trying to start any kind of art as an adult sucks because inevitably by that point, you’ve got a fair head start on your art appreciation skill, which makes you perceive your initial attempts at art creation as particularly heinous. if you start as a kid, you’re less capable of recognizing how bad you are, and you aren’t having to compare yourself against peers who’ve got twenty years of experience on you.

The distance from picking up the guitar to being able to play music is so far that most people give up before making it through. Building muscle memory and being able to finger those chords without fat fingering the other strings takes longer than you expect. You’re talking about trying to play a song when really you probably need a month on the open chords.

If you are over it then no shame in moving on. If you want to take one more crack at it you’ll have to slow down and just hyper focus on the basics. Or try ukulele! Ukulele is awesome because the cords are a lot easier and you’ll become a strumming master since you won’t be concentrating so hard on the chords. And then later down the line it would give you a good foundation if you take a crack at guitar again

In my opinion there is no such thing as natural talent. There is only practice and muscle memory. Once you’re up and running with robotic hands (Being able to play the chords without thinking about them, being able to strum a few patterns without thinking about them) It opens up the whole world of music and songs

I believe there are 3 kinds of musicians. Keep in mind I have no evidence for this, it’s just what I’ve experienced through a life of playing music and being around lots of musicians.

#1 is someone with natural ability, these are the people who seem to be able to pick up any instrument and intuitively understand how to make it sound like music. This is the rarest kind of musician.

#2 is someone with a little bit of #1’s natural ability, but like 70% of their skill comes from honing it through sustained, long-term practice. It’s hard, and can be incredibly frustrating, but also very rewarding. I’d say many if not most successful musicians fall into this category.

#3 is someone with none of #1’s natural ability, but a passionate desire to learn. With grueling long hours of practicing the basics, studying some theory, and intentional instruction, #3 is perfectly capable of playing an instrument beautifully, but it will be a lot more work for them than it would be for #’s 1 and 2.

It’s probably pretty similar to sports. Some people are naturals, but almost anyone can learn to be really good at them, it just takes a shitload of work.

Guitar is the only hobby I acquired that never took. I wanted it to take, but did not have the funds to pursue lessons.

I could not get over the beginner hurdles of how to strum, how to really hold the pick, and so forth. If I could have taken lessons or gotten past that I might have learned and still be playing today instead of seeing the case just sitting there collecting dust.

I think name people have a thought similar to “it would be cool to know a instrument” but they just don’t actually enjoy it when they sit down with it.

I pick up and discard hobbies frequently. I do hobbies for entertainment; once it’s no longer enjoyable, I move on. Some hobbies I find I don’t really like, some I get tired of when I hit some level of mastery, very few last me for year over year. I basically treat trying new hobbies as a hobby.

If guitar isn’t fun for you, move on. Definitely don’t let feelings of guilt and laziness in, that’s not the point of a hobby.

My middle school music teacher was mean so I didn’t take her class again. There were a lot of authority figures who felt I needed to toughen up in one way or another and I gave up on a lot of things because of that mindset.

For me, it was an inability to only finger strings properly, even after about six months of practice. My hands, even back in my teens, were huge. That includes big fingers (size 14 ring at the time)

Since I didn’t have the freedom to try other instruments in a useful way, I just decided I had better things to do with my time than fuck around making dissonant sounds on a guitar.

But, before you give up entirely, maybe try learning a simple song all the way. That was what actually made my decision. I knew what it was supposed to sound like, knew where my fingers were vs how the strings were supposed to be used, and knew I’d never make the music that drove me to want to try in the first place.

If you can manage to learn one song and play it to the point you can tell what you’re playing, I say keep going. From that point, it’s a matter of practice and figuring out what lessons work for you.

But it is a learning curve that kills a lot of potential players of any instruments. I hang with an old high school friend that fronts a band. I’ve had this conversation with him (and he reached the same conclusion I did after teaching me a little on both tenor and bass guitar, that I might so something, but it wouldn’t be what I wanted) about getting past that wall.

He said that in person lessons are the best way to get past the initial “what the fuck is going on” stage where nothing seems to work. A lot of people pick up a book, or watch videos and try to get going. But those methods don’t work for everyone. So you kinda need someone that can give active feedback on all the little things that go into learning your first song.

And that’s what he says the goal should be; you pick a simple song, learn it, and then improve on it. Takes a few weeks for a lot of people to get something like amazing grace or Mary had a little lamb down to the point that it sounds right. But you have to start simple because you’ve got to get your hands used to the job. It can take a thousand plus repetitions of a given action to commit it to memory in a way it becomes fluid and natural (which is a thing in martial arts, btw, you have drill the hell out of a technique before you can spar with it).

But it’s also okay to give up. It’s your time, your energy. If you’ve discovered that the return on that isn’t fast enough to give you what you want/need, why waste part of your life banging against the wall? Sometimes a learning curve isn’t worth climbing.

The most important part about learning a musical instrument is consistent practice.

1 hour twice per week is not as good as 20 minutes every single day. And you do have to play every day if you want to improve. Work on one thing at a time and most importantly: use a metronome.

Guitar is a meditation exercise: you have to learn to love the process. If you aren’t having fun, maybe it just isn’t for you.

For me, the practice wasn’t enjoyable. I’m the type of person that cannot stick to things for their rewards if it’s not enjoyable. That’s not to say I can’t stick to things, it’s just the doing itself has to be enjoyable. I’ve been doing a martial art for over twenty years now but I just kept showing up because I enjoyed it.

I’ve been learning traditional art for nearly 2 years now. I suck constantly.

Then very rarely I paint something I like.

I find I paint things I like more often now than previously.

This stuff takes time. Stick with it.

Yesterday there was another AskLemmy about what was the easiest instrument to learn and I felt like anyone asking that question without already having a clear vision in their head of what they wanted to be playing as far as instruments and music was just going to waste their time and money, but even trying to be very polite I thought it was too negative so I didn’t post it.

I think people think music will be a fun relaxing hobby, but it’s really like training to be an athlete. You won’t get any good unless it’s something you truly want to do because it’s a ton of work and a good instrument is expensive and I feel you should really start by taking lessons so you didn’t waste time on trial and error figuring out what to learn instead of learning how to do it.

Craigslist and eBay are full of gear that was barely touched because music is hard. It can be very rewarding, but you will still hate it at times. I tell my teacher all the time that I hate her 3/4 of the time because she constantly challenges me, but by the end of that week, I’ve put in enough time to master the lesson, and then I’m so happy and feel the rest of the time was worth it. It’s like some people love going to the gym and getting those endorphins or runners getting a runners high. Some people live for that, but for others, it’s just hell.

It sounds like you don’t enjoy the time and money you’ve spent. Just live and learn. Maybe come back to it later in life and see if things change. But don’t force yourself into hating it.

I’ve played and given up the mandolin several times over tge past several years. Longest continuous before now was maybe three months. What I’ve learned through my own learning process is:

1. Practice in time. Even if it’s slow.
2. Playing with backing tracks helps a ton
3. Posture is key. On my current streak of playing I was able to go from playing the melody of kids songs to the rhythm of some grateful dead songs (at 80 bpm instead of 140 bpm) after spending time watching videos of how to hold and sit. I then had to relearn all my fingerings but it didn’t take nearly as long this time.
4. Sucking is just part of learning anything new. I guess one either enjoys the act of improving independent of the current result or one doesn’t.

Post script: The reason I quit when I do is because I become frustrated with plateaus. I now believe a lot of these plateaus came from bad mechanics. My pinky could not reach the 7th fret no matter how much I practiced. I could not switch chords without destroying my rhythm or muting extra strings etc.

That’s ok. I like to play music but guitar just isn’t that fun for me either. I have trouble remembering fingering and chords and it’s hard on my squishy delicate nerd fingers. The musical instruments I’ve been able to keep with and practice I did so because I just liked messing with them and making nice sounds. Did you make this post hoping people would encourage you to keep at it? You don’t have to keep at it if it’s not fun, you can sell the guitars to some local aspiring musician. What I would recommend is trying out some other instruments, maybe at a music store. Something drove you to try out guitar, maybe that creative spark just needs a piano, or a glockenspiel, or a zither or something else instead. Just… try before you buy next time.

Guitar is hard. It takes months or years of practice to even develop the finger strength and speed to play some things. I always had fun learning in my early teens, because I wanted to, even though I was terrible. Then after 2 or so years of playing every day it became really fun and I was able to get the ideas from my imagination to my fingers.

It’s like a lot of things worth learning - you have to really want it, and it’s never as easy as it appears.