This guitar lark is getting to me now!
I have been learning to play gutiar for nearly a year- started at the back end of November 2005. While I never thought it would be easy (this is the 3rd time I have tried to learn!) I really never thought I would be finding it so hard after this amount of time. I thought at least the basics would be sticking by now… but no!
Can I hit the right string…. nope.
Can I hit chords cleanly every time, in simple practice yes- when trying to play something- even simple stuff- nope.
Can I do scales smoothly and “automatically”. nope
Can I play anything from start to finish, well. Don’t make me laugh!
God I am so CRAP!
The daft thing is I really enjoy it but I am seriously getting pi$$ed off with the lack of progress. I do pretty well an hour of practice most days sometime a lot more at weekends, but its jsu not happening.
The guy I go to for lessons, I think is fed up with my lack of progress though he hides it well! But each time I go the list of things I do wrong seems to get longer.
I over strike the stings (thus hitting the string beside the one I want too)
I don’t bring my left hand round the neck far enough
I have “bouncy” fingers on my left hand- i.e lifting them too far off the frets which slows me down.
My picking action is crap- I can alternate pick but tend to be inconsistent with it, and apparently I use too much hand and not enough finger action- though I am struggling to relate this to what I am doing wrong. I can’t seem to change the way I do it.
Strumming- don’t even go there- shite.
I can’t play standing up at all!
I can’t smoothly change between simple chords.
Don’t even discuss barre chords!
Anything I can do right?- apparently the posotioning of my right hand relative to how I hold the pick is spot on!- Thats reassuring at least I’ll be able to throw the picks in the bin accuately when I finally give up!
P.S none of this is Gordon’s fault, he is a phenomenal guitarist and musician, and a pretty good teacher. If he has a fault its that he has been doing it so ridiculously long that his hands are able to get into weird shapes that for a beginner like me, I can’t even come close to emulating so he is hard to copy. (and he is only 24 or 25 !) its just me I am obviously not musical at all!
I suck at guitar. Goign to give it until November and if I really am not getting anywhere, and I am starting to feel I won’t be, I think I will have to admit defeat for the first time in my life and quit.
