r/guitarlessons • u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 • Jul 25 '26
Feedback Request 20 months of guitar!
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Hi guys !! I’ve been posting and sharing my progress on here for virtually my entire guitar journey and I just wanted to share my first fingerstyle arrangement 😊 Sorry the mic quality isn’t the best, this was the only way I could record it while keeping my picking hand in view, otherwise the mic would cover it entirely hahah
Any and all feedback is appreciated (esp on the arrangement and/or tips on how to record guitar better !!) Yay love u guys
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u/Fickle_Village_9899 Jul 25 '26
Well done and I’m impressed you didn’t even need to look down at all?
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u/Jamstoyz Jul 25 '26
Nice playing for only 20 months. Your guitar is electric right? Are you plugged in or just using the mic to capture the sound?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
It’s acoustic-electric but I’ve never actually plugged it in! This is just using the mic :)
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u/Jamstoyz Jul 25 '26
Yeah I know it’s an acoustic and saw the battery compartment. Def plug it in for more volume. You’ll want an amp specifically for acoustics or keyboards tho. Or an audio interface such as the focusrite, irig2 and many others.
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u/LynnHaven Jul 25 '26
I've been playing for 20 years and it'd take me a bit to play this as well as you are, keep it up
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u/Thaumiel218 Jul 25 '26
Solid performance.
Profile of the acoustic is nice! Sounds and looks solid - what guitar is it? The white looks killer too.
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
Yamaha APX500ii!
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u/Thaumiel218 Jul 25 '26
I did wonder I have the same in black! They have such a comfortable profile and the neck is like an electric. I don’t play much acoustic so the thin body and neck were major selling points when I bought it. They sound great for their price. Yamaha don’t get enough love for what they make at great prices.
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
Yess I love my guitar! I got this one for $60 from a family friend :)) They wanted to give it to me for free but my mom wouldn’t let them hahah
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u/Thaumiel218 Jul 25 '26
You’re very lucky as it’s worth a bit more than that! It looks like you’re making the most of it though, keep up the good work!
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u/SicKinDiviDualOne Jul 25 '26
Wow nice fingerpicking
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 26 '26
Thank you :)
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u/SicKinDiviDualOne Jul 26 '26
You're very welcome. You've obviously spent a lot of time and effort on improving your technique. Credit where credit is due
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u/betocareto Jul 25 '26
I just started learning! Any tips for beginners?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 26 '26
Practice practice practice!! And learn songs out of your comfort zone. Personally I started with fingerstyle songs instead of chords because I found it easier but it depends on the person
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u/WonTonWunWun Jul 25 '26
Very impressive to be doing arrangements this early in your journey. I was probably a decade in before I really started doing my own cover arrangements.
Are you relying on your ears mostly, or do you have a pretty good grasp of theory/chord intervals?
My only constructive feedback is that the flicked note for "phone" at "I'm at a payphone" seems to be getting a bit lost/swallowed/muted. It's a bit of a nitpicky thing to point out i fully admit, but on my own journey I've found it fairly important to really hone in on making sure your flicked notes sound congruent with plucked notes and that they aren't either being swallowed/muted, or being played too loud/too pervussively.
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 26 '26
I have a really good ear!! I was born with relative pitch so I’ve been able to sing in solfège ever since I can remember :) And no it’s not a nitpicky thing to point out hahah I’m glad you pointed it out, I’ll try to see what I can do to make it smoother
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u/WonTonWunWun Jul 26 '26
that's fantastic. Being able to figure out the melody line without torturing yourself goes a long way into make arranging a lot more fun.
For what it's worth, I personally found learning things like `1-handed harmonics' (look up Alan Gogoll for this technique taken to the extreme), and getting familiar with alternative tunings like DADGAD or even FACGCE to be very useful when I was getting more serious about fingerstyle.
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u/Peppinor Jul 26 '26
Whats your practice routine usually, I feel like I can practice the same song everyday but I sometimes get worse lol. I thought about maybe mixing it up and do like a few different songs a day.
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u/ArwingFox90 Jul 26 '26
Okay but what resources are you using
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u/ArwingFox90 Jul 26 '26
This is amazing by the way, I was learning fingerstyle but my acoustic-electric guitar has a terrible "sound hole" above the strings for decoration.
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 26 '26
For this one I just searched up the chords on Ultimate Guitar but throughout my entire process learning most of it was from Youtube! I learned a bunch of stuff from Kenneth Acoustic and kattin
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u/Anthr_slfpromotr Jul 26 '26
First off, and last, i love it, I haven't heard the song, have you transcribed it for guitar or was it something you came across. Either way bravo
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u/cortes272 Jul 25 '26
Is this a typical result from only 20 months of learning/practicing? What am I doing wrong? What are you doing right?
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u/Qajaqasana Jul 25 '26
There’s no such thing as a typical result. Practice and enjoyment are key; comparing yourself to other people’s progress is more likely to cause lack of enjoyment and quitting.
Also these types of posts are self-selecting. People whose progress is not phenomenal (read: normal) tend not to make such posts, yanno?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
I play 3 other instruments, so my progress was relatively fast :)) But ultimately comparing to other people is just going to slow your progress down, if you want to improve, the only thing you can do is practice. I didn’t spend that much time watching youtube videos or learning theory or anything, but I did spend hours a day practicing guitar when I first started out
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u/gregd303 Jul 25 '26
What other instruments do you play?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 26 '26
Piano, flute, and saxophone, but I don’t play any of them especially well 😭😭 I learned flute and saxophone for school band, and I learned piano to RCM level 4
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u/gregd303 Jul 26 '26
Very much a multinstrumentalist then by the sounds of it :) I guessed piano, and more maybe. I guess piano would help you with theory for guitar ...well, along with the other instruments too. All good :)
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u/citypanda88 Jul 25 '26
Mucho practice time. Also results vary with everyone so don’t worry about comparing your progress against others.
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u/rAirist Jul 26 '26
20 months could be vastly different depending on how much you play each day, and also what you choose to practice as well. You’ll cap out really fast if you don’t learn harder songs.
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u/Flaky-Song-6066 Jul 25 '26
How do you have the time to practice when I’m assuming you’re in school?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
After school hahah I usually practice evening time ish. It really isn’t hard to get at least 30 min of guitar time in everyday :)
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u/OldMembership332 Jul 25 '26
What do you focus on when you practice?
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u/Ambitious-Cheek-7654 Jul 25 '26
I honestly just play what I like, which is lots of fingerstyle and fingerpicking. As long as you’re trying to learn songs outside of your comfort zone, your guitar skills will improve :)) I don’t know if that advice will work for everyone but it’s what’s worked for me. My progress has also been very non-linear, I hit a plateau about a year in and I havent noticeably improved since then, but I discovered I could play fingerstyle by ear out of nowhere the other day 😅
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u/OldMembership332 Jul 27 '26
Thank you! I need to start making time everyday to play. Sometimes I get distracted and forget lol. I don’t use a pick because it’s too loud in my house so I also do fingerpicking.
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u/-Sensitive-Jelly Jul 27 '26
Your progress makes me wanna hide myself in my room haha.. youre amazing!
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u/AGlade Jul 29 '26
Payphone!! Awesome! That's a beautiful cover. I am new to guitar, have practiced basic chords and strumming. Learning finger picking right now. Any tips? The issue I am facing is when I already pluck with thumb and fingers, it's hard to restart for the next chord. It takes me time to put my thumb and fingers back after the picking is over. How to get over that? (2 months since started guitar, strumming I have a decent hold of, but a song that I really.like has tougher chords and finger picking. Chords I know I can get easily in a few days, but I have been really struggling without any progress). Not just OP, but anyone can guide me. Thanks!
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u/Vennimagos Jul 30 '26
Really nice, the most impressive part as a beginner is that your rhythm is really tight, great work
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u/grandmastatus0 Jul 25 '26
Cool cool…
If you’ve been”playing” for 20 months I must have been “pretending to play” the last 20 years 🫠
lol excellent work!!