[NEWBIE] [DISCUSSION] Progress as a new player is slow. Progress as a self-taught new player is even slower. New players, please stop complaining that you can’t play a song perfectly after 6 months of having a guitar.

We were all there. We’ve all been there. It can be frustrating when you want to do something and you just aren’t there yet.

But please be realistic. And stop complaining here about it here. It’s just whining. You’re not yet John Mayer because he’s been playing and practicing constantly for over 30 years, and you just picked up the guitar a year (or less) ago. Do you think you’re going to be able to skip all that? There ain’t no cheat codes, y’all.

Bottom line… playing a musical instrument– any instrument– proficiently is fucking hard. Any of us who’ve been at it for a while can tell you that. You know that yourself, because you’re not able to do the things you want to do. It’s tough.

But, learning any complex task takes time. The more complicated the task, the longer it takes to develop proficiency at it.

Playing the guitar involves not just the basic mechanics of separate left and right hand movement, finger independence, muscle memory, and tonal memory, but it also requires developing strong familiarity with rhythm, counting, methods of memorization, etc.

You will not develop all of this in 3 months.

You may develop the very beginnings of a few of these skills in 6 months.

You may develop beginner-level abilities at some of these skills within 12 months.

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You will not be an experienced, competent, or flexible player within a year.

Getting good at something like playing music on a musical instrument takes years. And as many of the older posters here will tell you, even after years, there are still things you haven’t learned, things you want to play but can’t (yet), and stuff that you just don’t feel like you do well even after doing it for years.

Look… I get that you were inspired to play guitar by Joe Satriani, guitar on Japanese video game soundtracks, random Instagram guitarist #71, John Mayer, John Frusciante, Tom Morello, [fill in the blank]. It doesn’t matter. Those players have been at it for years. YEARS.

Look them up. Look up how long these players spent learning the guitar. You should expect that if they couldn’t do it in years, you can’t either.

If you really want to make progress, get an instructor or, barring that, follow a recommended instruction course / series.

But please, for the love of Hendrix and everything gritty, stop complaining that you have been playing for 6 months and you can’t play Sultans of Swing perfectly.

edit: Just to be clear, I am explicitly not suggesting that new player frustration isn’t real. We all have been there. Wanting to play X or Y but just not being able to get your fingers or hands to do what you just know they should be able to do.

Someday they’ll be able to do those things if you keep at it. But… be realistic about this. Learning guitar takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of hard work.

You absolutely will not be a good guitarist in months or even (almost certainly) a year. You have to accept that when you start out on this journey. It will take you a loooooong time to be able to play like the people who inspired you to play the instrument.

But have a little awareness and maybe consider that before you post a thread asking why you’re not good at the guitar after 3 months, you don’t need any answer that you don’t already have yourself: you’ve been playing for 3 months.