Learn to play the guitar better

I’ve got the chords down and I can play through some easy songs. I would just like to get better in general plus I am planning on learning how to play the electric and I just want to be able to shred through a song and that’s my goal. I am self-taught so it’s pretty had and frustrating. I don’t know all the techniques yet but I just need to gather the motivation to practice more. Advice is welcomed =]

I actually made this one of my new years resolutions (see my blog for the details) ... Just an update here though that I am doing this. :-)

Got myself my very first acoustic guitar and a small amplifier yesterday. I can a strum a few songs, but I need serious polishing in technique.

Practice, practice, practice - that’s my game plan!

I’m playing my guitar more, now that I am in college and I have people around me who would play with me.

My dad would always tell me to play a little everyday until i developed calluses, promising it would get easier from there. But I got frustrated too easily & kept giving up. 3 years later, I FINALLY pushed myself to do it. Persistence has given me calluses & a stronger hand, so I can play once-frustrating songs all the way through now & hold bar chords down correctly without pain. woo!

NEXT STEP: singing & playing at the same time. i can do some songs, but when the chord progression gets too fast/complicated i stop singing to concentrate on my hands. also, at a young age i developed the “diva” habit of moving my hand while i sing (picture mariah carey with a mike in one hand & the other fluttering up & down to follow her vocal runs), so it’s hard to curb that tendency (i.e. my strumming hand loses the rhythm during a vocal run because it wants to move with my voice instead of continue the strumming pattern). any tips?

I think I may start up guitar lessons again, from next September. After the first few lessons spent trying to read standard notation, and killing my fingers on some unnecessary jazz chords, I got really put off.

But maybe this time, now I’m past the basics, we’ll skip onto some more interesting stuff.

i’ve been playing guitar off and on since i was 5, and now i’m 15.
i’m self taught, but i want to break myself out of bad habits (like holding the pick the wrong way and little stuff like that). i also want to learn to tune a guitar by ear, without an electric tuner.

if anyone has any tips on how i could do that, it would be greatly appreciated.

hallo toekomstige mezelf,

ik schrijf je om je te vertellen dat je nog beter gitaar moet gaan leren spelen.

Groetjes je vroegere mezelf.

I want to do anything to be like Pete Wentz

I found the greatest barrier to ‘better guitar playing’ (whatever that really is) is flexibility, speed/accuracy and fingertips that can bear a tune without fretting too much (lame music joke). Once you know what you need to be able to do, getting there is much easier [:. Why tabs are so big .:]

Wikipedia can tell you about scales.
Buy a chord chart.
Stretch your arm/hand/fingers constantly. (Playing the top string with your thumb is a great help, if you can reach!)
To build callouses, rub fingertips on concrete, asphalt or anything roughly textured.

Love and lotsa luck …