Why doesn't my guitar playing sound too good?

Question

Am I just s**t? I see my mates faces when I play and it ain't too good, I try really hard but would love to be better, any tips plz?

Answer 1

My suggestion is a couple-fold.

First, practice is essential, absolutely. I tried to emphasize playing what little I knew *correctly* when I first started getting serious about guitar. Playing the wrong notes, notes going sour or dead or buzzing (gah! buzz!) because you didn't fret the chords correctly, not being able to play in time, etc.

What I did was take every chord that I knew and would fret the chord, then play each string one at a time. If any of them wouldn't ring out when it was supposed to, or would buzz or sound crappy, then I work out how to fret that chord correctly... then repeat. I didn't stop until I could play any chord I knew as cleanly as I possibly could. It helps, I swear - you sound like you know what you're doing when you don't buzz or muffle your notes. When you start soloing... remember that. A simple solo done correctly will sound better to someone who knows anything about music than a poorly-executed, "half of the notes are wrong, half of the notes are muffled," superfast solo.

My second suggestion is to know what to play. Practice learning and getting good with just one or two songs. That's more valuable then knowing a bunch of solos, or being able to jam for hours. Quite frankly, most people would rather listen to a song than listen to you solo creatively for an hour.... and that includes chicks.

Once you get a few songs down, practice your scales. This helps you train your ears, so you'll be able to recognize when you're going out of key. Even when people don't know anything about music, they know when you're going out of key, even if they don't realize it.

Finally, keep at it. It took me a couple of years until I could play well enough to entertain other people.... and that's the kicker. It's not that you can't play, most likely, it's that you don't know how to entertain other people. Try learning songs you can sing along to - this helps a great deal.

Side note: I used to go to parks or a local beach and just sit there and play guitar. Sometimes I'd sing, sometimes I'd just mess around. It was always interesting how people would stop and listen when I was singing! I'm not great singer or anything, so I have to keep it simple, but that doesn't really matter. I even had kids come up to me and ask what song I was singing, and they'd be amazed when I said it was something that I'd written... those are really precious memories to me, years later.

If you end up going that right, figure out what keys you sing best in, and learn how to write songs in that key, or transpose popular songs to that key!

Hope any of this helps... for a long time I despaired that I'd ever be any good too. I found that mastering simple stuff (songs like Smashing Pumpkins "Disarm", etc) really helped build my confidence, and gave me something I could show off while I was learning more complex things.

Good luck!

Last note: It took me a long time to learn, longer than I wanted, because in the beginning I was self-medicating my manic depression (bipolar) with weed... I promise you that  abusing alcohol and drugs will slow down how fast you progress at guitar. So, my suggestion is to abstain - a clean body means a clean mind means you learn guitar faster. Seriously.

Saul

Answer 2

THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL, POTION OR ANYTHING.

PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

Answer 3

Sometimes, just don't think twice about what your doing, don't hesitate.

If you can't do that easily, just get a little tipsy, and try and remember that feeling whilst playing.

x*x

Answer 4

I'm not a player of the guitar myself, however, one of the world's greatest Spanish guitarists ever, was the late Maestro Andres Segovia.  In my youth I saw him play guitar on the BBC back in the 1960s.  I noted how much attention he paid to what his left hand was doing up there on the frets.  He hardly ever looked at what his right hand was doing.

Maestro Andres Segovia - watch how he looks intently at his left hand all the time while playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6CnW-MeG...

Maestro Andres Segovia - Master Class 1965

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNjNXuGQa...

Of course I do appreciate that you may not be interested in Spanish guitar and probably favour Rock or Jazz guitar.

Here are some free lessons to help you which you can see on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_qw03-3g...

Keep going and learn to play your guitar - take your time, you've got all the time in the world.

Master Rock Guitarist - Mister Chuck Berry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEq62iQo0...

Answer 5

Well lets hear some of your guitar playing. If we hear some we can same that you need more vibrato you need to have better chord transitions maybe you need to use hammer ons and pull offs instead of each individual note being picked maybe you need to use alternate picking becasue just downstrokes can sound choppy maybe you need to learn more strumming patterns because just up down doesnt cut it. Any of those are possibilties maybe you need to work on your scales and soloing. Maybe you need to come up with a couple main riffs for your solos and work around them maybe your chords arent in the same key maybe your solo scale isnt in the key of your chords maybe you need to mix things up and get some action in the fretboard by doing some slides all the way down or up the neck coming into a note maybe you are hitting some notes or strings you arent supposed to in your chords or scales lol any of those are sure as h**l possibilitoes there are so many aspects to guitar its unbelievable so basically practice your scales and chords all the time everyday always know waht key you are in and post a vid on youtube or something they will def tell you whats wrong just not always in the nicest way. Bottomline you have to understand what your playing. Dont just be a tabbist! lol o and one of the best things you can do is to put your guitar on clean and examine your playing. you might notice that you think your hitting notes cleanly when your on distirtion but feedback could be an issue. So always practice on clean so you can hear what you need to work on. i realized this early because one chord that i could play perfectly on distortion and souned okay sounded like a mess on clean which meant i wasnt playing it or fingering it correctly Hope this helps!

Answer 6

practice,practice, practice till your sick of it and before long you'll amaze yourself  and others to . it s gonna take time  

Answer 7

i feel the exact same lol

theres some good websites and youtube do like lessons try them maybe!!  

Answer 8

i learned how to play guitar by books and practiced 3 hours everyday. In about 6 months I could say i knew how to play guitar so I say just find a really good book on how to play, and practice like crazy.

Answer 9

Take lessons