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.

  • AlkaliMarxist
    ·
    5 months ago

    I'll give those muting exercises a try.

    Do you play much with others? I've mostly heard the metronome advice in relation to that. So that when you go to play with others you have experience keeping tightly in time. Though playing to a backing track would probably serve a similar purpose and I think some people are innately better at keeping time as well.

    Thanks a lot for those book recommendations too, I'll definitely seek them out. Tablature is useful, while I can read sheet music a little (learned when I was younger) translating that to the guitar neck is a challenge.

    • Carguacountii [none/use name]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Hi, apologies for the delayed reply, work got in the way.

      I've tried again with the exercise, and it didn't give me an error this time, but the tab didn't work at all, it messed all the spacing and sizing up when I posted it.. not sure how to fix that unfortunately.

      I have played a lot with others yes, not so much at the moment. I think its maybe better to develop your own kind of time discipline, so that if you're playing with people who go out of time (excited or drunk usually) they can follow you. As before, I can't comment on the utility of a metronome, having never used one, but I expect it must be helpful - however its clearly not vital. If I'm playing rythym, I often need to tap my foot, but with fingerstyle or lead I don't need to, maybe because the notes being more broken up than chords helps you keep beat better? I'm not sure its an 'innate' thing, though it might be that people's differing experience helps, but rather that I learned by practicing (on my own, and with other people).

      Yes, I think tableture is a lot better for guitar, since sheet music I think is developed or at least refined for orchestras, where they're expected to know the piece they're playing anyhow so it emphasises the beats/timing more than the notes, and isn't tailored for a particular instrument.

      Hope the practice is going well, and good luck with it - anymore questions let me know.

      • AlkaliMarxist
        ·
        5 months ago

        No worries at all, I appreciate the effort regardless.

        I think I'm coming to realize that a lot of things, like the metronome, are just one way to learn something amongst many and the "best" way really varies person to person.

        Practice is going pretty well - had a busy weekend so not a lot of time but I've got the structure of The Wind down and it's just a matter of repetition now to build speed and precision. It's been fun. I'll certainly be coming back to this thread a lot as time goes on for all the great resources and if I come upon some specific issues later in my learning I'll definitely reach out.

        Thanks again for all your input.