Made up this easy-ish arrangement of Hedwig’s Theme from the Harry Potter films for two guitars. Figured this would be a cool project to share around for Halloween. Enjoy!

Passion, motivation, whatever you call it. I’ve just been regressing so much recently. Even just playing a few notes from a scale or from a song without a metronome, there’s no fluidity at all. I’m like a day 1 player every single day. And my tolerance/patience has just gotten low enough where even five minutes of playing is more a struggle than fun.

And that’s what I just don’t have anymore: fun. I feel like I’m picking up my guitar out of obligation to work on stuff my teacher gives me, more than wanting it anymore, and that’s what hurts a lot. Having to go to my lesson every single week and telling him I fell short of the goals he gave me is sad also, That, and I feel like I’m so close to becoming part of the “X percent of people give up guitar within the first year”. And yet, I inevitably come back to it like a smoker with a cigarette.

I just don’t have the energy and gumption like I did in the beginning. Having to pick it up and sound like complete shit and a complete amateur every single day, with no noticeable progress day by day, is so fucking frustrating. It’s why I don’t ever want to play around other people either, and why no one even knows I play in the first place. They’d either laugh at me or be like “That’s the best you can do?”, and I’d just embarrass myself and walk away feeling as such. And it feels like all I’ll ever be good at is strumming open chords or barre chords. That things like solos are simply beyond me and always will be.

Any suggestions? Is it time to maybe walk away from it and give up lessons for a while, or permanently? I don’t have any other hobbies besides this, and I just can’t get myself to be okay with making mistakes, can’t cultivate patience and giving myself a break, none of that.

Hi! If you have trouble switching chords and strumming at the same time, you're not alone. It's probably the most common hurdle for players new to strumming.

The way most guitarists get through this problem is by releasing the hand just a bit early. On the last upstroke of a pattern, right before the chord change, we usually let go of chord 1 and actually strum the open strings to keep time while we change. Typically this is so fast and so subtle that your ear won't even notice it.

This doesn't get taught or talked about a lot, and I think it's because a lot of players eventually do this without even thinking about it.

That said, it can be hard to make yourself do this if you're not used to it. It's a lot of coordination. So I usually give my students a simple exercise to practice it: we play the downstroke of chord 1, the upstroke where we release, and then the downstroke of chord 2.

The attached video is a quick 3 minute lesson where you can see this in action, along with some of the details I think are worth looking out for.

Happy practicing!

ok, there are some serious timing issues here and there... and bruh, the whole solo is basically behind the beat, that's embarrassing 😭😭 I guess I'll be back next week to correct this.

But any way, it feels great. 😊 I've finally ascended. I'm no longer a stereotypical bedroom noob who only knows a few riffs and parts of solos, and can't play anything longer than 20 seconds. I'm a big boy now. ☺️

What exercises are there to get better at this?

My coordination is trash and I've been trying to sing along while I strum but my strumming gets all messed up every time I try.

Is there any exercise I could do to improve this?

Edit: I was not expecting this amount of answers, thank you all so much, I'm taking notes.

1) I made big changes to my left and right hand technique. If you look at my videos two months ago you can see the difference. Ill make another post explaining what i have discovered (sorry for the cliff hanger). Super mindblowing. The technique changes opens up a lot for me. I can play things that i previously cannot.

2) How did the changes came about? I recently saw a new guitar teacher and he taught me how to fret. He also made me do chromatic exercises. Almost every gutair teacher i know will talk about it at some point but the way this guitar teacher talks about is super interesting and different. It changed how i practice and see the guitar.

But my guitar teacher did not teach me how to pick. He did not try to change my picking technique. If i have to guess i think he believes that when i try to do chromatic exercises and try to speed up, my technique has to change otherwise ill get stuck. Before i saw him i was at 70bpm 8th notes, 4nps. Now im pushing 140bpm 16th notes, 4nps. That means im two times faster. Absolutely insane. I was already playing a lot of guitar solos with my poorly developed technqiue. I'm confident i can do a lot more now.

Anyway, i guessed that my teacher did not correct my picking technique because he probably felt i would figure it out by myself. And figured it out i did! Of course technqiue is spectrum, theres no end point. Im just saying that i leveled up hahaha

3) Now that my chromatics are getting better, my teacher gave me exercises to work on my 3nps. So I started doing all the 7 modes scales using 3nps, from Ionian all the way to Locrain. The moment i when home and practice this, i know my progress is going to explode after doing this. I wanted to impress my guitar teacher so i memorised them as quickly as possible. Actually i did not have to memorise them. There is a system. (124 134 135). If you know you know hahaha.

4) I also went to see Avenged Sevenfold concert, and Nene Royal opened for them. I really focused on how Zacky, Synyster and Nene was playing guitar and i picked up a few pointers and improved a bit as a result. Im also super motivated now.

Sorry everything sounds a little vague. But I have shared some tips on this reddit before and I know you guys will enjoy the "secrets" i have discovered. Give me some time to made the videos.

If u missed some of the stuff that i posted, you can catch up here. A lot of the stuff im going to talk about in the future will carry on from where i left of.
For me guitar technqiue keeps evolving. I want to share how my technique evolve over time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarlessons/comments/1wu57i2/lesson_practical_tips_on_how_to_get_your_fingers/

https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarlessons/comments/1v4icet/lesson_have_you_ever_wondered_why_you_could_never/

i’m struggling to find a good position for power chords on the lower notes my wrist is clearly at too much of an angle. also the same when playing up and down scales when i have to reach the low e my wrist bends awkwardly. any tips?

I'm a very new player and am having problems with my fingertips muting adjacent strings. I'm using the part of my finger just under the nails, but am still having problems. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Beginner here. I learned travis picking for the song Dust in the Wind. Now I am able to play the song but just realised I learned it a bit wrong technically.

Meaning that I use my thumb only on one string and rest with other fingers. Whereas you are supposed to play and alternate the two bass strings/notes with thumb.

Whatever works right, but still asking if I should relearn to do it properly, is it more beneficial when going forward to do it as it should? Am I going to hit some troubles withy my one thumb one note technique 😃

It was an accident!

Thanks!

Also any tips on the buzzing and strings not playing when I press on it ( not hardly) I also make sure my finger is near the fret

Hello any advice for technique on playing this song or just my playing general would be helpful. Recording through ds2 into direct. Thank you

Being 2 Year playing by My own, never go to a teacher, i wanna get better on solos cuz i'm terrible. I wanna know how to know where to play the solo when i'm on a chord i think this is on E chord i just do what i saw on others songs but on the chord pentatonic but it doesnt sound well

Any tips ? What i need to focus ? Where or how

i even tried changing the pickup springs position but no matter what i try the pickups always looks slanted when i raise them. I wouldn't normally care but if they look like this i wont be able to raise them like real high to compensate the neck hotrail (is really hot)

I'm trying to improve on this strumming technique. Please tell me if this sounds even remotely correct.

Actually I am clueless on what even I am doing and just want some feedback on what I doing wrong. I feel like I am doing terrible in solos cause I cannot come up with original melodies and occasional mistakes as well. Plus I keep using the Same pentatonic box and same pattern of melodies which I wanna change but I don't know where to even start

So I made these fretboard diagrams for Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary". I am primarily a studio guitarist/producer, and I enjoy playing in the style of certain artists from time to time, but historically, following the tabs, chords, etc. don't quite get me the results I want if I'm not just doing a cover, so I created this.

The top diagram is all the notes played (legend tells you the note details). The 2nd diagram is reducing some of those voice leading notes or ones played maybe 1-2 times in the song. The 3rd is the vocal notes sang in the song. Next is the bass notes played, followed by the 4 diagrams on the bottom, which are just the 1st/2nd diagrams split into half the neck.

I find this useful for a few reasons. 1st, you can put it alongside the tab and kinda get a roadmap of sorts to follow along with. 2nd, there are some notes in the scale(s) he doesn't use, so not exactly the same as your typical scale chart, though that could also be of use in further learning the style of the artist.

I also think it's useful to see the vocal scale alongside the other instruments, as it can show the simplicity of notes used vs guitar.

I'd think this, plus the song's chord charts, maybe separate the sections into shapes, possibly even a breakdown of the guitar/vocal/bass for the lyrical lines could be informative, useful and reveal the layers of the song and how they overlap and how they're different.

If anyone has any criticism or feedback, ideas, or anything else on how to improve this and make it more useful, would love to hear it!

this isn t really the best of my playing but it s a good example of the type of stuff i usually play. any sort of feedback would be appreciated. i thought i would be playing cliffs of dover at 18 but here i am just doodling over lenny

About to hit two years next month. And this is what ive manged wo far. This is my first song that i fully learnt. Proud of it but would love to still feed back and what i could improve. Thanks

Song is Rojiura Gypsy by Jakura (RIP jasmine)

Tab: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/jakura-tab-s6745632 (rythim guitar, I can’t play the lead), I think is worth noting that this the only non ai tab of this band/ song in all the internet.

On large stretches I often place my thumb behind the fretboard to the left of my fingers. Depending on how much I have to bring my wrist out the thumb even can come up to near the side of the fretboard adjacent the high E. Should I work on breaking this habit or am I doing okay? Thanks!

Photos are 2 sets of 2 showing front and back.

in this example i’m looping g minor and c major and playing short phrases with one shape of the g minor pentatonic scale. the main thing to listen for is where each phrase ends, especially when the chord changes.

when the c chord comes around, i’m landing on a c note and letting it ring for a bit. it’s already in the pentatonic shape, so there’s no need to switch scales to follow that change. picking a landing note gives the phrase somewhere to go and helps it connect with the chord underneath.

try it with a simple two-chord loop and just a few notes from a shape you already know. leave some space between phrases so you can hear the chords, then practice ending on the root of whichever chord is playing. keep the phrases short at first and pay attention to how the same note sounds over each chord.

Been practicing this solo for a while now. IM not able to play the end part. The hand position feels very awkward there. Also, sorry for the bad audio quality 😓