why do i suck at guitar??????? please help?

Question

i try and try and try but nothing ever seems to in prove. i have been playing for almost 3 years now and all i can do is play a couple classic song beats like iron man and smoke on the water and also can play tapping and some alternate picking. i know that seems like a lot to you or probably not but its been 3 years and all i can do is that. i think im way behind and should be higher than where im at. the stuff im trying to get better at is going up and down the neck with scales and all that fast stuff. and the question that bugs me the most is "where do i start off from where im at right now?" basically what im trying to understand is what do i go to next when someone is at this level? what should i learn next? im trying to get better. i have been trying very hard with this guitar thing but i feel that im getting nowhere and cant move ahead. its very frustrating and can get depressing at some times because all of my family members are gods when it comes to guitar. im trying to get better os i can be the next one in the family to be good at guitar. so please help me with this and give me some advice on where i need to go now that im at the current level and what i need ot learn next. thanks

Answer 1

I have been trying to learn guitar for about a year now. I can tell you from experience that more talented family members are not very helpful. Maybe you should ask for help from another player outside of the family . I guess we shouldn't overlook the obvious question. Do you really want to play guitar because you enjoy it or are you trying to learn because the rest of your family plays and they expect it from you? I think of what it would be like to impress people with my playing and I want to experience that but I am not sure if I really enjoy it enough to put that much time and effort into it. I don't want to be a quitter but if this really isn't my thing then maybe I'm wasting time that I could put into something I enjoy more. If this is the case with you then there is no shame in quitting. Maybe your talent lies elsewhere. Do you sing or write songs? Find what you are passionate about and the rest will take care of itself. Maybe you will get past this hurdle and become a guitar "god" as well but I don't think you should be having all these negative feelings about playing. If you are playing because you LOVE it then you should just enjoy playing. Any hobby that makes you "frustrated and depressed" is probably not for you. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Answer 2

That is probably where the problem lies, you have a thought pattern of always wanting to be as good or better than your family members. You also need to relise sometimes people learn faster than others. The trick to guitar really isn't about speed, I don't care you can be the fastest player in the world but your accuracy can suck. Which makes you a sloppy player, and trust me it shows and another guitar player can actually hear it, if they are good anyways. Maybe it's not best instrument for you, though you make like it, you might actually be better at something else. Also just because your family plays guitar doesn't mean that you have to continue the choice is yours. You've just got this mindset like everyone else you think you're just magically going to be good in no time. But it's a lot more than that and that's why most musicians today suck. If anything scales are good, those will speed you up, but what I've noticed is most musicians tend to lack the learning of chords. How are you going to write a song if you don't know chords? I'm not talking about Power Chords either, I'm talking about something like The CAGE System. C-A-G-E chords are basically what most other chords are made out of. Don't push yourself to learn to fast either it won't work out. Remember never to rush anything.

Answer 3

thank you for an opportunity for 2 points. One doesn't need to be a scholar to know if you know how to do something, doing the opposite on demand will cause you to fail every time. If I want to get out of something, I do the exact opposite. Something I learned a long time ago as a teenager...