Omit fifths if you need to. The caged system helped me get some of the basic shapes down. When you practice them go slow enough so all of your fingers land at the same time.
There are guitars that are 3/4 sized or smaller to some degree, they're not hard to find and could help
Gave up after trying to perform barre chords. Made nice rattling noises though :quagsire-pog:
Barre chords are super tough at first, and especially hard on a lot of beginner guitars. If you ever pick it up again, you could try lowering the action (adjusting the truss rod so the strings are closer to the neck) and/or getting thinner strings, at least until you get the hang of barre chords — I've got tiny ass sausage fingers and that worked pretty well for me
I used an acoustic guitar, like 12 gauge strings I think. Using thinner strings would sound weirder for an acoustic no? But regardless I can get an electric and practice on that
lmao that was how I felt about it too, they were like "this is the basic chord for starters and stupid people" and I was like "my fingers don't bend this way?!"
If you can throw up the horns at a metal show, you can play an E minor.
Gave up guitar years ago because I wasn't gonna bother learning actual music rather than just tabs and what's the point.
But I retained the ability to move my left ring finger and pinky independently, so I've got that going for me.
I’ve been a professional musician for 10+ years and I can barely read music and usually just do tab if I’m not playing by ear w a chord chart
Yeah I’ve met a lot of people like that that were successful. There’s so many different and cool ways to create now days
I used to be able to sight read tab pretty proficiently but I’ve been playing by ear mostly the last few years so idk of i could anymore
ITT: Nerds who don't know how to rock. If you're playing full chords it's because your amp isn't loud enough or you need cool pedals. The time you're spending learning this stuff is better spent drinking brown liquor, smoking cigarettes in a garage while wearing a headband and peeing off the flatbed of Ronny Henderson's moving truck.
ITT: Nerds who don’t know how to rock.
YES I ALREADY ADMITTED IT WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT
I NEED INSTRUCTIONS TO KNOW HOW TO ROCK
Just learn power chords. It's one string down and two frets over from your root note. Tabs are perfectly fine, just use em to play along with songs you know and you'll develope an ear. Writing songs is about sitting down with an instrument and doing it. Theory isn't needed in any way at all to actually play music. It's mostly just a way of putting into writing what can be way easier understood just by listening to the instrument.
Also try to be as much like this as possible:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ5fIKmn1ok
Wtf I just realized I can only move my right pinky independently, on my left hand my ring finger goes too
Huh. My fret hand is the one that got +1 dexterity. My only other guess is that you did way more finger picking than I ever tried.
Practice doing the Spock "live long and prosper" sign (🖖), putting all four fingers back together (✋), and then stretching only your pinky and index finger out to the sides (with your ring and middle fingers still together in the middle; sorry, no emoji for that one), then put them all back together again (✋), and repeat. You'll eventually get it, but stretching those tendons out early on takes some work.
Source: some 1990s issue of Guitar World where Kirk Hammet was going on about warm-up exercises. He learned this one from a physical therapist after he broke his wrist while skateboarding back when he was a teenager.
Two over one down from wherever your index finger is. Now you know power chords. You're good from now on.
Just turn the amp up, it’s okay.
EDIT : Also only need one finger for drop D 😎
Number 3 reminds me of Thundercat https://mobile.twitter.com/spiceadams/status/1233124685107400704
