Love playing guitar and singing, mostly just chords, there’s a few “trickier” songs that I’ve worked through with finger-picking.
But I just feel like I can’t be bothered with exercises in scales and rhythm and think it holds me back.
Has anyone else just skipped the exercises and feel like they’re a competent guitarist? Any YouTubers I should check out?
In a way I think it’s made harder by being “intermediate” as it’s difficult to see where to go next.
In my experience you need a goal to force progress. Ie. Play on a stage / play infront of someone.
Learn more songs. Learn songs you wouldn’t normally learn. Learn songs that aren’t meant to be played on guitar. A.B.C. – Always. Be. Learningnewsongs.
I like finding songs that I like that make me exercise in ways that would normally be boring. For example, chromatic exercises are super boring, but I’m learning Mike Stern’s Chromazone, and it makes technical practice fun.
Follow JustinGuitar he’ll make sure you know all the basic through intermediate things you should know, all for free. He will then point you towards some intermediate stuff you can explore that requires payment but you can go to YouTube for that if you want. He will set you up with enough basic guitar theory to self-study what you need next.
Most importantly, figure out what your goals are and plan accordingly.
Actually coming back to the thread to share my own experience… is that I haven’t played guitar for around the past 10 years, since I started college. I still have all my gear, and just this week I picked it back up, and it felt so good to play again. But most of my muscle memory and finger strenght is gone and I don’t remember how to play most songs that I played back in the day. I spent most of my teenage years playing a couple hours a day, but now I feel like a beginner again. So, I’ll say, try doing some exercises as warmups, then go practice the songs that you want to play. At least that’s what I plan on doing.
