Your Journey to Becoming a Guitarist
 

Alright. So I have left the drums aside for now (since I don't have a kit) and have picked up the guitar. So far I have progressed decently but I don't find playing fun (I do like the idea of playing the guitar and being very good at it, but this is irrelevant). I just hope it becomes more fun as I learn more, so far I feel the more I learn, the more bored I become.It could just be personal taste but I just want to hear if any of you went through the same thing I'm going through. If not, maybe I should pack things up and leave it to you pros lol. I was hoping you could share your journey with us.

I got real bored initially too. You learning electric/lead licks or acoustic/chords?

I'm playing chords on a crappy Ovation guitar. I'm not learning lead licks or anything like that (but I would love to). Maybe this could be the problem. Did you find you become more interested once you became better? I should point out that I took up the guitar with excitement and kept that excitement until I started learning how to play simple songs.

for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.

I agree with cheezyridr, though I got past the boredom phase after listening to more acoustic musicians. I wanted to play their songs, so I would print out the chords and practice until I had it down. It became pretty fun once I had a few under my belt I could play.

Edit - I did learn Led Zeppelin riffs before much songs. Then I learned the infamous guitarist newbie song-Stairway to Heaven-and then went to bar chords after that.

Damn right. Glad we have people like you to remind us...I need to make some changes in my situation

ABSOLUTELY!

to the OP - don't stick to playing what you already know. how would you improve?

when i started learning i went right for the most ridiculous stuff i could get my hands on with the expectation to 'fail'. hendrix's 'little wing' was the 2nd song i tried learning. it's NOT a beginner's tune and it kicked my ass all over the place - until the solo. i could nail that wonderfully simple lead line without much hassle and it encouraged me to keep going for more.

after trying that song for a few weeks going back to 'simpler' tunes that had given me problems earlier on i found myself breezing through some of their more 'complicated' passages.

i think the attitude that one needs to be 'better' before they're able to progress is ultimately self-defeating and worthless. if you want to play lead lines then start playing lead lines, if you want to play complex songs instead of 3 chord stum-a-longs then do it up. there's no checklist out there that you have to hit X amount of milestones in order to be good enough to level up.

If you're just not enjoying it, then maybe it's not for you. I played piano for years before I decided to teach myself guitar. As soon as I started learning I progressed really quickly and practices heaps and heaps every day until I became better and better at it. Now I feel I've reached a certain knowledge in playing guitar that it has become really enjoyable to play. Keep practicing and trying to learn new things, and maybe you'll begin to enjoy it more. But don't force yourself to learn it if you find other instruments more enjoyable for you!

Get inspired! Go see some amazing musicians play a show. listen to some simple songs that inspire you emotionally. That has always helped me. Playing music is supposed to be creative and fun if it's neither for you your either worrying too much about "getting good" and not enough about enjoying yourself or maybe the guitar isn't your thing. I've played guitar for a long time and it's been an uphill battle all the way, but when I sit down at a piano (an instrument I've had very little experience playing) I'm so enthralled that I don't worry about how good I am.

I started playing when I was a child, but never really devoted myself to learning the standard way. I never even desired to play other people's songs. I wanted to create my own.
So when I started self-teaching and figuring out different ways to do things on the guitar, I was eventually able to start writing my own songs.
I picked up on a lot of instruments along the way, stayed on drums for many years, but eventually started playing acoustic and learning fingerstyle and playing in open tunings.
My electric has been collecting dust since then.

To this day, in the over 20 years of hands-on music instrumentation experience I have, I have not learned a single song of someone else's (beyond jamming originals or band practice), nor have I the inclination to do so.
And I think I do pretty well for myself.
Never lost motivation yet.

I've gotten interesting replies from everyone, thanks a lot! So the overall message I've gotten is:

1. I could be bored because I'm not learning interesting/complicated stuff that I want to play.

2. I could be bored because I'm worrying too much about being good rather than enjoying it.

3. The guitar is not for me and I should stick to the drums.

My goal now is to find the cause of this lack of interest, which is harder than it sounds. I don't want to assume I'm not interested because of reason 3 (since I might be able to recapture that interest after playing for awhile). I don't want to give up the guitar and realize that I would have enjoyed it had I stuck with it.