Are You Worrying Too Much About Your Progress?

Does everyone experience the same thing when they start guitar?


If you've gotten off of the total beginner stage and you're starting to be able to play along with recordings, there are a few points to remember about your progress.

• Some chords are more difficult than others. Many times my students will agonize over their inability to play C, F, Bminor, B7 or some other chord that has awkward fingering. It can be discouraging when you can play all but that one chord and it makes you feel like you're not getting anywhere. The advice I give everyone is to just keep going and force your chord hand to catch up.
• "It doesn't sound like the song." The art of rhythm guitar is something that comes from practicing, listening and trying to make it sound like the song. The problem is you only have one guitar, you most likely don't have thousands of dollars' worth of equipment, and you're still in the early stages of learning guitar. Again, don't agonize over the fact that you can't make it sound exactly like the recording. You may be listening to someone who's been playing for years and you can't expect to duplicate that sound at this point.
• Multi-tasking is overrated. Trying to do too much is a sure way to slow your progress. The more I teach, the slower I try to get my students to play. When we learn a new song, my first goal is to get the guitar student to simply strum a chord once when it changes. This develops your ear and helps you anticipate when the chords will change. The next step is to strum a couple of times, but give yourself ample time to get ready for the next chord. 
• Keeping your strumming hand moving will make the chord hand go faster. Whenever you practice chords, try to keep strumming so that you don't lose time. You don't want to get in the habit of stopping between chords.

• Invest in something to slow songs down. At our teaching studio I use RiffMaster Pro (affiliate link), which is an excellent program to slow songs down without changing the pitch. This way you can practice at a slower speed but you're still learning the correct rhythm.