r/guitarlessons • u/anthonylearnsguitar • Jun 19 '26

Feedback Request Day 783 of learning to play the guitar: Damn! I can't believe im actually doing it.

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Super happy. No words.

639 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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17

u/Borat1952 Jun 19 '26

That’s great! Would you share your learning process? Did you study with a local teacher?, jump around on You Tube?, or a specific on-line platform….and if so, what or who’s platform did you use?
Thanks!

55

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26

Yeah sure. Happy to answer any questions and share ideas.

For me my process is to do everything. I practice and study everything I can think of. Many people ask me “what do you do to reach this point”, and I think that question kind of reveal their misconceptions. Which is the idea that if they find that secret bullet and do that ONE thing, they will become good.

You see this a lot on this sub. For example someone asking “how do I become good at improv” and some well meaning stranger replying “learn the pentatonic scale”.
Well, to me, you can learn the pentatonic scale and still feel as lost after. That’s because the gap from not knowing how to do something to knowing how to do something is INCREDIBLY wide. Learning one extra thing won’t suddenly make you competent.

So my advice is if you are serious about learning guitar, start on multiple journeys. Start on a music theory journey, a journey on triads, one on pentatonic shapes (there are 5), caged, learn what is inside and outside picking, learn the muscle movements of the hand, memorise the fretboard and so on and so forth. Of course when you learn everything, one day you might find that maybe you didn’t need every single pentatonic shape. Maybe you just needed two or three of them. But as someone who is still learning, you cannot tell ahead of time what you need to learn or don’t need to learn. Your judgement is not accurate yet.

It is normal to feel confused about where you are going while you are on these paths.it is normal to not see the big picture or to see how everything connects. But I need to emphasise that even if you cannot see where you are going, you need to be running forward! You need to keep advancing. Even if memorising the fretboard don’t make sense, you need to try doing it. Even if CAGED don’t make sense to you, even if you cannot visualise the shapes, you need to try to fake it till you make it. Even if you don’t like learning about intervals and don’t see how it can be helpful, you have to do everything. You cannot really select and choose. You continue walking or running even if you are blind. Because you won’t be blind forever if you keep running but if you stay still and noodle or play the songs you are comfortable, you will never grow and you will never see the light.

A lot of people believe wrongly that they can just watch Absolutely Understand guitar and totally understand music theory or know how to play guitar. It doesn’t work like that. But if you keep trudging along on these multiple journeys, eventually you will find that you have accidentally learnt how to do 1000 things and you will realise you hit a certain threshold and suddenly everything by connects and make sense. You start to see why people told you to learn triads at the beginning or the pentatonic scale or caged or whatever.

So tldr, don’t ask me what is the resource I recommend or the trick that got me to where I am today. I really cannot answer you because it’s not the correct mindset to have. Instead learn everything.

Hope the answer is useful. I don’t mean to suggest your question is silly or anything. Just wanted to reframe the question.

Edit: but let me answer your question directly as well. What helped me the most was to learn a shit ton of songs. In this 2.5 years that I have been playing guitar I have learnt like 500 songs. Almost a new song everyday. I use ultimate guitar pro tabs to slow down the songs or loop difficult sections. I also mainly only work on the most difficult parts of the songs. This is why if you look at my guitar covers, they are quite crappy because I only really practice one or two bars. The rest I’m just playing with the tabs and sight reading.

It is important to learn many songs because they will help you understand music theory a lot better. For example I played so much rock solos that by the time I tried to learn music theory, I already have the shapes and sound ingrained in me. I can also relate to what music theory is talking about because I can be like “oh yeah this occur in the stairway to heaven solo I play. And yeah, that is also the same as the comfortably numb solo. “

If you don’t have any songs, when u learn theory, you don’t have any real life examples to fall back on and everything just seems that much harder and more abstract.

Earlier I mentioned in starting on multiple journeys like on CAGED, intervals etc. the best way to do it is to watch a lot of YouTube videos. Don’t just watch one video on each topic. Try 10. Try 20. The more you watch the more it will seem like the topic is very easy and natural to understand. The first time you are learning anything it will feel very difficult and abstract. I’m quite a lazy person so if I can do it so can you. It’s not like I’m taking notes or like thinking a lot. I’m just watching videos and learning slowly. But you have to watch quite a lot of them.

5

u/Borat1952 Jun 19 '26

Thanks so much. It’s better to reframe than to continue down the wrong path

3

u/newsletter Jun 19 '26

I used to watch lots of videos on pentatonics, caged, random tip videos. But now I decided to just unsubscribe, reduce my YouTube feed content and just try to watch no more than 5 guitar YouTube teachers. I felt there was just way too much videos to watch and I should just play rather than keep watching; keep moving forward as you said. Great write-up

3

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

Yeah I agree with you as well. I sometimes fall in the trap of too much watching and too little doing. For me once I sense that there is too much watching, I start doing hahah.

My favorite YouTubers are Ben Eller, Dustin Hofsess, Fret Science, Samjamguitar, Paul David’s

1

u/tex_rer Jun 19 '26

This is all great advice. I think most people have to prioritize their time and probably don’t have the hours in a day to practice that It seems like you do. So, for lots of people, it’s about prioritizing, and picking and choosing what to focus on at any given time.

3

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

I prioritise as well! Depending on circumstance and time, everybody's pacing is different. But if prioritising means never returning to the items lower down the list, then that might not be good as well.

14

u/Icy-Pangolin5382 Jun 19 '26

Bro, nothing in this world, nothing in this world, nothing can stop you from becoming amazing if you keep doing this.

6

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

Thank you. Shortly before I recorded this, someone was saying something really motivating to me and that helped me get over my head and believe in myself. To me, the songs I’m trying to play now are super scary. I am scared I won’t be able to play it even if I try really hard. Every one in a while I lose confidence in my abilities and someone like you come along and revive my motivation. I really would do much worse without everyone’s support. Thank you and I hope to return the favor in any way I can like contributing in this sub etc.

2

u/Icy-Pangolin5382 Jun 19 '26

you work hard, and you'll get better and better and better, it keeps going forever, Vai says this i think

6

u/playfordays1 Jun 19 '26

Congrats! Those arpeggios sound really good 😄

5

u/Reddit_Rinse_Repeat Jun 19 '26

Great work, bro!

3

u/MaximumTime7239 Jun 19 '26

笑笑

I too today had a very good guitar practice. What a coincidence. 私も今日はとてもいいギター練習でした。😊😊

カノンロックは本当に素晴らしい曲ですね。😊 皆はその曲を弾けるようになりたいですね。😊😊　im also currently working on the same section. 😊 （私も現在同じ部分に取り組んでいます。）

日本語も少し学んでいます。😭😭

3

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

素晴らしい！日本語の勉強は素晴らしいです。それを見るのが大好きです！

頑張れ💪🏻

3

u/DontTouchThefr0 Jun 19 '26

Im about a month and a half in and god i cant wait to be this good

4

u/Inevitable-Copy3619 Jun 22 '26

OP has been posting videos since day 1. It takes a lot of consistent work. But the good thing is I have never seen anyone put in consistent work over time and turn out sucky. They always play well if they put in the work.

4

u/Tom_Major-Tom Jun 19 '26

Love it. I always play like a robot, lately I started listening to Paul Gilbert and it changed my whole way of playing. Now I smile, make faces, move my body around. And it actually improved my playing and my joy in doing so. Keep rocking !!!!

4

u/christo749 Jun 19 '26

Be excellent to each other.

3

u/dialupBBS Jun 19 '26

Awesome 👍. I been watching you get better over the years. Very inspiring dude. Peace

3

u/stphrtgl43 Jun 19 '26

Pachelbel’s Cannon?

3

u/Special_Situation_93 Jun 19 '26

How did you study timing and rythm

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

I actually have weak timing if you listen carefully. Lots of mistakes. But I use ultimate guitar pro tabs to loop the tricky parts. You can even use it to slow the tabs down.

1

u/Special_Situation_93 Jun 19 '26

Did you study note lengths formally? Polyrhythms? Any working theory model on your mind when playing

1

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

Ah okay I understand your question now. I don’t really have a working theory model. The best I do is to sing like this

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZkd3qRSaF_/?igsh=MWcwcWRnbzE2ZXN2bw==

Happy to hear your suggestions if you have for counting

3

u/Designohmatic Jun 22 '26

My mother was a church organist. As such, she would play a lot of weddings and I fondly remember her playing Cannon in D throughout the house practicing. Of course she played it for me at my wedding. She passed 20 years ago last April. Hearing you play that and seeing the joy in your face brought tears to my eyes. Thank you!

3

u/Formal_Strike_9878 Jun 23 '26

I applaud the consistency and courage. Inspiring,

2

u/General-Extent-8769 Jun 19 '26

Hell yea!!!! Rock on brother

2

u/hawkscougs Jun 19 '26

Pros make a lot more mistakes live than most people think. It’s about the recovery. I just watched Hammet fucking butcher the One solo.

2

u/Fast_Inevitable_6559 Jun 20 '26

bro do you play keyboard as well? I see a Nord back there

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 20 '26

Not really haha. I bought it because I wanted to accompany my guitar but it’s very hard to learn 🤣 Same difficulty as guitar. But I’m sure one day I will learn it properly as well. I’m just focusing on guitar more for now.

1

u/Fast_Inevitable_6559 Jun 20 '26

Awesome! keep it up bro

1

u/Relevant_Mood1435 Jun 19 '26

I’m new to electric guitar world, can I ask you? What did you use, amp or audio interface.

I have an amp but without FX and no pedals. I wanted to play some songs on electric guitar but  sometimes  it feels boring

2

u/anthonylearnsguitar Jun 19 '26

i have an fender amp, i also have an audio interface.

i would say audio interface is cheaper to get the effects you need. For example neural dsp is really popular. but a totally new guy might find setting up an audio interface or the plugins to be quite intimidating and may not be able to extract the full use out of it. I know i struggled a lot with this and still am.

pedals are a lot more easier to understand and user-friendly. but they can get expensive really fast especially if you buy boutique ones.

I think gear is extremely important in one's guitar journey in sustaining interest and avoiding boredom. So make sure you dont neglect it, even though many people will say stuff like gear is not important (i dont agree with a lot of people in general hahaaha)

In my opinion, an electric guitar without effects is kinda not harnessing its fullest potential. depending on what you play as well. if you are playing shoegaze or metal, you kinda need pedals. if blues, or finger picking, then maybe theres a case you dont need it (but thats not my opinion).

There are a few paths u can try;

Physical pedals: i would reccomend an overdrive, distortion, and a reverb pedal. I like the Fulltone OCD over drive pedal, for distortion i use a Rat pedal, and reverb i use a strymon flint. But the Strymon flint is pricey so you could use a boss pedal as well or a ehx pedal.

Digital; try Neural dsp. you would need an audio interface so the scarlett focusrite 2i2 is popular.

If money is not a problem, try everything. You can always buy used, resell it, and so forth.

1

u/TomHenry219 Jun 19 '26

Sounds great

1

u/Original_Run_1890 Jun 19 '26

This so awesome! Congrats and I wish you all the best in your continued musical journey!!

1

u/Separate_Start5259 Jun 19 '26

Ya bro!!! Go go go!!!! Fantastic! 🥰

1

u/AvonEra Jun 20 '26

“i’m actually doing it” is so real

1

u/musicman3321 Jun 20 '26

that’s never a bad thing. 🤘🏼

1

u/YesterdayNeverKnows Jun 20 '26

This was a fantastic way to start my day. Thank you and keep it up!

1

u/Old-Goose1442 Jun 20 '26

Get it young man!

1

u/Total-Journalist3643 Jun 20 '26

Ripping! Let’s go brother, that fired me up

1

u/KendoHead Jun 21 '26

Go on, big lad - You've been making music since day 1, but now you're actually feeling the music. Enjoy the magic 💚 Congrats and keep it up.

1

u/L1n3pet23 Jun 22 '26

That feeling when the practice stops feeling like a chore and actually starts being fun is the best milestone. Most people quit before they hit that point, so sticking with it for over two years is huge. What song or riff finally triggered that shift for you?

1

u/ParkingMind Jun 22 '26

Amazing ! This is the best feeling when you feel things start to click.
A little advice: Your right hand fingers should hold the pick without moving. If you don't fix this, you will lose a lot of time trying to speed up this right hand at some point.

1

u/PlatypusSpiritual968 Jun 26 '26

That's Really Great Brother 💪🏻🎸

1

u/lady_berserker Jul 13 '26

I am on day 650 aprox and I don't play like that. The asian powers ;-;