Any experienced guitar players have advice on how to learn better?

I played very little in highschool and now, 15 years later, I have the urge to go back to it. I’ve been playing for an hour or so most days for the last month which I know isn’t a lot but lets be honest, it’s just for my own enjoyment, I have no illusions of being a middle aged rock star.

Anyway I was wondering if people had any advice, good resources, sheet music that isn’t garbage?

In my position would you go the self taught route or is it really important to have a tutor? I’m particularly concerned about picking up bad technique and then practicing that, I feel like that was a big part of why I gave up in the first place - fucking up the same things no matter how many times I did them because I learned them wrong.

Thanks all.

  • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    I took lessons for years and sorta stopped taking it seriously during college, a couple years after I graduated I decided I wanted to take it more seriously. I sorta plateaued for a bit and just bit the bullet and got a teacher and my progress has skyrocketed in a few weeks.

    My biggest struggle was learning and holding onto theory because I couldn’t tie the many disparate parts together. I had learned and forgotten how to sight read several times, as well as various theory bits. Now I’m properly learning the fretboard and connecting it to concepts in a way that I’m able to just find scales and arpeggios rather than memorizing them.

    Being able to make the connections and go “Ah! that’s why this works!” is a huge game changer and confidence booster.

    For a greater context, I got really bored playing most kinds of rock, learning songs just felt pointless to me. I’ll go back to classical guitar occasionally but what I really wanted to do was create my own jazz chord melodies and that’s sorta hard. I’m really good at learning songs from tab, but it began to feel sorta empty.

    • AlkaliMarxist@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I had learned and forgotten how to sight read several times

      Definitely been there!

      It does sound like you’re a fair bit more advanced than I am, I’d be pretty happy to have the technical skills to pick up new songs quickly. I will keep this in mind for the future though, thank you.

      • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        I’d be pretty happy to have the technical skills to pick up new songs quickly

        This is primarily from the almost 20 years(ow holy shit what) of having a guitar near me and learning challenging songs. The real key to it is learn songs slowly, build up speed, and play along with the record. But this method creates a lot of blindspots. I’m terrible at playing to a metronome(but playing with a drummer is easier for some reason). I can’t “jam” with people, if someone says “do a blues in A”, until recently they might as well have been speaking korean to me.

        • AlkaliMarxist@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          2·
          10 months ago

          Haha, that actually unlocked a memory, I did know how to play a 12 bar blues in A! Once upon a time.

          I reckon unless you’re super proactive about preventing it everyone picks up a few blind spots over time though. Well I hope to be in the same place as you 20 years from now!

          • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            10 months ago

            Good luck! guitar is a ton of fun and super rewarding. Don’t get sucked into gear circles too bad, a well practiced picking hand can out perform many thousands of dollars in gear when it comes to tone.