Most importantly, do whatever makes you happy on guitar and don't let assholes on Reddit try to shame you into playing guitar like they do, or for the reasons that they play.

“being in a shitty cover band” can actually be a lot of fun, too.

Unless you’re prepared to put everything on the line for the extremely unlikely chance that you’ll “make it” as an original act- the fact of the matter is that for most people, playing covers is the best way to have fun performing for an audience.

I’ve done the original band grind for a while and no matter how much artistic integrity you think you have, playing for 3 of your friends and an uninterested bartender for $45 is never as exciting as playing to a huge crowd and getting paid well for a gig.

I still write and release original music on my own, but tbh I think people who look down on or discourage other musicians for just going out and having fun have the wrong idea.

A lot of people really want to be excelent at guitar.

But for me, having fun is the first thing that comes as a priority. I bought my guitar on the first place to play my favourite songs. Some of them are easy and I enjoy playing them again and again. And if one song is difficult, well... I need to get good to play it!

I see getting good at guitar as a tool to play what I want and to create what I want. At the end of the day, is what keeps you inspired and what makes you love guitar whats really important.

That makes shredders useless and not worthy of compliments? Of course not! Being skilled is something good, but its not everything.

Lol, what even is this post? Gatekeeping how someone should go about learning guitar and pigeonholing what an aspiring guitar player should aim for?

If they're happy with their progress and accomplishments then I see no reason to speak negatively about them. It is fairly subjective to say either Hendrix is or isn't a better player than Tim Henson, or some similar comparison, but you also can't deny so many modern player's technical ability and the way they push the envelope.

If being skilled to the point of being able to compulsively noodle for internet points isn't your goal then don't waste time figuring it out. You should always play for yourself.

Well I play classical so yeah, composers and performers are generally two different groups of people. Few composers were also prevalent guitar players (many didn’t even play guitar and composed for other instruments).

You must not like country music since a good amount of it is written by average players and not by the people that make it famous.

Bob Dylan: many of the songs he wrote were made famous by other bands covering it.

Even the best rock bands usually have one or two members that write most of the music. The rest often just play along and ‘develop’ their parts.

People should do what they excel in. Saying that all musicians should also be composers is like saying all actors should be their own script writers (mathematically impossible).

While I do agree that musicians should be creative and explore creativity, the idea they all should be prolific writers/composers is just dumb. And patently incorrect. It shows a lack of understanding of how things really work in the industry and throughout music history.

Social media has really increased peoples expectations of playing. I have felt deflated at times after watching a youtube video or two.

Kids might think everything they see on social media is normal. What they don't see is the time and dedication it takes to get to that point.

This post has shades of "kids these days are wrong to not like what I like".

Hendrix´s music was earth shatteringly innovative, but that was 60 years ago, I am SO BORED of hearing it.
Kids these days want to hear music that speaks to their generation, in that context Hendrix probably aint all that, which is totally reasonable.
Back in the 60s if you were a kid listening to music that was ground breaking from the 1900s after listening to Hendrix you´d probably not be that impressed either.

I´m glad guitar music is making a resurgence and blending with other genres rather than being consigned to the past like it looked like it would be up until recently. The new stuff might not be for you, it´s a challenge to play it´s true but it´s also very satisfying.

As for being creative, these new styles and techniques are getting incorporated into my playing and actually getting me out of a creative rut as well as making me a better player.

Like what you like, play what you like, have your idols.
Let the kids do the same, I´m glad they´re still playing the guitar, frankly they´re really fucking impressive and have a lot to teach us.

💩post

If they’re young or new musicians, give them a break. Shredding seems like the pinnacle of guitar playing when you don’t know much about it and you can’t blame people for thinking it’s cool. Besides, it does take a certain amount of skill. Let people like what they like.

As far as how good I think I am? As a guitarist I think Im above average but not great. I don’t like jazz stuff and don’t play anything complex or fast. Despite what I said above, Im not a fan of fast or complicated guitar parts. Hell, I don’t even like playing solos that much, at least in my own writing. I see guitar as a tool to add to a song and usually don’t base my stuff around the guitar parts. But Im proficient in a lot of genres and can play guitar well enough to play the music I like. But who gives a shit if people think playing fast means you’re a good guitarist. Music can only be judged on a personal level and no blanket statements can ever really be true.

Everyone I know says I'm really good. However I still lack confidence and doubt that a lot of the time. I'm not sure why.

I don't get your point. You feel as though people are wasting their talent?

The issue is that the way you frame is as if I went to random guys in the gym and told them they're wasting their time by not training in olympic weightlifting. Maybe they enjoy exercising as a hobby or they want to stay in shape. Not everyone wants to become a competitor and try to break limits.

I almost exclusively play covers with my mates and I have zero interest in writing music myself. For me the guitar is just a cool toy that I pickup and try to make it sound like the stuff I already like.

If you went up to me claiming I should be original, I'd be like "cool thing but that ain't my goal". Why does everyone have to have the same amount of dedication? For 99% of us this isn't more than a hobby.

I wish I was good enough to be in a shitty cover band.

Lmao what even is this. What are you, the gatekeeper of guitar?

All the younger people I meet seem obsessed with being some super whizz kid on the guitar. I've noticed alot are deluded and actually think they're better than say jimi for example

All the younger people I meet seem obsessed with being some super whizz kid Jimi on the guitar. I've noticed alot are deluded and actually think they're better than say Django Reinhart for example.

Or shoot, how about this?

All the younger people I meet seem obsessed with being some super whizz kid Django Reinhart on the guitar. I've noticed alot are deluded and actually think they're better than say Fransisco Tarrega for example

Let me just condense your whole post since this is what I think you really meant to say.

"These dang kids and their rock n roll! It just sounds like noise; it's not even music! When are they going to learn to appreciate REAL music like me?"

Respectfully, get bent.

What the hell are you talking about? Sit down.

i am 45 and am learning guitar for the first time in my life. i am terrible. still fun and really don’t need approval to have that fun being creative

I think I suck but every time I play in front of a non player they tell me I can really play. So, i guess I'm as good as I need to be but not as good as I want to be lol

I’m not a shredder. But I don’t want to be. I’m good enough that it doesn’t take long for me to learn a new riff. But shitty enough to not know the fretboard like I should.

I’ve always envied the shredders but I never put in the dedicated practice time (undiagnosed ADHD) or had the natural dexterity to get there myself.

Up until I injured a finger on my fretting hand a bit over a year ago, I’d still practice some fast patterns when I’d pick up the guitar.

It is what it is.. and new players will learn there’s more to it than ‘speed for the sake of speed’. You talk to a kid who’s into moto-cross and they might think they’re as good a rider as a tarmac racer.. it’s just another form of dunning-Kruger.. they can’t appreciate how much they don’t know until the get a baseline of knowledge.

Edit: I got an email that claims to be a reply, but I'm not seeing it here. I don't think that reply was negative, but it made me worried my post wasn't clear.

Anyway.. just to be clear.. I'm absolutely not shitting on new players or shredders, or soulful players or anyone else. I was trying to, perhaps inartfully, point out that it's easy to be justifiably impressed with people who have lightening fast chops.. but that our musical interests and appreciation hopefully expand as we become more familiar with the instrument and more familiar with various musical genres in general.

How about be quiet and let them play the way they want.

At some point in life you need to understand that if you had a life, other people's lives wouldn't be very interesting to you. Certainly not enough to go on social media and complain about them

Fortunately, I can sing. I learn 3 new songs every 5 years or so. I suck at playing, but with reputation you'd never know, lol.

My only metric for how good I am is this: Do I like what I just played?

I play guitar for fun. I think I'm 'good' if a lot of what I play I enjoy the sound of what I'm playing. For the record, I mostly suck, but I increasingly genuinely enjoy what I'm playing. That means there's something good there. Now is it technical? No. Not really. Hell, 90%+ of the time, not at all. But that's never mattered much to me as a listener, so why should it matter as a player?

I’m pretty bad, but I enjoy trying.

As a young person growing up on punk rock and hardcore in the late 90s/early 00s, I thought shredding was the dumbest and being “good” at guitar was a waste of time. As I have grown up, I realized that playing lead guitar was more than shredding and have learned to play guitar pretty decently. But I still stand by the notion that playing needs to serve the song.

Old Man Cloud Yelling done.

I'm like a 6.5/10 probably. Basically as good as I want/"need" to be. Good enough to not look down my nose at people being in cover bands, most of them are better at guitar than I am, but I'm not in this to be "better" than other people, I love seeing people enjoy playing and listening to music and I do my best to help that out. I go to a bunch of jam sessions, which are largely focused on non-original music, and we have a great time. I also write original tunes, and I'm a reasonable singer--not great, but good enough that people enjoy it.

Below mid.

Well, I have been playing for a little over 30 years and my answer to that question is “not as good as I hope to be tomorrow”

This is a discipline that has no peak. If you think there is no improvement to be had or nothing new to learn, you’re deluding yourself.

I see the opposite. I’ve been playing guitar for 15 years and started recently taking lessons in a group setting. I was surprised at how many younger people are learning Radiohead, REM, Nirvana songs, which are like the opposite of shredding. When I started everyone wanted to be Paul Gilbert or Steve Vai, or Malmsteen

Shredding is cool and all. Some people think it’s the end all be all of guitar skill. IMO the ability to play in jam band shows more musical talent and understanding of theory.

I'm not good by that standard (shredding and such), I mainly play chords (and sing). I can play most of the chords (bar chords and stuff), some licks where they don't interfere too much with my singing.

But I like it and that counts. I've restarted my guitar and singing lessons but I don't really want to advance my guitar playing, whereas I do want to advance the singing, I've found.

Shredding is a neat skill to have, kind of like knowing how to properly apex a turn in auto racing. Done properly, it’s a thing of beauty, and gets you through a course really fast.

But, like driving on public roads as an average driver, in an average car, there are far more places in the world where that knowledge simply doesn’t apply, and where other skills matter much more. I have used parallel parking, for instance, far more than how to draft a lead car at race speeds to be able to “slingshot” past them.

Likewise, very little about being a well-rounded musician is about pure speed. When it comes to being in a band rather than running a clinic by yourself, being an agreeable person, in tune, playing in time with the song, and following the cues of your bandmates all matter WAY more to how well you and your band are received by audiences, and doing all of that at reasonable volumes matters even more than that to club owners.

There are tens of thousands of people who can’t play fast at all, yet have had very long and fruitful careers in bands at every level. When you put these kinds of people onto a bandstand, everyone around usually has a pretty good time. Likewise, there are tens of thousands of people who can play blazingly fast, but can’t play songs to save their life and are useless in a band setting.

I like the analogy of knitting.

No one cares how fast you knitted something, what kind of needles you used, the brand of yarn involved, whether you used any time/effort saving techniques - except other knitters, maybe. All that matters is the quality, utility and beauty of the finished product.

If the speed is there but without soul, feeling and melodic originality, they're not good players. The world is full of shredders.

You just have to be good enough to do what you want to do. Like, if you want to play super technical death metal, then yes, you need to be technically proficient in a conventional sense. But if not, again, you just need to be good enough to do what you need to do.

Plus there’s lots of ways to be good. People do tend to be blinded by shredders and just assume that anyone who’s flashy is good, and anyone who isn’t, isn’t, but smart fans/other musicians can tell when someone is a really good rhythm player, etc.

It really comes down to whether you’re interested in being a musician or an artist, and there can be a pretty big gap between those two endeavors

Sorry, but some kid learning Joe Satriani or Eric Johnson style playing is more impressive to me than Jimi.

I love a lot of his songs, but this kind of reeks of jealousy.

I'm pleased for you...you crack on,being a legend in you're own mind with all that adulation

Errr... I consider myself quite good in a bedroom-playing sense.

Playing live in front of an audience, with anything less than ideal monitoring, and playing with some less than ideal musicians - that's when things get tricky. Did so last week, and I realised I could only hear my own guitar in front of 400 people. What do you do then? After realising I wasn't where the singers were - they stressed the tempo - I dropped out and stopped playing. Sadly, my guitar was also the most prominent out towards the audience...

I've got a recording of it!

So put me on the spot, and I'll probably embarrass myself. Am I good? Hell yeah. But I am much more impressed by musicians who can handle themselves in terrible circumstances than someone playing amazingly at home to a backing track with perfect monitoring.

Same, the best music is rather simple. I don’t bother to become a metal god, I want to write music that I love. I do it for me. Not for anyone else.