Hello, I recently bought an acoustic guitar, and this is my second attempt at learning to play.
I made some progress, teaching myself basic chords and strumming, but I’m having trouble following sheet music/chord patterns and similar resources. Sometimes, when I’m watching a YouTube video on how to play a song, they don’t provide the strumming pattern or other details.
I’ve only been playing for a month, and I really enjoy it, but I feel like I’m starting to slow down again. I did download a book on how to improve my playing, which I plan to read later today.
I was wondering if anyone had a few resources they’d be willing to share.
Thank you!
Don’t watch any more videos. No more instruction and forced repetition of songs that already exist. Just play and play and play at least 10 minutes a day. Strum your fingers, listen to the sounds you are making, try to find pleasant ways to stitch together chords and strums into unique novel arrangements. Don’t try to memorize twinkle twinkle or your favorite song. Make something new with the pallette you have unlocked in yourself.
A lot of music instrument people are academic theorist in their mentality. It saddens me to see creative types take what should be beautiful expressions of spontaneous whimsy and turns playing into dry formalized literature. Theres a reason its called playing the guitar and not working the guitar.
If you spend your time trying to learn the ‘right way’ as defined by so called guitar experts, you’ll never experience learning how to play your way. Theres joy in finding new chords by chance, learning how to turn cacauphany into melody by sheer practice over the months/years and feeling the music come from inside. The art ends up more authentic and original that way, I feel.