New to guitar? Wondering “why do I suck at guitar” Does learning guitar get easier? Am I stuck playing the same boring barre chords for all of eternity.
Guitar does get easier and you’re actually supposed to suck when you first start playing.
You probably sucked at tying your shoes and riding a bike at first.
Guitar, just like any instrument takes time to learn. Learning isn’t just knowing the chord progression and then you’re done.
You need to PRACTICE the chords and build up muscle memory. You need to be practicing the right material.
The material you should be practicing should be challenging, but not hard.
Alternatively, if you’re playing things that are too easy, you’re not building your knowledge or muscle memory.
If you’d like to learn guitar faster we got you covered.
Here’s a good video on why you think you suck at guitar.
Why you’re not getting better at guitar
Probably should stop thinking “why do I suck at guitar”. You don’t actually suck, you’re just new.
Just like when you see student drivers on the road you tend to give them a little more space, cause they’re new, musicians aren’t going to grill you because you suck.
New guitarists and new drivers just need practice.
There’s lots of bad drivers, of all ages on the roads, the reason why is cause they don’t care to practice the right skills or want to improve.
If you’re reading this you already have one up over them.
What’s your typical practice session look like?
Do you sit down with a plan to start with a few basic chords, run through a couple scales, a new technique and then play through some new challenging songs?
Probably not, but the truth is, that’s how simple it can be.
If you’re sitting down and just strumming a few chords mindlessly and then playing a song you learned months ago, it’s no wondering you’re asking “why do I suck at guitar”.
You need to practice properly and regularly. There’s a lot of wiggle room in there, but you have to do both, just one won’t cut it.
For your next practice session, find 4 new chords you haven’t play, or played all together, and play through them 10 times.
Learn a new scale or mode, play through that 4-6 times.
Then learn a new song that you enjoy, it doesn’t even have to be a super hard song, just something new that your finger aren’t already used to.
Rinse and repeat every day and I guarantee within two week you’ll see a big improvement.
You don’t suck at guitar, you suck at practicing guitar and patience.
Why is guitar so frustrating
Guitar shouldn’t be frustrating, it’s likely an indication that the material you’re playing is too complex for your skill level. Work on something else that’s isn’t as hard, but is still challenging.
Guitar can become frustrating if you don’t see improvement or get the hang of a certain riff.
Consider leaving the current riff you’re working on for something a little easier, and come back to the one that’s giving you trouble once you’ve gotten the hang of some new material.
If you find yourself getting frustrated, and trust me we’ve all been there, just end the practice session.
Get up, walk around, take a break.
Return to your guitar when you’re more relaxed.
Playing guitar while frustrated is way tougher, and you’ll probably just become more and more frustrated.
Does guitar ever get easier
Yes, with regular practice everything gets easier. Any new material you’re learning on guitar will become easier over the course of two weeks of regular practice.
This doesn’t mean I regularly practice once a week, I mean daily practice.
If you’re not practicing daily that’s fine, but then you can’t expect your guitar skill to grow so quickly.
The more you practice the faster you’ll progress, so if you don’t have time to practice, you do need to readjust your expectations of yourself.
Do you get better at guitar just by playing
Yes, you get better at guitar just by play progressively challenging material. This doesn’t mean you have to play the hardest stuff out there, just your favorite songs that still offer you a challenge.
There’s no guitar tricks at getting better, just practice.
There are some ways you can speed things up, but in reality it always comes back down to practicing material that is appropriately challenging for your skill level.
If you want to speed things up and get better at guitar, so you never say to yourself “why do I suck at guitar” then you need a plan.
What are your guitar goals? Whether you want to be able to play a few songs around the campfire, or shred some licks, or be ther best ever, you need to have an idea of where you want to end up.
This of course can change, but you need to have an idea of where you want to go, and how fast you want to get there.
If you want to be shredding in your first year of playing guitar, you’ll need a hour of daily practice.
If you actually go a full year with an hour of good practice, you’ll shred.
If you goof around and play easy material for two hours every day you’ll still suck at guitar after a year.
You need regular practice and the practice need to be good.
You can’t just go into a gym and hang out for an hour and wonder why you’re not getting any fitter.
Why am I so bad at guitar
Your practice sessions need to be smart.
If your practice time isn’t at least loosely structured, it will be a waste of time.
Setting up daily practice time is critical if you really want to make progress with guitar.
Find some good complex piece of music that is appropriately challenging for you, and work on it for a couple weeks.
That’s smart practicing.
Now that you’ve finished reading this, how about you get going and practice some?
Playing guitar gets easier with time and practice. If you’re asking “why do I suck at guitar” it’s cause you’re not practicing well, and or, enough.
