just learning chords and am having problems with dead strings. The course says don't worry about it but I don't see how it'll correct itself on it's own later. It makes me not want to learn.

Any suggestions.?

Hi

don't worry about it. Guitar takes lots and lots of practice. Focus in on what is causing the problem and slow everything down concentrating on correct finger placement and keep at it but not to the point of major frustration. Tomorrow is another day and more practice. It does work. Everybody who plays guitar goes through it.

One of the most frustrating things for me is seeing YouTubers use words like "Master the guitar in two days". Even at GT, if I were writing the ad copy it would read something like "Sign up for many many hours of frustration and hopelessness". But they probably wouldn't sell many subscriptions.

Try to avoid getting to this point:

https://youtu.be/9DbUPjEbIvA?si=l5ooXYVBRyMy77og

Good luck

Bill

Thank you, Bill.

I certainly don't get that frustrated.!!!

Your welcome, it will come together!

Bill

Edit: should have mentioned, and I don't fully understand how it works, but our brains are making physical changes in our rest periods. Stressing the importance of reinforcing those wiring changes with regular practice/rest periods.

My fingers were too large for the beginner guitar I bought, and I could not fret properly no matter how hard I tried. I ended up buying a wide necked guitar, and it all went away.