Am i un-teachable????

No one is "un-teachable" - it's usually a matter of how best to teach a person. How long have you been trying to play? When you say that you "have a lot of trouble with chords and making them clear," do you mean all chords? Just certain ones? Open position or barre chords?

Give this article a try:

https://www.guitarnoise.com/lesson/absolute-beginner-part-1/

Start with just the first three chords (Em, E and Am) and see if you can form them and play them cleanly and clearly. If so, then try switching between these chords in order to get used to doing so (switching chords is just as, if not more, important than simply playing chords). If not, check back in and let us know what's not working. It could be any number of things from not holding the guitar at an optimum position to having your fingernails being too long.

Welcome to Guitar Noise and let's see what we can do to help get you going.

Peace

This is something you need to work on. The transition between chords is very important. If you lift off of one chord to go to the next and your fingers are high off of the fretboard this can make the next chord sloppy. When you plant a chord pluck each string individually to find out which ones are being muted. Once you know this you can address the problem further. Adjust your fingers until you get them ringing clearly. Be aggressive towards your practicing. You can do this.

Well i have been playing about a year. I can't do bar chords at all, I can do the basic chords like g, a, e, am, c
I have alot of trouble with getting my strumming right and putting chords with lyrics and like putting songs together. That is what i really want to be able to do.

I was doing that before my guitar teacher got wierd and i really enjoyed writing my own music much more than playing someone else's

We certainly encourage people to write their own material here. If you have lyrics which you've already written and want to show around then post them in the Songwriters Club, and if you're stuck for ideas then check out the assignments in the Sunday Songwriters Group and just see where it leads. Other forum contributors will critique your words and maybe suggest changes or what they think are improvements and make you think about other ways of getting your point across. You should do the same with other people's songs too - it's a two way street.

Many of us post links to our songs on Soundclick and similar sites. If you can get a recording uploaded that we can listen to, even if the sound's not great, it gives us so much more to talk about. Check out some of the Sunday Songwriters contributions - many of the recordings are simply a voice and a guitar, you don't need to have a massive studio in your basement.

Don't worry about barre chords yet. There is a huge amount you can do without them. Buy yourself a Capo if you're bored with the usual chord voicings, you'll be surprised the difference it makes

A :-)

Well i have been playing about a year. I can't do bar chords at all, I can do the basic chords like g, a, e, am, c
I have alot of trouble with getting my strumming right and putting chords with lyrics and like putting songs together. That is what i really want to be able to do.

I was doing that before my guitar teacher got wierd and i really enjoyed writing my own music much more than playing someone else's

Well you've already gotten through the hardest part, which is sticking to it until you've got the basics down.

The thing you should be doing is what you enjoy, writing your own music, some people will say you need to learn other people's songs, but that depends on your goals, and what you wanna do with your playing, its always nice to know a song you can play to your mom or your family or something just to show them how much you've progressed, but the emphasis should be on yourself, since I guess guitar is something you do to have fun and relax ( and I hope it is cause if not your missing the point :P ).

Agree with everyone here...you are NOT un-teachable. Get a teacher that will help you along for sure. One thing you could do is to just try finding chord charts on the internet and experiment with the sounds they make and try to put them to your lyrics and you can be well on your way to learning on your own!

Nobody is unteachable man. The process of mastering something works the same way no matter what it is. You spend a long time on a plateau where it feels like you aren't going anywhere. Then, one day, out of nowhere, you'll make a sudden jump in skill. These peaks are short-lived and its easy to get attached to them, but you need to have faith in the process and not worry so much about the destination.

If you feel like your current instructor isn't doing a good job, schedule a few lessons with some other ones.

Best of luck.

I've met exactly one person who was un-teachable. She couldn't hear the difference between any two notes... it all sounded the same to her. That complete tone-deafness is extremely rare.

But I've successfully taught TWO deaf students. Both had cochlear implants that allowed them to "hear". I have no idea what they hear... I know it's not the same as what I hear when I play - but they could tell the difference between pitches, so they were able to learn to play guitar. I've also taught some people with physical handicaps that kept them from playing in the traditional sense. But with some creative thinking, you can work out ways to fret notes. Just about anything is possible if you want it badly enough.

Well i have been playing about a year. I can't do bar chords at all, I can do the basic chords like g, a, e, am, c

Being someone who has only been playing (I practice more than play :| ) for a little over a year and a half, I probably don't have the right to give advice or my opinion (but that usually doesn't stop me :P ), barre chords ARE NOT easy! It's only recently that I'm getting the hang of them and actually kind of like using them. Even the dreaded full F Maj is a lot easier than it used to be. Sometimes it's just so easy to slide up or down the fretboard in the same position. Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay is one such song that is playable that way.

Barre chords take a lot of practice and work, so don't be put off by them. I read this same advice last year and thought "Yeah, pfft!". Well, 'tis true.
I have alot of trouble with getting my strumming right and putting chords with lyrics and like putting songs together. That is what i really want to be able to do.

Sounds like a timing and tempo issue. If you are reading from internet tab and chord sheets, I'm going to echo something David Hodge said to me in a post when I asked about it... internet chord and tab sheets can be way off, depepnding on who wrote them up and the text editor used. And, as he said (giving credit where credit is due) a singer/musician may use a lot of leeway in when he or she changes chords relative to the lyrics and vice versa.

Strumming patterns are something I struggle with and get hung up on. Sometimes you can only figure it out for yourself if you have no other resource. If it sounds good, it's probably right. Even professional musicians don't play the same way twice, certainly not from studio to stage. George Harrison was not the primary musician on the studio version of My Sweet Lord, Billy Preston was. GH did mostly the engineering. So when GH played the song live, it sounded very different, and his strumming was different.
I was doing that before my guitar teacher got wierd and i really enjoyed writing my own music much more than playing someone else's

I'm bothered by any "teacher" who gets weird and doesn't want to teach someone. It's one thing to say you are retiring or moving on to another endeavor, but it's an entirely different (and disturbing) thing to say you don't want to teach someone. It sounds like you got a baseball bat upside your self-confidence. Find a real teacher, and a good one.

And btw, I sometimes I think I don't have the aptitude for guitar either. In moments of doubt and depression I want to give it up. Then I discover something or all of a sudden I get better at something and I'm on fire again. All these guys here can vouch for that, reading my posts.

Well i have been playing about a year. I can't do bar chords at all, I can do the basic chords like g, a, e, am, c

I was doing that before my guitar teacher got wierd and i really enjoyed writing my own music much more than playing someone else's

I'm bothered by any "teacher" who gets weird and doesn't want to teach someone. It's one thing to say you are retiring or moving on to another endeavor, but it's an entirely different (and disturbing) thing to say you don't want to teach someone. It sounds like you got a baseball bat upside your self-confidence. Find a real teacher, and a good one.

And btw, I sometimes I think I don't have the aptitude for guitar either. In moments of doubt and depression I want to give it up. Then I discover something or all of a sudden I get better at something and I'm on fire again. All these guys here can vouch for that, reading my posts.

That is really important to remember - There's not only peaks and valleys but a lot of flat out "grinding" when you don't feel as if you're getting any better. You just have to work thru it and you will! What's with the teacher that gets "weird" and stops teaching? THAT could make anyone feel like they're un-teachable. Sounds like it's "good riddance" to that one. Good luck and keep after it.

I'm not a guitar teacher. But I AM a teacher. And the first thing I'm thinking is:

If your teacher was not interested in teaching me the guitar at all then drop him immediately and get another teacher. As quickly as possible.

It is his JOB to beinterested in teaching you the guitar. If he isn't, then he can go to hell. Or off somewhere to look for more students. Don't pay a dime to a guy who doesn't want the work.

Other thoughts.

Barre chords are HARD until you get them. I've been playing a couple of years now, and can do the ones I use regularly well. The ones I do less, sound worse. The G shaped barre chord is impossible and unnecessary. (maybe not really. But it seems so now.) One year to barre chords isn't a lot.
I can do the basic chords like g, a, e, am, c

I know a lot of songs that are fun to play and sing with those! That's more than enough chords to be playing and singing. But playing, writing and singing are hard too, and it takes time. A year is a start. But praise yourself for how far you've come. Don't blame yourself for how far you haven't come. (yet)

Keep at it. Playing chords cleanly is hard, especially at speed. But...play slow till you can play fast.

Songwriting is another, almost separate skill compared to playing.

Do you have friends who play and write? Try to do some work with them. OR here...on the forum. (These guys are great- I mean that!)

Best.
Ande

When you start playing barre chords most of the time they will sound bad with muted strings and buzzy notes (this happened to me at least) but in order to get the strength in your fingers you need to keep practicing even if you think you will never get them. The good news is when you do get you can play the majority of rhythm parts for most pop and rock songs. :D

But I've successfully taught TWO deaf students. Both had cochlear implants that allowed them to "hear". I have no idea what they hear... I know it's not the same as what I hear when I play - but they could tell the difference between pitches, so they were able to learn to play guitar. I've also taught some people with physical handicaps that kept them from playing in the traditional sense. But with some creative thinking, you can work out ways to fret notes. Just about anything is possible if you want it badly enough.

+1

Great stories from NoteBoat.

Whenever I'm tempted to think that I'm having hard time with fingering on guitar I think of Django Rheinhart - a brilliant gypsy jazz style guitarist who only had full use of two fingers on his fretting hand. Yet he's still admired and copied today - long after his death. You wouldn't guess how big a disability he had to overcome, just by listening to his music.

The only real barrier to learning, for most people, is the willingness to put the time and attention in. My son is severely intellectually disabled (takes after his dad you might say...) and has huge difficulty with comprehension and speech. He can barely talk and uses only a few simple phrases to communicate. He cannot hold a basic conversation. But I was able to teach him to play some simple familiar melodies on the piano. He was able to succeed because he became motivated to learn. He made surprisingly quick progress both with note selection and timing, and the tunes were easily recognisable when he played them.

With a good attitude, and a reliable source of information, pretty much anybody can learn to produce music. 8)

Cheers,

Chris

Looks to me Christy that you just found a whole bunch of teachers that don't think so. :? Time to practice I guess.