Most frustrating and rewarding thing I've ever undertaken

Well you are normal 3.5 month guitar newbie and I mean that in the best sense of the word.

Just remember three words and you will continue to improve: Practice, Practice and when you are tired of practicing practice alittle more.

But from what you've described you are doing fine keep it up.

I agree with cnev. It sounds like you are making progress in many areas. After my first three months, I think the only song I could play was a sloppy version of Iron Man. :lol:

Diligence pays off. Stick with it.

Yeah, I don't really think I am doing poorly, it is just frustrating some days.

I figure if I post my progress here once and a while, other beginners will see what I am doing and be able to compare/contrast what they are doing. Not to mention, it will keep a record of my preogress for myself.

One thing you'll start noticing is almost everyone goes through stages of frustration. Right now you may be making huge jumps in your playing since this is all new to you. Once you've got the basics down you are going to want to make another monumental leap in playing and it doesn't always happen that way.

It really is about perserverance and just sticking to it. There are going to be a lot of frustrating days ahead...along with plenty of great ones...just don't let the frustrating ones hold you back or make you think about quitting. It never really gets easier per se. I mean sure you'll get better and be able to play songs quickly but you'll also start getting bored with three chord songs and want to play more advanced material which will mean you need to work at it.

Anyway it was a lot of words to say stick with it's a long journey.

Sounds like you're making steady progress! I'm around the same timeframe, so I've encountered some of the same issues, I'm sure. A couple that I thought I could comment on:

Strange buzzing in B string? - Have you tried changing the strings or adjusting the action? There are a lot of things that can cause fret buzz besides technique. Here's one place you could look: http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/buzzing.htm

Still not quite ready to take on barre chords, not enough finger strenght or mabe its my technique. - This has been a slow but steady battle for me, too, but I just practice it a lot. For me, I think it's just a matter of finger strength and muscle memory that will come with practice. It also helped when I finally realized (based on some GN forum post) that I need to position my arm correctly - a lot of the strength for barre chords comes from the support behind the fingers, it seems to me. I still need to consciously remember to move my arm and wrist first when I try and do one barre chord and then another.

Cheers,

I'm not sure about the B string buzz. I got the guitar set up about a month ago, and everything was fine. Now there just seems to be more buzz than before.

Maybe I am just noticing it more now that I am trying to make things sound better and not just trying to barely change chords.

What position should my arm be in for barre chords, maybe that is what I am doing wrong too?

Print this page and put it in a drawer. Seriously. Pull it out in 3 months and see how much better you've gotten. :shock:

Thats kinda what I was planning on doing, since it is hard to record myself. At least i have a record of my preogress.

If you have an acoustic, I've read around these forums that the humidity can affect the wood and thus the action... Beyond that, I'm out of ideas on that one. :-

I actually found the exact thread that really illuminated the importance of body position on barre chords for me, so I'll just point you to that. (It's even got pictures.)

https://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32506&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Sounds like you are doing great after only 3.5 months. That's about the point where I gave up the first 2 times I tried to learn guitar. I had learned all the major chords plus some minors and could play them all clean, but I couldn't change between any chords quick enough to play any song. But I stuck it out this time and it seemed to just click and all of a sudden I could change chords. I know it was just the result of practice, practice and more practice. But once you hit that point, things take off.

A few songs that I learned early that seemed to help me with changing chords are...

Doolin' Dalton by The Eagles. Well, I only learned the first section, never got the bridge down and haven't looked at it in a while. It's got quite a few chords, but it's not too fast and the chords are pretty evenly spaced with a lot of time to change. If I remember, it's G - Em - G - Em - G - G7 - C - Em - A - D - G.

We Can Work It Out - The Beatles. Basically D, C, G and A. I always played a Cadd9 and the "4 finger G" (what I always call it), so for the most part, you can anchor you ring finger on the B string, 3rd fret and only move it for the A, which is only 1 measure in the chorus. When strumming the D, every couple beats drop your pinky on the 3rd fret on the E string (makes a Dsus4 I think)

Print this page and put it in a drawer. Seriously. Pull it out in 3 months and see how much better you've gotten. :shock:

Wise wordage indeed.

Sounds to me like you're doing great. Keep up the practice and just remember there will be bad days and there will be good days. Don't give in to the temptation to smash your guitar though. :wink:

Congrats on your progress so far and enjoy what you're doing. Keep us posted.

8)

Ok, now it has been quite some time since I made this thread and I wanted to post a progress report now that I have been playing almost a year.

Got a Fender MIM Strat used. Great guitar, I love it to death.

Also got a Roland 30 Cube. Wonderful amp that has tons of settings and sounds awesome.

I have gotten much faster on all of my open chord changes. Especially proud of my C to G changes. I can pretty much strum away and change chords while not looking on a good day.Still room for improvement.

I can nail most E shaped barre chords pretty well and can play them up and down the neck with good cosistancy on my Strat. Pretty decent, but rougher on my accoustic. A shaped barre chords need more work and more time.

Have learned a bunch of licks, intros and pieces of songs. Trying to figure out the strumming patterns for Mother by Pink Floyd and Redemtion song by Bob Marley. Starting to play wit ha couple Metalica songs on my strat.

Working on power chords. They seem pretty easy, much easier than barres. Love playing them with lots of distortion. Need work on moving them from sixth string to fifth string quickly.

Using blues backing tracks and scales to work on solo improvising. Mostly use the blues scale & minor pentatonic. I am starting to play with other positions up and down the neck and using double stops and boxes. My bending, Hammer -ons and pull-offs are getting much better.

I wasn't practicing much for a little while, but I am back to every day now. I lost some time because of it. THinking about getting lessons when I can afford it, because it would help greatly I'm sure.

Overall I think I have learned quite a bit, but still have a loooooong way to go.

You're still at it. Now that it's been a year you'll never give it up! I think everyone who starts guitar should stick with it for a year, assess and decide. It takes about a year just to get up to speed a little on the basics.

It definitely sounds like you've come quite a ways! I bet it feels great, too.

Unless you've got an accurate transcription for Mother, you're bound to get frustrated a bit with it. The song regularly changes time signature, starting in 5/8 and then switching to 4/4 and back to 5/8 quite a bit. Then, just to make it more fun, it switches to 6/8 at the "...ah, mother should I build the wall..." part before going back to switching between 4/4 and 5/8 some more. And that's just the verses. The chorus section "...hush my baby baby..." swings into 12/8, which is a lot like 4/4, except with more of a triplet feel. An easy (though not totally "by the book" ) pattern for that is to use a strum like this:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 +
D D U D D U D U D

And repeating that for the second half of the measure as well.

It's going to be a challenge, but it sounds like you're certainly up to it. Good luck and great progress report!

Peace