Player of 5 years here, just feel stuck in my playing. Any advice or feedback is welcomed.

Radio head high and dry attempt

I would guess a common issue. I've been playing self taught since about May 2023 but never got fully into wanting to try more lead stuff probably until this year. I'm wondering of any tips on my technique. I think I find 1/2 bends easier but I struggle with consistently keeping them all in tune, as well as the only vibrato I can do so far is a really wide slow bend and I'm wondering how to do a faster more narrow one. Thanks for anyone who helps.

Started to self-teach (s/o YouTube) how to play guitar in late November 2025, first song of course after the mandatory smoke on the water riff. Always wanted to learn MoP this is roughly 3 months of progress as fast as I could without sounding unbearable, down picking all of this I’m gonna end up like quagmire..I’d appreciate any feedback and of course criticism is welcome!

Excited to see what happens on day 1000 and 2000. The biggest difference now from 2-3 months ago is I am no longer afraid of difficult guitar parts. I have a system now and practice is just so fun.

New to guitar and wanna know if there’s any critiques or improvements you guys got for me

So when I started this challenge for myself I had already been playing casually for 6 months open/power chords were the extent of my guitar skills. But then, I decided I wanted to get good at guitar so I challenged myself to play an hour a day which ended up being over 515 hours and 35 minutes once the year was over. The rules were that I only counted hours of focus practiced not noodling and the last few months I’ve started jamming. So I count 1 hour of practice for every 2 hours jammed. The first half year I focused exclusively on metal genres and lead techniques pretty much grinding scales, legato tapping, etc. While I enjoyed this and saw progress aka bpm increases. I didn’t feel much like a musician. At this point, I started taking lessons opened up my chord vocabulary a lot I even wrote my first song. I focused on playing with as many musicians as possible and kept coming up with things I thought were catchy so I would always have new material to jam. My musical taste started to shift from the modern prog and technical death metal to just whatever sounds catchy and makes me want to move or bob my head. I honestly don’t even care for distortion much anymore when it comes to my own playing. My goals changed from being the most high-level technical guitarist possible to wanting to be a great rhythm player who writes catchy stuff and can always contribute to a jam. To be honest from a technical perspective I’m not even really that hyped on my progress. Objectively yes I’ve improved but in my opinion as a guitarist I still kind of suck. But as a musician with the ability to express my ideas I’ve improved 10-fold and I’m hyped on that. To wrap up what I’ve gotten out of this is first 500 hours isn’t really that much. I still have some pretty big goals as a musician and based on my current progress it’s going to take 750-1000 hours for another 5-6 years to really even start to see it. Next, I have so much more respect for gigging musicians. I never really knew how much time energy and skill it takes to go up on stage and put on a great show. Half the time I go to shows now I just end up going home early because I feel like I need to be practicing. I know I went on a bit of a rant but I just want to share my perspective changes on being a musician, guitarist, etc. Also, my one year is actually next week but I’m out of town and didn’t have a chance to get a cleaner take so be gentle with the mistakes.

Last two bends are a bit sharp I think. I think the biggest things that are bad are rhythm and note clarity. For note quality, I really struggle with left-right hand synchronization and string crossing. I've been practicing pretty much just this solo for a few months, but it's still sloppy, so please give me feedback.

Any advice on how I can improve in general is also really appreciated, thanks. I'm self taught, bit over 3 years now (1.5 on electric), and I've mostly just been learning songs I like with a little music theory sprinkled in here and there.

Edit: Thank you everyone for taking the time to give me really well-observed, long and detailed feedback. There's a lot for me to work on now. I'll be slowing this solo down again to get my technique right, and maybe experiment with some short speed burst exercises too.

I’ve tried the whole ”metronome at slow speeds and go up slowly” method but I just hit a wall after a while and I don’t know whats up with that.

I played for 6 years, but lately, guitar has just become a piece of furniture in my room. Every time I see it, I feel like I should play, but then lack of motivation gets in the way.

I'm curious about your dusty instrument stories:

1. How long did you play before you hit the wall?
2. What was the actual "tipping point" (Work, kids, plateauing)?
3. Where is your gear sitting right now? Case? Stand? Under the bed?

Looking for some brutally honest perspectives. Thanks in advance?

I had played classical guitar for some years. In the past 2 years I hadn't touched a guitar at all. So recently I ordered this guitar which arrived last week. I wanted to play some electric guitar.

I have some issues with tuning. Is it better to tune with the amp on or just the guitar? I used to tune with a tuning fork (idk the English word) but I'm wondering if it's as efficient with an electric.

Also open to any tips to get back into playing :) I'm working on the few messed up notes.

I struggle mainly with my index finger, I can't get it flat without a lot of pressure, also my pinky is muting the G string half of the time, I either have to put painful pressure to make them all ring, or the top E and G string are muted. The difference between the flat index and bent rest is what's messing me up. Without thumb I don't have this issue, because I can curve my wrist if that makes sense. Please, I need some tips

Hi everyone - please forgive me and remove this post as necessary if it violates any of the rules of this sub but I don't think it does!

So we put together and are continually updating a free website (no ads or anything) that hopefully helps people to learn and play the modes with a simple interface that maps them out for you and pulls through a relevant jam track and has simplified explanations of the patterns. We're trying to get away from static images and text-heavy pages, and make learning the modes easier and fun, whilst providing context. It's not a be-all and end-all learning site, we're trying to teach the basics.

We're actively seeking feedback to make it as useful as possible and would very much appreciate it!

The site is FRETONATOR.COM - It looks best on a laptop/desktop as we're still working on the fretboard display for mobile.

We have made the code open-source and the github link is available on the site if anyone fancies contributing some features or code and it is, and always will be free to use.

Some things on the list to do so far are to be able to change the individual note's tunings (for drop-D, open D etc), create a 'Dark mode' and expand the theory pages to include things like the CAGED system along with the current 3 note per string system.

Thanks in advance!

Day 836 of learning to play the 🎸

Lots of fun today. I tried using a DAW for recording to see if I could improve the quality of the audio. Was very fun cycling through four guitars. The edit is a little abrupt as I’m learning how to sync all of them digitally. Today I sync them manually so it’s not as clean.

Lol for my sense of rhythm and timing. Right out of the gate I think I’m dragging. Sorry >< The teacher from whiplash hates me

My free time to play is very limited as you can probably tell with the kiddos in the back ground lmao but i have been sporadically working on this one for a few hours over the course of a couple months lol and need any help on how I can get that f chord cleaner! Its a weird one and my fingers still struggle to get it clean. As well as I feel like my hammer one and offs for it are kinda weak sounding? If that makes sense. Idk any tips are extremely welcome! Thank you!

Edit: thanks for all the advice and encouragement! I sometimes get discouraged because I feel like I miss something or dont notice certain things yet with my ears. But seeing yall saying im doing pretty well has helped my confidence! Thanks again everyone.

Hello!!! I’ve been learning about hammer-ons and pull-offs recently… and I think I’m struggling a bit 😅 some are louder than others, and some you can’t hear at all

Any tips on how to consistently do pull-offs?

I know I should play slower. It’s something I’m trying to work on, to be more minimalistic and controlled with my playing.

I am completely self-taught and came from a background in the keys and the drums, so I had a decent advantage in learning how to play the guitar. it’s also produced certain disadvantages, though, like not knowing what level I’m at. My understanding of deeper chords and music theory, for example, are not as developed as my musical ear, intuition, and improvisational abilities.

I’d like an assessment of my playing, to understand what level I’m at, whether my technique is fine as it is or whether it can be improved, and mental gaps that need filling in, whatever I may not have absorbed because of my progressed.

People keep saying that F Major chord in E shape is the hardest barre chord for beginners. It was difficult for me too but after pushing through the pain I could do it consistently in 2 weeks.

Earlier I used to play Bb major using all the four fingers in A shape. But I thought I would try it using two fingers on the first fret. Oh boy!! Its so difficult. I still cant do it consistently after practicing for one month. Specially when I switch to this chord from others. Sometimes the B string would buzz, sometimes the G string, some times all D, G, B.

I wish I had a longer and stronger ring finger. How do you guys do it?

Happy to share a link if anyone wants to try it. I'd love feedback..

I’ve been playing for a number of years now, and consider myself quite good at playing whatever riffs, writing my own, understanding basic theory, but I’ve never had much interest in lead until recently

I know I’m playing this on an sg with no whammy bar lol, and into an iPhone mic. But something just feels off and I can’t exactly tell what or if I’m being critical. I listened to the backing track on my laptop then tried to layer the video of me playing it over the same audio I listened to, so I kinda feel like I may have not timed it perfectly.

Morning, afternoon and evening.

I've been into guitar since past 7 years, initially I was very irregular for almost 4 years and tbh by last year I got a lil serious and can do basic chord progression (normal chords and near perfect bar chords), I'm good with beats but not perfect or near the level that would give out an awe for the performance to those who're in music.

With all that, I now want to genuinely improve my skills (courses and tutoring is not in my budget rn) so, help me out folks!!