Has anything held back your guitar playing / learning?

I would be interested in other people's experiences of things that held them back in their musical learning.

Personally, for years I grew up believing that guitarists never used open strings. Please don't ask me where this came from but I grew up with this belief. Now I use them all the time.

Regards to all

For me it was 'having something more important to do' but now I wish I'd spent more time playing.

university+part-time job+girlfriend.

Daniel C.

A complete lack of talent in my case. But I'm working on it... In the meantime I'll stick to bass.

Mike E.

it was not resting between playing. It;s now resting too much between playing. Go figure. cb

Oh yeah, I had loads of daft preconceptions when I was starting out. I was the same with open strings, and I developed a similar snobbery about open chords - I figured 'real' musicians wouldn't use them, and tried to play everything with barre chords. These days, I hardly ever use lumpy barre chords - it's either ringing open strings or neat little partial chords for me.

I nearly never use barre chords because on the first guitar I had it was impossible to play them!

I use a lot of partial barre chords with the top two strings muted. Mainly learnt from the Compleat Beatles book, but verified as being correct by a guitar teacher years later.

In a similar vein, I've often used partial barre chords with the top two strings open. I like the fact that both Alex Lifeson and Kurt Cobain used those chords a lot - it's like a pan-stylistic vote of approval.

Dave wrote

1) Not having had lessons until my very late 40s. Very remiss of me and a tragic oversight.

2) Family, house, garden, coaching, refereeing, cheering on the sidelines, committe member, busy-bee attendee, fundraiser (get the picture?)

3) Lack of fellow jammees who were technically superior to me and thus able to impress and impart. Being painfully shy in my formative years was no help either.

4) Major lack of disciplined practice. Even now I prefer to strum chords and pick out melodies rather than practice scales, arpeggios and other fundamentals.

From my tunette 'Righteous Man', some open-stringed chords: 005450 002230 022030 033230

Like Adrian suggests in his response, those chords have a ringing quality to them. Pity I can't say the same about the subject of the song...

Frank A Muller

I honestly think this is such an important point! I've been real lucky an had a few good mates that are close to genius level, and they always make me wanna go away and learn new stuff. Admittedly, sometimes it makes me wanna give up the guitar, but this ain't happened yet!

Jordan.

the main rhythm parts for 'last day on earth' are made out of these chords.

verse:

G6 355400

F#7add11 244300

chorus-y-bit:

C^7/G 3x5500

B7/F#(no 3rd) 2x4400

B7(no 3rd) x24400

lovely sounds.

Haha its funny u ask that I actually almost gave up today. I figured people with fat fingers couldn't play the guitar. But luckily I kept at today and finally found away around. It's not that they cant play guitar it's just a little more challenging for them.

I have a more difficult time with written instructions!
Chord diagrams, scale charts, tablature, sheet music, songbooks, etc., forget it!

Show me a video lesson, where I can see what the musician's hand/finger positions are, and I can play the song the very first time I hear it, as if I've played it for years.

It's easier to see and hear, than to just read and try to interpret...

The first guitar teacher I had held me back.Also I think my mom picked the wrong kind of instructor.My mom set me up with a guitar instructor when I was about 7.I had and electric guitar and this teacher was teaching me with an acoustic.I wanted to learn how to play Led Zepplin songs and the teacher insisted on me learning mary had a little lamb and stupid nursury rhyme songs.I just wanted to know how too tune my guitar and play the chords.That didn't happen so I quit and I didn't pick up a guitar again till I was 18,which I regret.I taught myself after I turned 18.I taught myself how to read tab and then I just went from there.Now 29 I can play anything I want and write my own music.Looking back though i wonder how great I would be by now if I just had the right instructor when I was 7 or atleast internet!