Why is playing the guitar so hard???

"Would not be rewarding if it was easy" - Somebody said that

I stick with the guitar because I could not get the maracas to sound like anything but a bag of shaking beans but every once in awhile something comes out of my guitar that sounds good.

I consider myself a second 1/2 player. I don't play during the first half of a party but love playing after everyone has been drinking. Maybe when it stops being hard I will play at the beginning of the party :lol:

'cos if it wasn't, would we REALLY bother - after all, everyone would be doing it!!!!!!!

Its meant to be a challenge.

Read for that "Its meant to do your head in at times, but at other times, feels like the best thing in the world!!".

:wink:

Instruments in general are hard to learn. They take years of study, practice, and practice to be "good". So don't worry about it, you'll get there eventually.

I am gonna say something shocking. Guitar is not hard. It is easier than you think. The problem is that it takes a long time to learn this. Guitar is like baseball, or basketball, or golf or anything else. It is really built on simple fundamentals. Learn the simple fundamentals and it becomes easy.
For instance, alternate picking; downstoke, upstroke. What's so hard about that? Start at a slow comfortable speed and build up. Then learn to go from one string to another. Want to learn tapping? Start slow. Learn to tap with your finger and pull off with your fretting hand. Build speed over time. Want to learn barre chords? Learn to barre with your index finger where all strings sound clearly. Then just add your basic home chords behind the barre. Start with a barre E type, barre E7, barre Em, then Em7. Wow, now you can simply move up the neck and play 90% of all chords used in music.

I know I am making it sound too easy. But the point I am making is that most people make it too hard. Or at least that is the way they think. You have to be patient and just learn the basic fundamentals. Just practice those, and in no time you will be much better than you think.

So try to be patient and quit telling yourself it is so hard. Wanting to be great instantly just leads to frustration. It doesn't happen that way for anybody. If you see someone who is REALLY good after just 2 or 3 years, you can bet that person practices many hours every day. That is the only secret. Just practice everyday, and practice the fundamentals.

If you think you are going to pick up a guitar and sound like your favorite guitarist right out of the box you will find playing the guitar very frustrating.
Best thing to do is to pick a piece of music just beyond your ability. (You should be able to make out what your playing but it should really stink, lol) Record yourself. Spend a week or two doing your exercises, hitting your notes, practicing your technique and practicing that piece of music.
After that week or 10 days, record yourself playing that piece again. Play the first recording and then the second. You should see a world of difference. It probably won't take that long to improve but I want you to see a HUGE difference

If that doesn't inspire you to play and practice with more enthusiasm and with a smile on your face then maybe your guitar belongs on EBay.

Spend time listening to the notes, not just playing them. Practice chord shapes up and down the neck. Listen. It will take a while but you will soon be able to play a chord or a note and know with a fair amount of certainty what chord or note sounds good if played next.

But most of all have fun. Playing guitar should be something you look forward to, something you run home to do. A reason you wish for rainy Saturdays so you don't have to do out.

Michael

"Making music is good for your soul"

I'm going to pretty much agree with wes, if you master the fundamentals, you are good to go. Although that takes much practice, the actual practice isn't difficult.

Two things that make it harder than other instruments:

It's polyphonic, multiple notes at the same time. You don't do that with a clarinet.

It isn't a visual instrument, you don't look at your fingers.

one more thing...try to imagine a piano with six keyboards and you are only allowed to place one finger on each.

I'm going to pretty much agree with wes, if you master the fundamentals, you are good to go. Although that takes much practice, the actual practice isn't difficult.

Two things that make it harder than other instruments:

It's polyphonic, multiple notes at the same time. You don't do that with a clarinet.

It isn't a visual instrument, you don't look at your fingers.

one more thing...try to imagine a piano with six keyboards and you are only allowed to place one finger on each.

They'd have to be very tiny keyboards, right? :)

Everybody already plays guitar. The hard part is excelling in it.

...because nothing worthwhile ever comes easy

Guitar is easy... I don't know any other instrument where:

- you can play a recognizable popular song with less than an hour of instruction
- you can transpose a melody from one key to another without thinking about which notes will be sharped/flatted
- you can learn to improvise without knowing the names of notes
- you can learn to improvise in all twelve keys at once by moving a fingering pattern
- many successful professionals never bothered to learn to read music
- you can play a polyphonic accompaniment without being able to play a single-note melody line
- a large percentage of instrumentalists do not seek any professional instruction

Guitar is hard... I don't know any other instrument where:

- middle C is found in five different places
- there are at least seven different accepted fingerings for the same one octave scale
- microtonal notes are common in the popular repertoire
- there are three different approaches to note production (plectrum, fingerstyle, hybrid picking)
- there is no standard pedagogical approach to learning the instrument

Guitar is strange... I don't know any other instrument where:

- People argue about which dead performer would have the greatest following if he were alive today
- Electronic effects are commonly used to mask technical incompetance
- The decoration on an instrument's finish will sometimes command a larger value than the way the instrument sounds
- People with technical ability are considered great musicians, even if they have no ability to convey emotions through music
- The criteria for choosing ensemble members commonly places appearance before musical ability
- Performers will brag to national media about what they don't know (theory, etc.)

NoteBoat, don't forget guitar bowing....

ok... but I think that's really a 'trick' rather than a technique. Even the tightest neck radius, like old Fenders, doesn't really support bowing the way the orchestral strings do. I've yet to hear an entire concert presented with bowed guitar - only a song or two.

I've seen a website where this guy sells guitars specifically for bowing. They have a tighter radius and cutaways on the sides for bow access. I wish I could remember the URL...

well, just like 'the Stick' of some years ago, I'll believe it's a legit technique when I see more than one or two people using it. I'm not saying that won't happen... but it takes a long time for most innovations to take hold. Van Eps was messing around with 7 string guitars about 40 years ago, but their wide acceptance is just within the past few years; the same might be true of bowed guitars.