Tired of Sloppy Chord Changes & Feeling Like a Perpetual Beginner? You Need This
Tired of Sloppy Chord Changes & Feeling Like a Perpetual Beginner? You Need This
Hey guys, Brad Litton from SimpleGuitar.com. This blog post transcribes my YouTube video on how to break through the beginner phase — even if you've been practicing endlessly and still don't feel like a real musician.
This is for you if you can play a few songs, strum a few chords, and you've hit that wall where you don't know where to go next. I've been helping guitarists for years — I founded a music school back in Utah, taught thousands of students, and I help people pick up the guitar, play, and feel proud of what they hear.
The Mistake That Keeps You Sounding "Almost"
Have you ever learned a song — the chords, the rhythm — but no matter how hard you try, it just doesn't sound like the original?
Most players spend all their time learning songs off YouTube, hoping that will make them better. Spoiler: it won't. I did this for years with the same Green Day songs and Beatles songs, and I was stuck. I was sure I had no talent and I'd reached my peak.
The truth: you just need to clean up a few things. If you started without a teacher, it's almost 100% likely you've picked up bad habits. Once I adjusted some really obvious mistakes, my songs started to sound as good as the originals — sometimes even better. I became confident enough to play in front of anyone. I finally felt like a real musician.
The Guitar Pie (How Gail Got Unstuck)
Take Gail. She went to school with my parents and was an adult student of mine for years. Tired of the YouTube rabbit hole, she wanted structured guidance.
Within her first year she was already playing in bands and performing, understanding the theory behind what she played, improvising and jamming, making up her own solos.
What did Gail do that 95% of beginners don't?
I call it the guitar pie. Most learners dedicate practice to one to three songs. I've seen many — myself included — spend months trying to perfect one piece.
Gail did what I only started doing years later: she spent only one week on a particular piece or subject. After one week she moved on. She didn't perfect it. Her playing still improved, and she moved into a new area of learning.
12 weeks later, she had covered a huge amount of material that developed not just one aspect of her playing, but a whole lot more. And when she went back to that first week's piece after 90 days, she was so much better — because she had worked on all the other factors that contribute to playing guitar well.
That's why a structured, step-by-step learning path is the single most important factor in your success.
Stop Copying. Start Asking Why.
If you're relying solely on the internet, you're likely stuck in the copying phase. If you're just playing licks you learned by tab, you're not really improvising.
Ask yourself: can you play anything not from memory? If the answer is no, you're stuck copy-and-pasting from tutorials.
I've been there. When I started, YouTube didn't even exist. I could play like three songs from a tab site. One Halloween I brought my guitar to school dressed as a hippie, played my three songs, and put the guitar down. Then the school legend — leather jacket, sunglasses indoors — picked it up and blew everyone away. Pure feeling. I asked what he was playing. He didn't have a clue. He said he was just jamming.
The simple truth for playing like the pros without going to music school:
Ask why to everything you see. Don't just learn a solo or a chord progression. Ask: why is he playing that? The more you do this, the more you pick up.
That's how you understand theory and use it to play expressively without learning all the theory first. That's the key to learning faster.
Recap
- Learning more songs off YouTube will not magically clean up your playing.
- Don't camp on one piece for months. Cover more of the "pie" — then go back. Everything gets better.
- Get off copy-and-paste. Ask why so you can actually jam.
I work with adult players in coaching (including the Guitar Mastery Circle) on exactly this kind of structured path. You don't need a new offer to start — you can start asking why today, and you can grab the free guide below. If you want a simple place to start, grab my free Top 10 Things to Learn on Guitar First at http://simpleguitar.com/top10.
And hang out with other adult guitar players in the Simple Guitar Facebook group: http://facebook.com/groups/simpleguitar.
About the Author
Brad from Simple Guitar helps adult learners play the songs they love without the frustration. Visit simpleguitar.com for more free resources and lessons.
