[bballandtennis89]

I've been taking lessons since July and it's 21 dollars per lesson for thirty minutes. Well, my teacher is really good at guitar, something that I very much aspire to be. Anyways, each week he writes down tab for me to practice. Sometimes it's power chord stuff, sometimes it's fingerpicking, and other times it's just notes. He also has taught me how to mute notes. My question is, I feel like I suck still. I've been playing for like three months, and everytime he asked me to play what I practiced over the week I usually screw up. I practice every day for at least thirty minutes, should I practice more? Should he be teaching me theory and other stuff? Is he a good teacher?

Also, do you have to learn theory in order to play guitar successfully? Do all of the pros know how to read music? Thanks for your help.

[Stratrat]

Learning to play guitar can simultaneously be one of the most frustrating and most gratifying things in the world. You get so frustrated when you repeatedly make mistakes, miss chords, hit dead notes and generally sound terrible, but then one day that piece you've been working on just *clicks* - you nail it, and just think "YESSSSSS!!!".

You get your chord changes down to where you feel pretty good about them, then start working on fingerpicking, solos or whatever....and it's right back to 'suckdom' again.....same frustrations and disillusionment, thinking "I'll NEVER be a good guitar player!". But you keep plugging away, and gradually you notice that you start sounding better and that playing that axe is actually FUN when you can coax some decently cool sounds out of it!

I'm in the same "sucky" place right now too, and every guitar player has been there.....it really helps to remember that Jimmy Page, SRV, Eddie Van Halen or whoever your guitar hero may be, went through it in the beginning also.....and look where they ended up! Take pleasure in the little accomplishments, keep working at it and they add up to BIG accomplishments after a while.....but it don't come easy!

[randomaire]

And then you remember that you forgot to record yourself, so you have to do it all over again lol.

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by randomaire

And then you remember that you forgot to record yourself, so you have to do it all over again lol.

Yep - that's something I've been guilty of so far....not recording myself. I finally d/l'ed Kristal Audio yesterday and started messing with it, so hopefully I'll start recording myself pretty soon. It would be a real good "yardstick" to use, playing today's recordings six months or a year from now to see how much you've improved.