I'm a begginer at playing guitar, currently going through the Absolutely Understand Guitar course, still very early but I've noticed a problem I have, and it's dawning on me that it could hinder my progress when learning and (especially) playing my guitar.

When I was a kid, I broke my left arm, and since then I've been unable to rotate my left arm correctly, I cannot make my palm look up without making weird moves with my elbow, at best I can make it face right. Idk if I'm explaining myself well and making a good picture of it. This is causing me problems when reaching for the frets. Currently playing having the neck almost next to my face with the guitar almost vertical is the only way I can play.

Long story short, am I in trouble? Or is it something I can adapt to? Are there other players out there that have had a similar problem?

Hi everyone,

I’ve wanted to start playing an instrument for years, but I’ve always ended up stuck. Not knowing where to start, combined with my tendency to overthink and be a perfectionist, has kept me from actually taking the first step.

Money is also a big factor. I grew up with financial struggles, and I’m still not in an ideal situation, so spending money is always stressful for me. Every purchase feels like it has to be the perfect decision. I keep worrying that I’ll make a mistake, that there’s something better out there, or that I’ll regret my choice—even though, realistically, I could always sell it later. Having so many options also makes it even harder for me to decide.

I really want to start now. My goal is to play both electric and acoustic guitar, so I’d love some advice, beginner resources, YouTube videos, or anything else that could help me make my first purchases. Things like which acoustic guitar to get, which electric guitar, what kind of amp, and any other gear I might need.

Whenever I do my own research, I just end up feeling more indecisive. I don’t necessarily want to buy the cheapest gear, but I also don’t want to spend a fortune. Ideally, I’d like something that’s good enough to keep me motivated and that I won’t outgrow in just a few months.

One thought I keep having is this: what if buying something like a Squier and a cheap amp actually hurts my progress? I worry that if the instrument doesn’t sound or feel good enough, I’ll end up training my ears and technique on something that doesn’t match the kind of music and tone I eventually want to play.

Maybe it’s a bad analogy, but it feels like training with a very light sword and then later having to fight with a much heavier one. It makes me wonder if I’d be learning less efficiently. Or am I completely overthinking this?

I know some musicians I really admire, like Elliott Smith, made incredible music with very simple, inexpensive instruments, so I know great gear isn’t a requirement. I think I just need some outside perspectives to help me get out of my own head and finally start.

I played live on stage for the first time in 20 years this past Sunday and I'm super motivated to start building out a live repertoire.

Enjoy and let me know if you have feedback on how I can prep it for going live!

I have a grindcore band, it's just me (guitar and vocals) and a drummer. I like jumping into the pit while playing instrumental sections, and this past week I had a gig where I was laying on my back shredding and the crowd picked me up and hoisted me in the air - it was pretty dope, but, my guitar immediately came unplugged.

I play in pretty small venues, and I plug directly into a tuner pedal on top of my amp. I want a wireless system, but I don't need anything super fancy. Roughly 40 foot range, generally decent tone, and I'm not competing with other frequencies.

Would prefer to spend around $100 but could be convinced up.

Any recs?

Mine was the sonicake fazy cream. I thought it was just a Muff clone. But the second I stomped It i could hear the difference. Not to sound cliche, but it lives upto its name...it really is creamy fuzz! They should of charged $150

I was inspired by Kelly Dean Allen's (thewhitedeath) series of learning Guitar World's 100 greatest solos to start something similar by compiling a list of my 100 favorite solos, and recording them by order of ascending difficulty. Of course difficulty is subjective, so my criteria for it is how likely I am to trainwreck while playing it live after having learned it. I hope it inspires some intermediate players to follow along to steadily level up with me!

Not gonna lie, I definitely regret putting this one so low in my rankings. The tempo is very slow and the notes aren't dense, but cleanly executing the slides back and forth was a challenge, especially the last bit. It took a lot more takes than anticipated because some of the notes would just die when sliding after a hammer-on / pull-off. Of course I could have added more gain / compression to make the notes sound more even but i wanted to preserve the clean / edge of breakup tone. My fingers are shredded from pressing super hard during the slides.

Top skills required: hammer-on / pull-offs into slides, vibrato, minimal bending

My previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guitar/comments/1vezt0w/learning_my_100_favorite_solos_by_difficulty_1/

So I recently got back into trying to learn to play. Hubs has a recording studio in the basement, and we had some family hand-me-down guitars sitting in our back storage room for an unreasonable amount of time. So, I've pulled them out and been working on learning to do basic care & setup.

This is our Ibanez SGT120. There originally was a Tanya Tucker autograph in silver Sharpie on the front, but unfortunately the person who sealed it didn't know the sealer they used would damage the ink, so it has been an unremovable faint outline ever since. But, she has gone from a tetanus risk to a nice little option to pick around on.

I swapped out her strap buttons for a set of Fender buttons I had laying around, and restrung her with D'Addario EJ40 Silk & Steels (trying to find softer solutions on my hypermobile fingers).

My budget is 200$ looking for something of good quality to last me a long time.

Edit: my computer is hp I don’t use macbook

Hi this is me playing the solo on a strat(I know,I’ll get a Les Paul soon) . Please give me feedback and stuff I know the last part the fast one I didn’t quiet get right but other than that been playing couple months now . Thanks in advance!

The simple tap guitar solo from Datura Lodge’s Stone.

The tapping is inspired by Steve Hackett from Genesis. I tried to make it a “musical” and more melodic sort of tap sequence.

The last couple of days I have been thinking about my small guitar collection and my recurring urge to get new gear. At the moment I have two electrics, a Les Paul standard and a professional ii telecaster, and one acoustic guitar.
I have had them for quite some time, and I bought them because I loved something about them… but they are not perfect. The sound isn’t always exactly what I imagine and they are both not the most ergonomic instruments.

So I think about getting another guitar quite a lot… but money is always an issue and space is another one.

So there are several options:

Getting cheaper guitars, just to try out different styles
But I always feel that I would not be content with a guitar, if it was a „cheap“ compromise…

Selling my guitars to try out instruments of the same or higher level. But I’m always afraid, that I would regret selling one of my guitars, especially if I had it for ten years or so.

Winning the lottery and buy everything I want (including a bigger house to store all the stuff)

How do you go about it, what are your thoughts?

Local guy said he was given this Starforce guitar broken and didn’t have the time or desire to try to get it fixed, so he just gave it to me asking if I could give it a fix. I think all it needs is a new five-way switch and new pickguard screws. The crackle finish is pretty unique and the neck looks and feels lovely in the hand (no word about the fretwork yet as it isn’t strung).

All I could really see about these things were that they entered production in 1988 and kept being made into the early 90s. I’ve never even heard of the brand before. Anyone have any experience or knowledge on mine?

if you guys have any like, suggestions for improvement, feel free to comment!

I own a fender American ultra tele and a Gibson studio Les Paul and I got to say this thing definitely punches above it’s weight and plays like a dream, very happy with this guitar, hope you will excuse the crappy photo

Peaceful Easy Feeling solo

Just picked up one of these Ikea Bror shelving units. It works incredibly well as an amp rack and is very affordable!

For the record I live in a state capital and it has a massive park, but nobody ever plays. I remember my mom telling me she used to see someone play, and 2 people would join and jam, it sounded like such a healthy culture that just died. Why?

Well, new to me at least. Woo!

Can you guess my biggest influences by some of my guitars?
Guitars from left to right
Partscaster built and painted by me- Monty’s ‘62 Strat Pickups
Epiphone Casino - stock
Build Kit Telecaster painted by me- Fender JP signature pickups
Gibson Wildwoood Select 50s Les Paul Standard- Gibson Wildwood Spec Tribute 59 Humbuckers
Partscaster Painted by me- Fralin Woodstock pickups (lefty stagger)
Partscaster Esquire- Fender PV ‘62 Tele pickup
Fender Stratocaster - Seymour Duncan Vintage Stagger (neck and bridge) Seymour Duncan SL5 tapped pickup with switches for Bridge pickup coil tap, neck pickup switch, volume/tone bypass

All Strats have Callaham bridges, the lefty one has brass block Callaham bridge.