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How to get better at guitar

• taylodl 6mo ago
  It's still tabs, but marginally better because you're making your own tabs. Work on hearing the key and chord progression and you won't need tabs. You'll be able to jam with anyone, anytime. It'll take a couple months to get there, but you'll no longer rely on tabs - which I think is the goal.
  • nopayne 6mo ago
    When you are transcribing a guitar part you have to think about the key, the chords, and how to play the part efficiently. It's a great way to get a better understanding of the neck since there is usually more than one way to play a part.
  • littlexsparkee 6mo ago
    Had a lot of fun contributing tabs to Ultimate Guitar, esp. when folks would write notes of appreciation. The harder the better - not cheating to slow down the track to understand rapid lick in solos (the Steely Dan ones were a gas) either. You lose a little bit of the magic (little is off limits with some practice) but the fact that you can figure out your favorite tracks and imagine yourself up on stage is fun.
• beachy 6mo ago
  Sting famously learned to play bass using this sort of technique with music on LPs, lifting the needle and dropping it back a bit in the track over and over again as he gradually worked out the notes and fingering. Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.
  • BizarroLand 6mo ago
    My music teacher said that practice does not produce perfection, only perfect practice produces perfection. If you mess up, redo the part you messed up correctly 5 times in a row. And, don't just practice the easy stuff. You have to challenge yourself to grow.
    • bluGill 6mo ago
      Time is the largest factor though. Some ways are better than others but there is no substitiute for time. why am I posting here instead of practicing?
    • doubled112 6mo ago
      As somebody who started teaching himself guitar as a teenager, put it down for 10+ years and started back up, this resonates. Everything takes twice as long to learn because I first have to unlearn the old habits.
    • Slow_Hand 6mo ago
      Yes. Put another way: Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. And as my music professor once said: "If you sound good while practicing, then you're not practicing."
      • shermantanktop 6mo ago
        Guess I’m practicing right
    • password4321 6mo ago
      Practice make permanent.
      • 867-5309 6mo ago
        practice makes perverts
      • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 6mo ago
        This is the one I use, both for myself and the kids. How you practice will become how you play, so it's important to make sure you have good form and technique. There's another, similar saying used in fighting-related disciplines: train how you fight. Same idea. You're building muscle memory and technique, so make sure your training/practicing matches how you'd do it in a performance (or fight). It's one less thing to have to think about when you're under stress.
  • jedimastert 6mo ago
    > Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing. There are a few pedagogical points here to keep in mind: first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them. Also, different ways of learning have different values in terms of what goals you're aiming towards and very importantly what kind of practice will keep you motivated in a sustainable way. Sometimes, taking shortcuts in some ways means you might slow down your growth rate but you'll have better overall growth because you'll keep at it for longer
    • bsder 6mo ago
      > first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them. I'm not convinced for guitar. Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique. As long as you're not injuring yourself, practice and determination pretty much overcomes everything.
      • 9rx 6mo ago
        > Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique. The universe didn't offer a manual on how to play guitar, so how are you determining that their technique was bad? Given what you say about them, maybe they actually had the perfect technique?
        • newdee 6mo ago
          The universe didn’t offer a manual, but mankind has largely arrived at some orthodoxy for the most efficient and ergonomic ways to fret, bend, pluck, tap, strum, etc. In many cases, these are objectively better techniques to use once mastered, but they’re not the only way.
          • 9rx 6mo ago
            > In many cases, these are objectively better techniques to use once mastered Given a certain set of quantifiable measures that is no doubt true, but then that only pushes the question to how are the measures determined to be objectively relevant? If the aforementioned fast/famous guitar players had started with a different technique there is a chance they wouldn't have become fast/famous. In that case, given the criteria of reaching notable speed/fame, it is possible their "bad" methods were actually best of all. But also, even where everyone agrees there is a better way, that doesn't equate to an alternative being bad. So the original question still stands: How do we determine "shockingly bad" as opposed to "different"?
  • freejazz 6mo ago
    That's called ear training and it's crucial. I don't think all ways one can play and call it "practice" are equal
  • tomwheeler 6mo ago
    > as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing. And at least for me, frequency beats duration. I make more progress when I play consistently for even 10 minutes every day than when I play for 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon.
  • agumonkey 6mo ago
    Add some distance and sensitivity. I used blunt / brute force repetitions and somehow wasted years. Music is very subtle, and keeping a focus on small details is worth thousands of hours.
  • tasty_freeze 6mo ago
    I started playing electric bass in college, around 1984. I too used the record and lifting the needle technique. The only reason I'm commenting is that early on I learned a LOT of Police songs. Why? Because (1) the songs were already in my head, (2) Sting would have two or three cool hooks per song, and this is the important part, (3) the hooks would played over and over during the song. That meant I could play the song all the way through and get to practice each riff 10 times or more with just a single needle lift. A prime example: Demolition Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7To6vdg7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7To6vdg7A)
  • functional_dev 6mo ago
    100% true, but method still matters
• dfxm12 6mo ago
  The Way I Learn Now: Listening & Transcribing I lived near a music school and took proper guitar lessons. After getting down the basics from the Alfred Method book, this was the homework my guitar teacher gave me. Coincidentally enough, I was also transcribing RATM back then too...
• glial 6mo ago
  I learned to play guitar this way -- listening to CDs and scrubbing back and forth, writing down what I heard. It's great, but it only gets you so far. Learning pentatonic scales was a step-change for me.
  • Acrobatic_Road 6mo ago
    as somebody who practices from tabs I have no idea how I would begin doing this.
    • RyanOD 6mo ago
      Here is a suggestion... First, figure out the bass line. That typically suggests the chord progression. If you know your chords, then, for simple songs, you have the rhythm figured out. For solos, it's more tricky. If you aren't familiar with common soloing patterns (licks) and/or scales then start with simple solos and work your way up.
• kelvie 6mo ago
  Are you telling me that spending time writing an app to learn the guitar neck isn't the best way?? Blasphemy, I tell you! Anyway here is my app of shame: https://kelvie.github.io/chord-finder/ https://kelvie.github.io/chord-finder/ I also came to the realization after making this that my time was better spent transcribing, but I wanted to learn egui (and this was before coding agents, so it actually took some time).
  • dexwiz 6mo ago
    There should be a saying like "A tool is not the task" similar to "A map is not the land." As professional tool makers it can be easy to replace the task with a tool in theory, but that's not reality. In a similar vein I think that's why there are so many devs making game engines instead of games.
    • dcminter 6mo ago
      Perhaps you're looking for this? https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-thing https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-...
      • dexwiz 6mo ago
        Maybe? This seems to be more aimed at procrastination. Making map or a tool is still doing a thing, just not the thing.
• exabrial 6mo ago
  Practice a lot. Try things you "can't play" and do them a lot. Pick it up every every single day.
• ben7799 6mo ago
  All of it is good but none of it is a shortcut. The greats who became so good doing this had massive amounts of time to do it and put in massive amounts of effort.
• jrop 6mo ago
  Tommy Emmanuel apparently learned by transrcibing, famously thinking that both the bass line and guitar lines he was hearing were a singular "guitar part". Just by having his expectations (incorrectly) raised, he rose to the occasion and played both parts. I forget where I heard this story -- it's probably either rather famous, or buried in an interview somewhere.
  • dizhn 6mo ago
    He tells it everywhere. (Also demonstrates the thumb vs fingers playing independently everywhere.)
  • davemo 6mo ago
    Tommy drew a lot of inspiration from Chet Atkins who was really the pioneer of the bass+guitar "one hand band" style of playing. Tommy just improved on it a lot, adding more rhythmic elements, but to your point, yes, he was largely self-taught and driven to learn. A good interview on his background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py4T1qv9bnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py4T1qv9bnQ
  • PaulDavisThe1st 6mo ago
    The percussionist Trilok Gurtu has said the same thing about listening to many recordings as he was growing up. He just assumed that all the percussion was played by one person, all at once, and so he figured out ways to do it, even when it was 2 or even 3 people with overdubs.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• RomanPushkin 6mo ago
  I am playing for quite a while... Had private lessons with a coach to practice solo guitar, and general understanding for a couple of years. Before that around 10 years or more as amateur, now it's been 3 years since I spoke to a guitar coach last time. I play every day, I do my solos, I play blues, I don't need chords. But it's hard. Just don't underestimate how hard it is - to be able to play any solo by ear. I guess I just don't have any freaking talent. Pretty obvious at this point, since some people do a better progress in 3-5 years of work. But for me it's not. I realized that for me something isn't just clicking. There was no breakthrough moment I expected all these years. I invested a lot into playing guitar, but... meh. Honestly, I wish I spent all that time learning AI math or just math in general. Or spend my time on something that would have a better ROI. Looking back I see how much effort it took, and how low my ROI is. I wish I gave up earlier.
  • emil-lp 6mo ago
    Why did you continue playing for over a decade?
    • RomanPushkin 6mo ago
      I was always pretty curious about what's gonna happen next :) Like one year more into that - will it make me fundamentally better or not? If you understand fretboard - will it make you better or not? If you learn the scales, if you practice them, etc... I was (and still am) looking for something that would hopefully glue all of that together. Don't get me wrong, I produced a couple of songs, some people say they're pretty good. But honestly, it's a crap.
  • bardackx 6mo ago
    this is pretty sad
  • bityard 6mo ago
    I mean, it kind of sounds like you hated the whole process and didn't care about the result either. What was your reason for taking up the guitar as a hobby in the first place? I suspect it's actually impossible to get reasonably good at something without some amount of passion for it, to some degree or another. Most musicians are in it for the thrill of learning something that most people find hard to do, or because they love music, or because they want to be part of a community that values music. Occasionally because they think they can make money at it. I play an instrument or two, but only for fun. I love music, but I'm at a point in my life where I will never be good enough to be in a band. I have enough other hobbies anyway. I take a random 15 minutes out of my day to play a few songs, maybe practice a new song I'm learning, watch a short Youtube video about it here and there, and that's enough for me.
• douglee650 6mo ago
  TLDR: practice. If you have sufficient natural talent xor will, you will eventually go past the canon of available material and begin to transcribe your own. Then there are those who move to creation, either immediately or somewhere in the path.
• crtified 6mo ago
  One truth I've observed from decades of keen hobbyist involvement in guitar music and playing is that a lifetime of music is largely an individual journey. The fact that some players learn by transcribing, while others learn by jamming, and yet others learn by rote theoretical study, or 10-hour practice sessions, etc, is a big part of the variety which results in the wonderfully varied tapestry of music styles and approaches that humanity creates and enjoys. Not to take away from the age-old, valid advice in the link about the value of ear-to-fretboard work.
  • Affric 6mo ago
    I can’t imagine stopping every note. I think it is pretty good practice for me to never stop if one can avoid it. I used to stop all the time, when I made a mistake, between repetitions, when I finished the piece. I agree about ear to fretboard.
    • al_borland 6mo ago
      I think you need both. If you never stop or slow down, it's hard to build the proper muscle memory to improve and get more accurate. However, it's also valuable to practice playing through mistakes to finish a whole song. Mistakes happen, and if you're playing for a crowd you can't just stop and start over.
      • devin 6mo ago
        Yes, both. A good example why is for example, as muscle memory grows it will bias your note selection when improvising. Sometimes you really need to slow down to consciously force yourself to explore other sounds. Once you've done that, you need to wear it in again so it sounds natural in your playing.
        • bavell 6mo ago
          Absolutely. You can get "locked in" to certain patterns / phrases just via muscle memory and familiarity. Need to balance that with a little improv to find new patterns phrases you like, and then can train those in via muscle memory.
• andrewvc 6mo ago
  It’s a great article on something that’s useful, but a bit overconfident in its universality. Better at what? There are many dimensions to being a guitar player. Is it technique? Theory? Ability to pickup a song by ear (this article)? Better at playing in a group? Better at playing solo? Better at reading music? Better at accurate bends? Better at fingerpicking? One of the nice things about music is you can’t get good at ALL of it. You have to pick where to focus. I’ll also say, you might need to ask yourself if you want to get better. I love relaxing by reading through the chords on a new song and playing it. I already have a job, and the time I truly have for intentional practice is like once a month. Most people are not studying to become guitar pros but to enjoy their time with the instrument. If that is your goal let joy be your guide. Perhaps some short term pain is part of that journey but really weigh out what you want out of the experience.
• RyanOD 6mo ago
  I've been playing guitar for 30+ years. When I was a kid, I learned almost everything by ear - note by note by note... In hindsight, once I had learned a song, I had actually learned MUCH more than just that song. It is that "extra" that adds up over time and makes one a guitarist and not just someone who can play some songs on the guitar. Rock on!
• senko 6mo ago
  Wow, Justin with his hair! Been plucking at the guitar (literally and figuratively - trying to learn) for a couple of years now and Justin's (free) course was the best I've found. His videos are compassionate, funny, explain things really well and easy to follow. He also dog-fed the instructions by learning to play left-handed (and posted those videos as well, hilarious to watch). Compared to that, some time earlier I subscribed to a Berklee free course on Coursera (iirc) - Beginner guitar. Felt like a fumbling idiot, almost never touched guitar afterwards. Really recommended: https://www.justinguitar.com/ https://www.justinguitar.com/
  • arecurrence 6mo ago
    Another 10/10 free course is Scotty West’s Absolutely Understand Guitar on YouTube. Filmed in the 90s and it’s still one of the best classes out there.
  • rimliu 6mo ago
    I second that. Switched to piano, however there is no better course for a quitar than Justin's.
    • senko 6mo ago
      Do you have a recommendation for a piano/keyboard one?
      • elevatortrim 6mo ago
        If you can afford it and have the time, your local conservatoire. Piano is very different than the guitar, it is much more technique and repertoire focused (as opposed to improvisation and interpretation of guitar). In comparison to guitar, there is much more and much higher quality material available for piano as it is being taught for hundreds of years, but most of it is accessible through classical teachers. There is definitely opportunity for someone to create the justin guitar of piano though, I do not think it has been done yet.
  • euroderf 6mo ago
• freetime2 6mo ago
  This brought to mind a quote from Ira Glass: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. I think listening and transcribing is great advice. Careful listening will help to improve your own listening ability and taste. It also helps to demystify why something is great. But it's also going to be a struggle - especially at first. You have to be prepared to struggle, a LOT. Most people won't be able to keep at it, and that's one of the things that separates the greats from everyone else.
  • LiquidSky 6mo ago
    That reminds me of an interview I heard with comicbook artist Chip Zdarsky. He was talking about how we all love to draw as kids, but eventually around 10 years old or so we start to become aware that what we see in our heads isn't anywhere near what's appearing on the page in our drawings, and that gap acts as a powerful filter discouraging most people from pursuing art any further.
    • deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    • 1bpp 6mo ago
      [flagged]
• RickJWagner 6mo ago
  Good advice. I’m a banjo player. Starting with tab ( and playing for myself ) quickly got me to a certain level and then ingrained some bad habits. Playing by ear is much better. One way that seems to work really well: 1. Listen to the song, tap the rhythm to learn it. 2. Figure the chord progression. 3. Using standard rolls ( sequence of notes, one measure ) find how to fit in melody notes
• RyanOD 6mo ago
  Obscure "learn it by ear" guitar story... Upon hearing Eruption for the first time, the story goes that Tony MacAlpine learned to play the finger tapping section by PICKING IT because he didn't know finger tapping was a thing. Only after seeing Van Halen in concert did he realize what Eddie was doing. If memory serves me right, I read this in either Guitar Player or Guitar World magazine back in the late 80s or early 90s. Whether Tony was embellishing or not is unknown.
  • smcameron 6mo ago
    Similarly, Ben Travers didn't have a delay pedal, so learned to pick the delayed parts on Pink Floyd's "Run like hell" when he was younger, since taken to ludicrous speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CY0_HG8J5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CY0_HG8J5M
    • RyanOD 6mo ago
      That's fantastic! Pros find a way.
    • aanet 6mo ago
      Ben Travers playing is mental!! Thx for the track. Needed it today. <3
• H1Supreme 6mo ago
  Recognizing melodies by ear is a hugely useful skill, but I can't help but think it's going to be nearly impossible to do without a sound foundation in music theory. Tabs are, in large part, paint-by-number. Lots of guitarists out there are only interested in learning a song. Regardless of key, mode, or what the notes actually are. And, tabs satisfy that group by saying: "Play this fret on this string". To write tabs, you'll need to be able to make an educated guess at what's being played. ex. "Is that a minor pentatonic scale? Or are they arpeggiating a minor 7th chord?". If terms like that aren't in your musical vocabulary, and you haven't played enough to recognize the difference, I don't see how a guitarist would even begin writing their own tabs. Maybe the author is assuming this skill set.
  • bluGill 6mo ago
    You can figure it out by ear with music theory. You use different terms but who cares. Theory is useful of course but not required.
  • RAM-bunctious 6mo ago
    Having learned guitar in a way that's somewhat similar to what's outlined in this article, I will say that someone doing this transcription-based method will likely naturally consolidate their "making tabs" into "making chords" pretty quickly, because the patterns occur often enough. I'd also say that producing your own tabs is very far away from a being a mere tab-consumer, it's just a natural introductory medium because tabs are very easily digestible to a beginner and, as you say, satisfy the craving. I think that starting off with easy songs, and with enough brute force as you scale up, you can become organically familiar with these concepts to make the educated guesses you're talking about. Many renowned musicians were able to effectively create music utilising these concepts despite never formally learning music theory, and by just learning by ear.
  • fleebee 6mo ago
    > To write tabs, you'll need to be able to make an educated guess at what's being played. Knowing the theory certainly makes the process faster because you'll recognize patterns, but you can definitely work through most songs without knowing anything about music theory. Just pick up your guitar, slow the track down and try to reproduce the tones. Back when I first started playing guitar, my teacher had me transcribe the melody to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (from memory). I didn't even know the major scale at that point, but by trial and error I improved my intuition for translating melodies in my head to the fretboard, which is remarkably useful as a guitarist, not only for improvisation, but for composition as well. That's not to say that knowing music theory isn't helpful in transcribing and in general, but I wouldn't say it's a prerequisite. A lot of my foundation in music theory came from transcribing first and putting things together afterwards.
• __fst__ 6mo ago
  I started learning guitar using tabs. It's good for easily picking up a song, but I found it painful to learn new songs. Everything I played I simply memorized and learning a new song was always a start from scratch. I mostly play classical guitar and now force myself to get better at sight reading standard music notation. I find it extremely hard but very rewarding because I'm now able to simply pick up a sheet of music and with a couple of tries figure out the basics of a piece. It opens up a whole library of beautiful pieces.
  • RyanOD 6mo ago
    I'm working on becoming a better piano player and forcing myself to read sheet music. To your point, it's incredibly difficult. To the point that I'm 50/50 about whether I'll ever get good enough for it to matter. I'm learning songs, but in nearly every case I'm mostly memorizing the song. It's really frustrating. I've been advised to use a keyboard to record my playing without being able to hear it and playing straight from the sheet music. I haven't tried it yet though.
  • mathieuh 6mo ago
    Same, I finally managed to stick with learning standard notation this year after several false starts and I’m kicking myself I didn’t start earlier. There were a few tough moments where it seemed like I’d never get (learning about key signatures, moving past 1st position) but now I’m starting to get comfortable playing up to the 7th position. It’s so nice being able to just buy a big book of Sor or Giuliani or Carcassi studies or even some Bach transcriptions and play them straight out of the book instead of needing to listen to a performance first and then look at the tab.
• merlin1de 6mo ago
  [flagged]
• iainctduncan 6mo ago
  Listening and transcribing is an excellent thing to do. But it would be terrible advice to say it's the only thing to do. Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is. On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn technique or the fretboard, as the easy keys will be vastly overrepresented, and you don't need to know where you are. That's a challenge that's almost unique to guitar and bass, and getting over that hump requires learning material by note name (whether from scores, tabs, or just chord symbols). (my bonafides: 35 years playing, gig on sax, bass, piano, and percussion, currently doing an interdisciplinary PhD in music and CS, and running a jazz club night where I perform weekly)
  • zozbot234 6mo ago
    "Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings. When playing fretted notes, the guitar is a completely relative instrument. You should focus on learning diatonic patterns of tones and semitones on the fretboard directly, not individual notes. It's a completely different method than the piano keyboard, which involves working within a fixed diatonic framework, and altering it to make "transposition" work. This meshes well with solfège and even more so with historical solmization, which are also highly relative methods (being intended originally for the voice).
    • iainctduncan 6mo ago
      I play electric and uptight jazz bass. While what you describe is possible for some genres, not knowing keys and the fretboard the same way you know keys on the piano is a non starter for jazz. All the competent jazz guitarists and bassists I know have this down cold. It's table stakes in my world.
      • defrost 6mo ago
        > uptight jazz bass mah man . . . too much of that loosey goosey stuff.
• luqtas 6mo ago
  how to get better: https://berkleepress.com/music/guitar/page/2/ https://berkleepress.com/music/guitar/page/2/ dissect Volume 1, 2 and 3 of A Modern Method for Guitar, no excuses, no cries
• carabiner 6mo ago
  Is there any quick test I can do to see if I can innately determine tones like this? If I fail said test, I can know that I'm not cut out for guitar.
  • YZF 6mo ago
    There are a bunch of ear training quizzes online and I believe also YouTube videos. I don't think this is a general requirement for learning the guitar. It's just one aspect. For most people whether you can hear that something is a 3rd or a 5th shouldn't impact their ability to play songs and have fun on the guitar. A sense of rhythm is maybe more important. If you can whistle a tune or sing along anywhere close to a song you're probably ok.
  • javier123454321 6mo ago
    The interesting thing that is not obvious to the general public (it certainly wasn't to me when I started) is that unless there is a medical condition that is extremel rare called cogential amusia, you can develop the skill. It's not easy, and some people definitely have more natural ability but it's learnable. You likely don't have amusia, as people that do have it have a hard time recognizing an instrumental section of a song. If you can recognize 'happy birthday' by someone humming the melody, you don't have it.
  • a96 6mo ago
    I'd say the only way you're not cut out for an instrument is if you tell yourself you're not cut out for an instrument. Any other case will be a hyper rare exception. This applies to most skills. How hard it's going to be or how far you'll go with sane effort may vary.
• kansface 6mo ago
  You will improve what you practice, possibly. This is advice for learning to play by ear. I was given the exact opposite advice by my classical guitar teacher in college because I was playing one thing and hearing something else. Sometimes, practice makes you worse or is a waste of time at best. If I could give better advice, it would be to be brutally mindful of what you are playing. Record it, and hear what is there. If it isn’t painful, you probably aren’t practicing.
• YZF 6mo ago
  By the way Justin had a new video recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gse5EuM_HWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gse5EuM_HWU "I Practiced Wrong for 40 Years?"
• neonscribe 6mo ago
  Learn to play by ear. Practice scales. Practice arpeggios. Learn open chords. Learn barre chords. Learn moveable shapes. Learn to move among chord shapes. Practice with a metronome. Find people to play with. Learn to read music. Learn to sight read. Do all of these things and you will be a musician.
• zoogeny 6mo ago
  I learned this way myself without being told. I was gifted a nearly ruined classical guitar that my mom took to a music shop and a guy got into working condition for $20. I then listened to every record, cassette and CD in our house looking for any guitar I could hear, especially individual notes, and learned dozens of songs. It is painstaking and tedious, but it works. I look back on that time, the first few years I played, and I am genuinely surprised at some of the difficult songs I worked through in this way. But now, over 30 years later and still playing regularly, I almost never do a note-for-note transcription of other peoples playing. I tend to either just get the gist of the harmony and melody by listening and get into the general ballpark. I often use ultimate guitar or other tab sites just for an outline of the chords (or download sheets from real books for jazz). But my aim is always to fully memorize a piece, from beginning to end, so I can play it without any reference. That, for me, is the goal. Any way I get there (tabs, sheets, ear, demonstration, etc.) works fine in my books.
• manlymuppet 6mo ago
  How do I get started if I don't even know the notes yet though?
  • javier123454321 6mo ago
    The prerequisite to starting is having a working instrument (roughly) in tune. Then you can start. If you don't know absolutely anything at all, then it wouldn't be so bad to learn some things in parallel to learning by ear, such as basic chord shapes. But you can get started with trying to transcribe happy birthday by ear. Try to play it and find the notes. After a few nusrsery rhymes, you can move on to something simple that is perhaps more inspiring. But to answer your question, you start by taking the first step.
  • a96 6mo ago
    You could start with one note. Then add some more.
• bananamogul 6mo ago
  57yo here who started guitar from scratch 16 months ago, with zero musical background. For my fellow players, I'm at the stage where barre chords are playable but switching between them quickly is still tough. I studied exclusively with an app (Yousician) for the first 13 months, then got a local teacher I see once a week. I practice 45-60 minutes a day and have only missed a few days in the last 16 months. In my experience, it all comes down to practice. There is no magic forumula or shortcut. The 2000 hours to passable playing is very much accurate. I track that chart nearly perfectly. It's very much a sprint-plateau experience. This week I was trying to learn the chords in Clapton's "Old Love" and for 6 days I could not switch between them, then on the 7th day I was able to make the leap. There's a bunch of brain science about consolidating memories and such but...it all comes down to practice. I agree with the sentiment that you have to practice correctly, but even if you learn bad habits, more practice and challenging yourself will weed them out. It's really crucial to always challenge yourself. Practice is doing hard things, not playing things you already know. You have to separate practice from playing, because they're two different things. Yes, there's a value in picking up the guitar and fooling around, but to really get better, you have to challenge yourself constantly. Guitar is a game of millimeters, to an extent I never appreciated. This is where a local teacher can be hugely helpful. How you position your hand, where your thumb is, the arch in different knuckles, how much you're pressing down, how you are positioning that barring finger, where your right hand is, etc. - it's all extreme fine-tuning. It's massively rewarding. But the learning curve is brutal. I practice for an hour at mid-day and would never have imagined the incredible health benefits in terms of stress relief. It's an hour (to borrow a Steely Dan quote, albeit not in its original drug context) "time out of mind" where I'm doing something completely orthogonal to the rest of my life, for no reason except to hone a skill and enjoy. I HIGHLY recommend keeping a journal and noting every day what you did. Day by day you'll think "I'm not improving at all, I suck, maybe I'm getting worse"...then you look and realize how much progress you've made compared to two months ago, etc. BTW, my daughter, 16, practices half as much as I do or less, yet learns 2-3x as fast because she has a long younger brain.
  • cpursley 6mo ago
    Old Love is such a good song. It’s in the way that you use it, boy don’t you know.
• nphardon 6mo ago
  There's some analogy around learning to play a song without using your ears and painting without using your eyes. Like the silliness on the drawing side is obvious. The benefits gained by using your ears to learn music (again this is such a silly statement when you think about it) are so huge and so overlooked by so many beginner guitar players. An hour of learning by ear is worth a week of reading. Also, as I see it, youtube is full of perpetual teachers looking for perpetual students; being a perpetual student sucks. All you need is records.
• shermantanktop 6mo ago
  A variation on this is to use one of the many helpful tools, such as The Amazing Slowdowner. Easily loop over snippets and do the hard work of listening/transcribing, but without faffing around trying to rewind just the right amount.
• d--b 6mo ago
  Reminded me of that scene in “le peril jeune”, a french movie about kids growing up in the 70s https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1hnc5 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1hnc5
• ggerules 6mo ago
  This piece of software has been my goto on transcribing music for all of the instruments I play for the past 25 years. I can't recommend it enough. It has been pivotal in me being a better musician. Works on Linux, Mac and Windows. https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html
  • FumblingBear 6mo ago
    I've also been using transcribe for over a decade and can vouch for how great it is for learning music and transcribing by ear. Irreplacable for my workflow.
  • frankosaurus 6mo ago
    Same for me. It came recommended by my upright bass teacher. I used to transcribe all songs that way. Recently, I've been lazy and learn new songs by watching players on YouTube.
• dyauspitr 6mo ago
  > When you hear the first guitar note, stop the song, find the note on the guitar, and write it down I think the problem for me is I’m so tone deaf I can’t tell which note is the right note.
  • javier123454321 6mo ago
    You can develop the ear. Start simpler. Try nursery rhymes.
• ozgrakkurt 6mo ago
  Personally prefer to search for guitar tabs of things I can barely play. And also sound terrible while playing them and tense my whole body while doing so. This is the point of playing the guitar, RIGHT?
  • imp0cat 6mo ago
    Nope, the point is collecting as many guitars as possible. ;) I wish this was a joke. :D :(
    • buildsjets 6mo ago
      I guess I am doing it wrong, I thought you become a guitar god by building the perfect pedalboard.
      • imp0cat 6mo ago
        Why not both? ;)
• Jean-Papoulos 6mo ago
  >When you hear the first guitar note, stop the song, find the note on the guitar, and write it down. OP, you should have mentionned the prerequisite of absolute pitch...
  • jcattle 6mo ago
    No need for absolute pitch. All you need is relative pitch. You play a note, compare to the note you heard, maybe even play them at the same time. And then change the note till you find the right one.
    • raincole 6mo ago
      How do you do that with chords? I know everyone who isn't completely tone deaf can do that with one single note. But when it comes to chords, unless you already know some music theory, aren't there infinite number of combinations you have to try before you find the correct one?
      • KaiserPro 6mo ago
        > infinite number of combinations you have to try before you find the correct one? Kinda, but on Guitar, most pop songs are major/minor, possible sevenths. I think this post is aimed at someone who can read tab, but isn't "good" (what ever that means) so they should have an understanding of basic chord shapes. The post does imply that this only really works if you can comfortably read tab, which is probably 6month-2 years of work (part time)
      • elric 6mo ago
        You don't have to get it right. If you know the basic guitar chords in the open positions, you can sort of play along to the vast majority of popular songs. As your hearing, knowledge of the neck, and maybe music theory improves you will start to recognise more things. The point is not a perfect outcome. The point is the effort.
      • schwartzworld 6mo ago
        In some genres there are an infinite number. Most of the music regular people listen to is diatonic though and uses either power chords or triads, and then there are not that many options.
• raincole 6mo ago
  > When you hear the first guitar note, stop the song, find the note on the guitar, and write it down How do you do that with chords? I know everyone who isn't completely tone deaf can do that with one single note. But when it comes to chords, unless you already know some music theory, aren't there huge number of combinations you have to try before you find the correct one?
  • nlnn 6mo ago
    I'm still an amateur and always had problems with this, got some advice from an experienced jazz pianist I know. His suggestions were roughly to: 1. Start by transcribing the root note that you hear 2. Go back and see if each chord sounds major or minor - most of the time that will give you a major/minor third 3. Go back and play the 5th, and see if it sounds right - most of the time it'll be there 4. Don't worry about 7ths/9ths yet, they'll come, but give them a go 5. Once you've got a few chords, try and figure out the key, and that will help figure out others So he was basically suggesting to transcribe by each note's function in a chord, starting with most -> least important. It still needs some music theory of course, but doesn't need you to listen to an entire complex chord at once.
• ArchieScrivener 6mo ago
  There is a good graph for transitions that works well for learning since it is a process of forced change. https://cdn.shrm.org/image/upload/c_crop%2ch_883%2cw_1401%2cx_0%2cy_0/c_fit%2cf_auto%2cq_auto%2cw_767/v1/Events/Valley-of-Despair_snmzdq https://cdn.shrm.org/image/upload/c_crop%2ch_883%2cw_1401%2c...
• atoav 6mo ago
  The most important ingredient is time. Just make sure you do something regularly. At the beginning you may just care about making anything that works and measures up to stuff you like, but the truest truth is that you can't start getting into a thing and expect your taste to remain the same. As you learn more about the instrument you will learn more about what you like and it will eventually shift. There are people where this is not the case, but they are rare and they don't make better or worse music than others. You may also start to notice more and more that the guitar playing was the simpler part in most music you like,the harder part was how it all came together as a band, how it was composed and recorded and mixed. Guitar players the world over try to compete with sounds that have run through microphones, mixing consoles, channel strips, mixed with other instruments and mastered. And some of them can't even hear where the guitar ends and where the bass guitar starts. So you have generations of guitar players chasing dragons and spending a ton of money on gear that gets them nowhere. Gear isn't nearly as important as anybody makes it out to be, especially if you go your own way. And that is my recommendation: Go your own way. Sure copy others for learning, but develope your own sound, style of playing, your own music.
• adrianh 6mo ago
  I’ve transcribed hundreds of hours of guitar music over 25+ years, using the method described in this article. It was such a slog that I ended up creating tool to help streamline the process: Soundslice (https://www.soundslice.com/ https://www.soundslice.com/). It combines audio playback directly with a tab editor, so that you can immediately write down what you’ve figured out and your transcription stays in sync with the original audio. This makes transcribing incredibly fast and (importantly) accurate. It’s got audio slowdown, precise looping, “synth overlay” (playback of the transcription and original audio at the same time, to spot errors), auto stem separation and a full-featured tab/notation editor with support for hundreds of notations. When you’re done, you get a very useful artifact: a synced transcription, effectively a bespoke practice environment for that piece of music. Over the years, Soundslice has expanded into a lot more than a pure transcription tool, but lots of people still use it for its original intended purpose. (It supports any instrument that uses western music notation, not just guitar.) If you’re at all interested in transcribing music, give it a shot.
  • m_rpn 6mo ago
    How have i never heard about this, will definitely give a try. What about a DAW integrated transcription tool, as a VST maybe, is it too niche? This is something i always wanted and never really found in the capacity i needed, essentially doing what soundslice does both track per track and also having the full score, most tools available try to convert to midi via usual methods or do some mumbo-jumbo AI to write the score. Since 90% of recording musicians time is spent on a DAW and sometimes having everything in the box streamlines the work a lot.
  • BrokenCogs 6mo ago
    I'm actually trying to build something similar to this for personal use, not as a product. What did you find was the most difficult technical step when building? I'm finding it particularly challenging to separate rhythm and lead guitar parts (both in terms of stem separation and also when transcribing by ear).
    • adrianh 6mo ago
      I've been working on it full-time since 2012, so it's hard for me to reduce 14 years' worth of work to a single "most difficult technical step." Sorry, I don't mean to be rude or unhelpful, but that's not a question I can provide a meaningful answer to. There have been dozens, probably hundreds, of difficult technical challenges in building Soundslice.
• hackable_sand 6mo ago
  This is equally true for game design I'll often have a video game open. Play about 10-15 minutes, and then spend 1-2 hours practicing the knowledge gained. It's inspiring
• TrackerFF 6mo ago
  The way I learned guitar: 1. Lessons for 6 months, didn't learn much. 2. Started playing cover tunes, did that extensively for years. Practiced by butt off. Played with a lot of different people. 3. Went back to learning theory. For me my main motivation to learn guitar was to play in a band, not to become good at the guitar itself. But it turned out that I was talented enough to learn a lot by just screwing around. When I went back to learn theory, I already knew the sounds and patterns - I just didn't a name for them. With that said, If I could go back, I'd just start with learning all the notes on the fretboard, all the basic chord and scale shapes. It's actually not that hard, but you need motivation. I've played with hundreds of other guitarists since then, given lessons, played session etc. and one of my early surprises was how many different reasons people had to learn the guitar. I just assumed everyone were like me - wanted to jam and play cool tunes. But then I met some really good players that had zero interest in playing with others, play cover songs in general, or even write songs. They were perfectly happy with exploring theory, for the sake of theory - the complete opposite of myself at the time.
  • sublinear 6mo ago
    > With that said, If I could go back, I'd just start with learning all the notes on the fretboard, all the basic chord and scale shapes. It's actually not that hard, but you need motivation. I agree, but if the guitar is someone's first instrument it may also be their only creative outlet or seen as a means to an end. They're almost guaranteed to do what you did and probably even skip the lessons. I think the physical act of playing an instrument is very overrated, and music education is underrated. Even just a few years of putting kids in the school band goes a long way. Being familiar with sightreading and basic music theory sounds boring, but it makes everything else a breeze when they want to learn something on their own. Of course, there are also tons of people who were in a bad program and it was worse than nothing for their motivation. That's another topic though.
  • zigman1 6mo ago
    > I'd just start with learning all the notes on the fretboard, [...] and scale shapes This is not as simple as it sounds. It seems, from my experience of learning a guitar and observing others, that there is something inherently illogical how tonality changes between strings. There are two main ways to do it, either you remember by memory, or you simply hear what happens. Both are hard for average beginner, because it just doesn't make sense. After I have been practicing a guitar for quite some time I started learning a piano for some reason, and seeing the keys in front of me it all made sense instantly
• flibbertigibber 6mo ago
  When I was 25 I started learning guitar, I'd play an hour a day consistently for about 4 years - at that point I was able to learn new songs by ear, noodle along to 80%~ of songs etc. Guitar I've always found to be a super approachable instrument, particularly because online you can get a video demonstration for most songs. Compare to Piano which is pretty bias online towards sheet music and the ability to read that..
• bdemirkir 6mo ago
  My appoach is more focused on continuity rather than stop-analyze-go style suggested on this article. Select a song, get a well sounding tab of that song, pick a section, loop it slow enough so you can reasonably hit the notes, once you play it well speed it up and repeat this until 120% speed, repeat this whole process for all sections and you're done.
  • kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 6mo ago
    Interestingly, when learning Morse code, many will tell you to learn it at the speed you'll be using it. The theory is it's easier to overcome the hurdle and learn the faster speed, rather than relearn each speed as you ramp up. However, this creates a higher barrier to entry that only the truly dedicated will overcome.
• imrozim 6mo ago
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• ath3nd 6mo ago
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• Dumblydorr 6mo ago
  Deliberate practice. Whatever you do, take it slow and careful. Learn it the right way once slowly. If you learn it too quickly and too surface level, you’ll practice-in mistakes and create 10X “tech debt” to solve later.
• thiago_fm 6mo ago
  Love Justinguitar, but I disagree with this approach, this tells you very little how to actually play the guitar, just to know songs and train your ear and transcribing. The main takeway here is that to become an artist you need to get good at copying. Everybody that plays guitar have tried to transcribe a riff or a song. But not all have become great guitar players. The way to go is to have an objective. Is it playing a difficult song like Cliffs of Dover? Playing blues? Rock? What is it? Focus on that style or song. COPY. Become a copy machine. One example is doing bends. There are many ways of doing a bend. Most if not all blue players do it by holding the neck of the guitar in a very specific manner, so if you want to play blues, you need to copy them. It must be a perfect copy. Playing the guitar is mostly a physical activity where motions and understanding of the body, and how this is wired into your nerves and brain matters. If you just transcribe and play riffs, you won't be able to play in a high BPM, because in order to do that, you need to be extremely efficient with your movements, understand speed picking... and people have studied and developed those techniques for many years -- you don't invent this over, you watch videos, practice and copy it! By just playing and transcribing you'll develop terrible habits which at some point will limit your playing, and will feel like it will take an eternity to correct. That's when most of the people stop playing. And of course, play songs that are at your level, so typically lower speed songs with simpler chords and then from there understand what music style you want to focus on. A guitar teacher can help you with that because they can easily come up with exercises and songs that would match your skill, but if you want, you can do that yourself. Once you become advanced in guitar, then you'll for sure know it, and then you can experiment to do bends in a different way, or do something that would make you stand out, but at first, it's mostly about copying. Later you can innovate. TLDR: best way of learning guitar is focusing on copying everything, the motions of a player being the #1.
• TimByte 6mo ago
  One thing I'd add: slowing the track down (without pitch shifting) helps a lot in the beginning
• joexo 6mo ago
  Music and guitar performance is an academic subject like any other, and has a standard curriculum. There are a few well known top schools, Berklee, MI etc. There are a couple of standard method books. There really is no need to try to discover "how to get good at guitar" any more than you need to discover how to get good at mathematics. Music is a language, you practice reading, writing, listening and playing (speaking). How to get the time for the study, is the challenge, of which there's no "secret solution". Only people who are relatively well off can afford these schools, and/or take the risk of studying something so frivolous with such a low chance of paying off. If you practice something diligently for 30min every day, it will still take you something like 25 years to rack up the hours of a 4 year masters degree.
• buttersicle 6mo ago
  This is awesome. "I spent 4 hours transcribing 'Breaking the Law' and now I can play it pretty well" The fact that this was highly upvoted is a stark reminder of just how dumb the average user of this forum is.
• sanitycheck 6mo ago
  I'm only good enough to impress people who don't know what a good guitar player sounds like. My advice to people, which seems to work OK, is just to have the guitar out and ready to play wherever you're likely to be - maybe even in the way so it has to be moved sometimes - and just pick it up and play it as often as possible. Waiting for the kettle to boil? Play the guitar. TV is showing ads? Mute it and play the guitar. Your partner needs to go to the bathroom before you both go out? Play the guitar. It doesn't matter what you play, it doesn't have to be good, it can be a random improvisation, it can be scales. Your fingers are learning.
  • tarentel 6mo ago
    It depends on what your goals are. If you're doing it for fun or as a creative outlet this is great advice. If you're trying to actively get better you won't do it this way after a certain point. You need to be actively practicing and engaging your brain. It does matter what you play and how you play it.
    • sanitycheck 6mo ago
      Sure, there's "deliberate practice" and it matters - but so many people seem to think if they're playing that's what they should be doing, or it's a waste of time. In reality that often isn't much fun, and they start to associate the instrument with this sort of difficult and often disappointing experience, and they give up.
      • elevatortrim 6mo ago
        You are right. I think there are quite a lot of people who are only interested in playing and never deliberately practising. They do not get that far (they do not have to!). And then the vast majority of aspring guitar players who frequent learning online material (including me) spend all of their time practising and learning, and too little of it playing for fun and performing. Most are constantly frustrated about their progress. Then there is a small group of people, who spend a lot of time playing for fun and performing, but also a good amount of time deliberately practising. In my experience, those tend to be the ones people think are great players.
• twodave 6mo ago
  Sure, this is a way to get better at learning songs, in particular. Any consistent practice will result in getting better, though. After about 20 years of playing (though less as the years have gone by and life has been busy), I actually find playing live to be the most impactful thing. You have to find a way to make the song work and keep up with the tempo! Often that means improvising. Being able to improvise even a little covers so much that can go wrong while playing. But there are lots of ways to get better, and to a degree it depends on what your goals are. I enjoyed the article.
• calebm 6mo ago
  I very recently inherited a guitar-harp. One thing I love about it is that it is so straight forward to play - unlike guitar (where you have to press frets), a guitar harp is laid out like a piano (left to go lower frequency and right to go higher frequency). So it's been easy to just listen to a song and play along. I can't sight-read music, and trying to learn a song by reading music is tedious and boring to me. Just listening and playing along feels MUCH better.
  • ProllyInfamous 6mo ago
    I just bought a harmonica. I have played only a few times, many decades ago.. Bless my poorest neighbors... ---- >Just listening and playing along feels MUCH better. This is how I strumbanjo, intoxicated within the noises (often more).
• nodesocket 6mo ago
  I’m a beginner electric guitar player and what motivated and helped me is learning songs I want to play. The first was Zombie by The Cranberries. The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment when you pin down the chords and strumming is amazing. Second was Tomorrow by Silverchair (excluding the Daniel Johns solo which is way beyond my skills). Rant: Silverchair is super underrated of the grunge area bands, Daniel Johns is a fantastic musician.
• 4oo4 6mo ago
  From personal experience: - Don't tense up and play the most relaxed you possibly can. it's very hard to unlearn if you start off that way like I did - Be kind to yourself since playing guitar is an unnatural thing to do (wrist position, hand strength required, calluses, etc.), so it takes time. - Play along with songs as much as possible. Slow it down if you need to or just do a simplified version at first, and just focus on improving/learning one thing each time you play. This is also a great way to get comfortable with improv. - If you're struggling with something, break things down to the smallest possible parts you can, play it really slow and repeat, until your muscle memory takes over, then slowly speed it up and put it back in context. - If you're playing an electric, turn the volume up enough and let that do the work instead of your picking - If you catch yourself noodling instead of playing consciously, stop playing. It's OK to noodle sometimes but if you do it a lot you'll get used to going on autopilot and your skills can plateau - Don't be afraid of the upper fretboard. You can play super slowly up here and as long as you can at least fake being confident/intentional it'll sound nice. If you have smaller hands and have trouble with stretching your hands on lower frets, this can work to your advantage. - You can get a solid guitar for $400-500. Spending more money up to about $2-3k will get you a nicer guitar, chasing that extra 1% of tone and have a nicer feel in your hands, but it's diminishing returns the more you spend. - Same with pedals. Yes you can spend lots of money on fancy/unique pedals, but there's nothing wrong with sticking to cheap ones, especially Boss. A lot of great 80s/90s music was recorded with them, and bands frequently use the cheaper/commodity ones while touring instead of fancy boutique ones. - Per Nile Rogers: "It's not about the shit you play, it's about the shit you don't play" (especially for funk stuff) - Also for funk (and post-punk and experimental) stuff, a guitar is also a percussion instrument if you want it to be. - Once guitar playing gets to a certain level of virtuosity (Steve Vai, IMO), it paradoxically can become extremely boring. Playing simply but with the right emotion channeled into your picking hand is much more interesting than super technical stuff. - Related, remember that Bill Withers was in his 30s when he started making music and chose a very simple way of composing things, but was still able to do amazing things
• javier_e06 6mo ago
  I thought guitar refinement had its limits then I saw these guys... Angine de Poitrine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfDtfz7vXkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfDtfz7vXkY I will be a beginner forever. That's okay.
• tzs 6mo ago
  This was quite a bit more convenient when we were getting our music on CDs, because many CD players included an A-B repeat function. This let you designate two points in a track ("A" and "B") and it would endlessly repeat the segment between those points. I believe some MP3 players also had this. As far as I know none of the top streaming music services support it in their official interfaces. I believe it can be added via third party tools, but it would be nice if the services would build it in.
• ksaj 6mo ago
  This is valuable advice in many areas. Learn to listen. Be present and active in that listening experience.