Learning Guitar

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So, a couple of months ago, after listening to Buckethead over and over I decided to start learning guitar. Fortunately for me I have been going to a community centre/social club this year which has a bunch of music instruments that anyone can use, so I was able to start practicing on the guitars there (.. I recently bought my own Ibanez electric).

Is anyone here decent at guitar? What are the things that really helped you to get super good? I'm wondering how long it takes to become an advanced player.

I'm not going to take any proper music lessons (too expensive), not yet anyway. Some of the guys at the centre have been showing me how to play, but a lot of what I know now is self taught.

One thing that I practice a lot is playing scales with backing tracks. I'm trying to get different scales to sound good with the tracks. Pentatonic is easy but boring, I tried the modes like Lydian but it doesn't seem to work out well. I don't know many licks though, so it kind of feels like I'm being repetitive and random with the scales.

Depends on how much of your time you're able/willing to put into practicing. I personally have played guitar for ~7 years now, but I don't consider myself better than intermediate as a player. The main reason for that is that I never put much of my time into practicing the instrument - I kept myself busy by engaging in other interests most of the time. I did, however, put just enough time into it that today, I don't utterly suck.

Realistically, I'd cite the good old "10,000-hour rule" as a guideline. Play the instrument for 10,000 hours and you'll arguably be an advanced player.

It depends on several factors:
-What is your musical background?
-How much time are you willing to put into it?
-What is the preferred style?

Even if the answer might be unsatisfactory, learn the instrument by practicing scales, different techniques, and above all your favorite songs. Start slow and then increase the tempo. Don't look at songs in terms of difficulty. If you wanna learn it, then practice until you nail the parts.

Thank you for your replies.

Yes maybe it would take 10,000 hours to reach a world class level. That's something to think about later. But what I was getting at is, I'm wondering: at what point does playing guitar suddenly "click" and feel completely natural, where you can play easily, as though the instrument is just another part of your own body (if such a feeling is possible).

.. well today I was able to play a short piece without looking at my hands. Not too bad for just a couple months of practice (I seem to improve more when I'm trying to not look at the frets).

I have no musical background whatsoever. So I started this as a total newb. But I put a lot of time and effort into it.

That can happen at any time depending on your approach to the instrument. For me it started to click as soon as i was able to properly improvise over a jazz chord progression without having to think about the chords and scales.

I was trying to learn guitar some months ago. Everything was okay and I found a really good teacher. But when It came to writing lyrics I found some difficulties. My friends suggested me to get a help from a special custom writing service and these guys were able to help with english writing. My lessons became easier and I could learn faster.

I've been playing for around twelve years, and I can say I haven't improved drastically for the last few because I haven't pushed myself. In the beginning I was playing until my fingers blistered, then waited for a few days, and if my fingers will still raw I'd put plasters on them. I probably averaged 6+ hours per week in my first year; now I probably average about or less than 1 hour (unless I'm recording).

Persistence is key. I would have quoted the 10,000 hour rule if whatamievendoing hadn't.


One thing that got me to really stick at it was to form a band with my friends who were also learning, so we could go from crap to less-crap together. Our first jam was the highly complicated Wild Thing.

I've been playing guitar for about 40 years, but I'm not very good at it. I don't put enough practice in, but there could be more to it than that. A few years ago I went on an SSRI and took up guitar lessons. In about 6 months I learned quite a lot and my playing improved (I could practice), however, my musical creativity decreased. I went off the SSRI and haven't taken up the lessons again. Fortunately, I seem to have retained most of what I learn't. Has anyone else had a similar experience (not just with guitar)?

One thing that helped me and was quite enjoying was playing along with songs I loved and learned the notes through tabs. I got my first guitar at age 10 and learned a couple chords but when I was 16 that's when I really started to learn. I also did the scale learning with back tracks to accompany me and that's an excellent way to get acquainted with many different techniques, rhytyms etc.

As with many other endeavors, playing the guitar takes practice and repitition to hone your skills. Everyone is unique so you can't really put a timeframe on learning and whatnot.

People that hear me play so I'm very good and I like to consider myself a constant student to the teacher of music. I write my own songs and its very therapeutic. I also love to play a chord progression I've come up with and record it on my Android phone and then play a lead over that!

Rocksmith really improved my guitar skills.

Yeah I was thinking of getting Rocksmith. No stores around here have it in stock though, so I'd have to buy the cable off eBay and then buy the game on Steam .. might wait until the next Steam sale before getting it.

A program that I discovered yesterday is one called ChordPulse, which lets you make backing tracks really easily - can put together whatever chord progression you want in any key (their "lite" version is free, but they also have a paid version with more features). So I've been playing around with that, it's great for improvisation practice.

I might look at other backing track software. It seems that Band-in-a-Box is the most well known program, but that one is pretty expensive.

There's Yousician too. Haven't dug into it myself, though, but I've heard good things about it. That might also be something you'd probably want to look into.

I've played woodwind for 40 years... mostly sax but now flute. I've practised for thousands of hours... 3+ hours a day when I was really going for it. I nearly gave up the day job to play sax... but the day job was easier.
I've also played guitar for 45 years and never improved after the first five years... I don't practise enough.
Personally, I'd forget about mastery and just enjoy playing it and learning. If you get fed up, just put it aside... you'll probably come back to it when you're good and ready.

I can't really say much about guitar.. I've played it for about 20 years now but I got as good as I wanted to be (ie. I can play competently but I don't do anything flashy) within about 3 or so years of occasional practice. I learned how to play the bass only about 3 years back and it took me about 2-3 hours a day of deliberate practice for about a year before I was completely comfortable playing what I heard in my head without having to think too much about what's going on with my fingers.

Something that really helps is sing the notes while you play, or rather play the notes that you sing. It forces you to translate from your musical imagination to the fretboard without cheating and relying on scale patterns and licks you've drilled into muscle memory.

Not tried Rocksmith so can't comment on it, but definitely wait for a steam sale. It will have 75 or 90% off it at some point.

As for the guitar, I've been playing about 24 years and I'd say I'm quite good, but out of practice these days. I've never been able to play in front of anyone though, always mess up notes, or completely forget what I can play.

Above all make sure your having fun, learn stuff you like. Although sometimes you will hit a 'brick wall' where you don't feel like your progressing - this (for me) can last anywhere from days to months, but you always breakthrough eventually with enough effort and practice.

If you haven't learned to read tab yet then I suggest you do. There is a vast wealth of tablature out there you can learn. These days I have the ultimate guitar app on my phone which allows me to bookmark tabs, and if you can afford it, I recommend upgrading to the Tab Pro as you can see the tab played with sound so you can play along or loop and slow down sections until you get it right.
- Although this experience depends greatly on the quality of pro tabs you can find.

Oh hey, I've recently started learning to play the guitar, too. So far I've only been using what I can find for free on the Internet, but I'm going to be taking a class at a community college, starting on Monday. Granted, most of what I've been doing is trying to play "46 & 2" by Tool and learning the techniques I need to know for that, because I'm completely obsessed with that song