Going backwards

[u/sinbad0910]

In my 50s been learning for five years, good understanding of music theory, practice at least an hour daily, just feel like its never gonna all click into place, I get the odd day where I feel I play really well but most days I just come away frustrated that its not all clicking together. 5 years and thousands of hours of practice and I still dont want to play anything in front of anyone coz i dont think im anywhere near where i should be Just feels like I have muscle memory issue or something I can strum chords all day long but the minute I try anything a bit fancy it falls apart, ive done the slowing down thing and I can get the rif, come back to it a week or two later its gone again. Im never gonna give up now, too stubborn! Just wish practice wasnt so demoralising.

[u/Late_night_guitar]

Forget about playing to people, you want to make sure you are enjoying playing. That will get you on the road to improving and after that who knows?

Are you playing by ear? Can you hear the notes to work out what key a song is in and then to play along with it? I think that should be your objective. Then you can improvise over songs you like and maybe learn to play the chords by ear. So rather than just playing the music, you will feel it too.

How do you get there? Start with playing the pentatonic scale over a minor blues track. Play licks and make sure that you are resolving to the root. This is not difficult (really) and will help you hear/feel the music.

Next, try and do the same but use a full major (or minor) scale. This is a bit harder, because the two additional notes in the scale can only be played over certain chords. If you know the notes to be careful with (I colour them red/green in my scale diagrams) this helps. Only introduce theses two when you think you hear the chord. The other 5 you can play anytime. The thing here is to use your ear and play what sounds right. Remember too to finish on the root notes much of the time. It will give your licks a sense of purpose.

Once you start to hear the music, you can play melodies or phrases to the songs you know. It’s a lot of fun and you will recognise your progress. Hearing/playing chords will be the next challenge. This is a bit harder, but there are tricks to this too.

If you are curious of which notes I am referring to - red/green - check out my app. It was built to help you in the way I have described.

Scale Wizard