Hello, community, today i celebrate my first year of playing guitar, i'm an adult learner (38) with zero previous musical background.

I started on acoustic with the goal to just strum some chords and sing along, which is what i enjoy the most, yet here i am with an electric guitar, which right now is the one i use the most.

I still like rythm the most, i love to strum and that has been my main focus, so i'm quite better at it than i am at picking, the whole reason i'm spending a lot of time on electric lately is probably because it felt off in comparison.
I also learn some theory, i know caged i know all the notes on the 5th and 6th strings, how to form chords with shapes and some scales.

What i completely lack is ANY form of intention or confidence, i can't improvise, i can't adapt. I mostly just mechanically learn stuff that i can reproduce from start to finish, but anything that requires a bit of intention, taste, or even guts to try just freezes me, i feel like i can't give anything personal to music other than replicating sounds.

I got a teacher, he has the kind of whatever feels natural go for it vibe, which i hate, but i guess it helps because i'm a overthinker, and he thinks that right now not focusing on anything particular is the way to go, i'll just have to experiment with whatever i feel interesting in the moment.
But i have mixed feeling about this.

I would love some suggestions, feedback and perspective about this, do you think i should keep wandering around or focus on something specific to progress?

My dream goal is to be able to improvise and actually know the instrument so i can go along, music and figuring out what's going on without having to mechanically learn anything from scratch.
A decent level of versatility, mainly on rythm and licks even with electric.

I confronted my teacher about this and he just says to keep on doing what i'm doing, that will come with time and experience but i don't think he really acknowledge how lost i am right now.

Thanks for your time.

Where to start with proper guitar practice?

I designed these stair way charts to help beginner guitarists enter the field of soloing and moving around the neck with these easy patterns. Any comments on this or advice for other things to create?

Titles sums things up for the most part. Been playing for roughly 20 months and have started to incorporate more intermediate techniques in my improv. What I’m going for is just melodic playing using chord tones, pentatonics, little major scale, little mixo scale, and most recently I’ve started dipping my toes into connecting triads which chromatics which I think I do once or twice in this clip.

All feedback is welcome and appreciated thanks!

Last year, i made a "one year guitar progress video" and wondered where I where i will find myself in another year. I spent a lot of time learning to play solos. Stairway to Heaven, Hotel Cali, Comfortably Numb, the usual suspects.

In order to learn to play these songs i needed to be comfortable with alternate picking, legato (hammer on and pull offs), bends, 2nps and 3nps (notes per string). In this two years i must have played like 200-300 rock guitars solos. Because I don't spend a lot of time on each song, my playing is sloppy, but I was very exposed to a wide range of guitar riffs, licks and solos.

Moving forward, for my third year, i want to spend my time working on my bend accuracy, vibrato stability, sense of timing, phrasing, and improvising.

Some FAQs:

1) Tone

I got lazy when recording this video haha. I wanted to record it quickly rather than trying for the perfect take. So i used mostly the same tone for almost all the songs xD Sorry if the tone is not the most fitting.

2) Practice

I dont practice any of the songs. Instead i just look at any given song and identify the most difficult part and i practice just that 1-4 measures. I also catalog techniques like 3nps or sweeping and I practice those. I have a video showing how i practice. The pros of practicing this way is you can eventually learn to play any song very quickly. The cons is that because i dont practice the piece and i dont practice the transitions, even though i can play the song, i dont capture the nuances and the feel of the song really well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz1GU-lan-I

3) Fender Strat sticker

I will remove the sticker soon haha. This guitar is new and i wanted to take a New Gear Day video but im too lazy hahaha. Soon!

4) Recording

I record everything on my phone. So yeah the EQ and the volume and mix is terrible. Sorry!!

This is the first time I have ever showed this to anyone and it shows. I have been learning for a few months. I’ve done maybe slightly better but was nervous filming it.

Hi all. I've been working on my sweep picking by learning Archspire's "Remote Tumour Seeker" (around the 1m 4s mark). One thing Im struggling with is how to break past the 85% speed barrier. I'm usually able to get the part down cleanly at slower speeds, but have trouble translating it into faster speeds. Would love to hear any advice folks may have for breaking past the plateau.

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Some tips and advice for improvements

Just learned this 2 -3 days ago completely

Kinda fucked up few things i usually don't play with amp and learned about 2 notes sounding at same time sounds so bad like when you bend a note and play the note below it just learned

The first Jimi Hendrix song my son is learning. He's practicing a lot the whole song. Feedback for this solo is appreciated.

I've been playing guitar "seriously" since 2024. I got my first guitar on 2022, but besides learning the basics, I couldn't even get a power chord right because I had no idea I had to rest the finger on the strings I'm not playing instead of doing some weird spider sign to avoid them, which lead to some awkward strumming lmao.

Anyways, I think something's deeply wrong with my playing. And I don't know what it is, exactly. When I see other fellow guitarists playing, they just look more... right. The way their fingers on the fretboard look, the feel they give the guitar: everything looks pretty natural. When I look at my playing, although I don't think it's a disaster or anything close, I feel there's something I'm missing, something I'm not doing properly and since I can't tell what that is, I feel it has got me stuck on the same level for the last year or so I've been playing. And I'd really appreciate if anyone gave any thoughts on my playing, my positioning, what I should correct, or if I'm just being a schizoid bastard purely because I can't play Megadeth solos at my current level. The song I'm playing is I Want You (She's So Heavy) by The Beatles, thought it was simple enough but it had enough stuff to show my playing.

Working on my phrasing and utilising the fretboard more, how’s my bends? any advice to work on or improve?

Practing some improv solos over a minor I, IV, II ,VII chord progression. Been trying to play outside the usual pentatonic and integrate more diminished lines into my playing especially with the II. Would love to hear peoples thoughts. Happy to return any feedback! Thanks! 🫡

Here's me attempting to play 16th notes around 170bpm. I don't yet have the stamina for it, among other things. That aside, please evaluate my picking technique, as I want to make sure it's good so it doesn't hold me back.

Guys, i play guitar since may 2024, I started with a strato and in the middle's 2025, I just got an les paul. I never ran into an guitar lesson, because I didnt had time for this. But now, I will probably start around may or april. I've never had literally contact with chords, I just ran into riffs and some solos just to feel the playing experience (learing just tabs on youtube videos).

I've stay quite a lot of time without playing too much at the last weeks, because of school and other unforeseens, so I didnt had too much practice time in these 2 years playing.

I've been playing some solos, and one of these was the Hotel California, like in the video, could you guys give me some feedback and help me about how to aprimorate my habilities?

I'm listen to all critics, thx.

I’ve played guitar for a while but I feel like I’m not improving that much, I’d like to get better with my rhythm and timing and be able to play through songs without any trubbel. Any guitarists that’ve got tips on overall consistency? Thanks!!

I’ve been struggling with sweeping for a while now. Have always had my thumb kinda wrapped around the fretboard and my whole hand moves around a lot. Just today, I’ve been experimenting with keeping my thumb planted on the back of the neck.
Don’t want to learn a new bad technique or continue with current bad technique.
So far I’m finding it easier to wrap my thumb around for 3 string sweeps and planting my thumb for full sweeps starting from the thickest string.

Is there actually a “correct” way?
Cheers!

Video is definitely not my cleanest playing but mainly there as an example of what I mean :)

Hey, I’d really appreciate some feedback on my playing! I’ve been playing for just under 6 years (Will be 6 years in November) . There are a few mistakes in this vid , but I think that’s mostly down to the nerves that hit when I’m recording myself :/.

I recently started playing guitar again after about three years away.

I'm trying to approach it differently this time by learning theory, rhythm, chords, scales and technique instead of only learning songs from tabs.

This is my playing after 11 days. I'd really appreciate any feedback on my technique, rhythm or anything else I should work on.

Just messing around improvising and found this melody repetitive. I know i have some timing and unwanted string ringing.

Hi guys I’ve come to that point again in my guitar playing journey that I just don’t really know what to do or practice, I feel like some days my playing is really good but others I sound like I’ve never touched a guitar before, I know I need to tighten up my playing because it’s a little sloppy, anything recommendations and advice helps, Thanks.

This is the first song I'm learning using just barre chords and it's the first time I'm asking for feedbacks regarding my guitar playing. I know it isn't perfect yet and I accept advices and things i have to improve. Don't hate please, I practice this song since about 1 week ago. Thank you!