Lol. Ive been there at one point in time and I was the exact same way. To be honest there are no true shortcuts and time and practice is key. Think about it this way did Hendrix just one day pick up a guitar and bust out some sweet licks...no... Just keep practicing find a teacher you can get along with and pick up anything from other guitarists you can. Ask questions. What helped me is just listening to music and picking out the guitar parts. It helps you develop your sense of music and can make it easier to play. Try picking up some books at a music store and work your way up. Try and find tabs on songs that you listen to. Good Luck

practice is the key, but if you want some more specific help, lets us know where you are at, what can you play - what do you struggle with? Learned any scales, what type of music do you play? Can't give you a whole lot of advice if we don't have a rough estimate of where you are at

You can fake it fast by picking up any 3-chord 70's glam rock song or something like Wild Thing. I don't actually think that's a bad place to start as you can play something recognisable in a really short time and it keeps you motivated to learn 'properly'

My recomendation is to start recording yourself playing and seriously evaluating your skill. Listening to your own recordings will help you determine if you are actually playing is good as you think you are and give you ideas on what to work on. If you are learning to do solo's you should be playing against backing tracks and experimenting with scales and thier various positions on the fretboard. Also, forget about speed and focus on acuracy. This includes scales as well as chords. Another thing, associate with other guitar players and sponge off of their knowledge.

train yourself to feel comfortable with the fact that it takes a looooooong time...

people in a hurry never last the distance.... and shortcuts turn into long cuts when you have to turn back in 5 years because you've hit a wall from not covering basics

so many of my students are people that studied with other teachers and just learned to play songs... they did no theory, they did no reading... and they hit a big wall....

set yourself small goals - like being able to read in the first position by the end of the year

being able to read rhythm variations up to 16th notes by christmas

be able to play every major minor and dominant seventh chord shape in the first position by November...

whatever you do man... avoid shortcuts.

There are no real shortcuts but the best way learn new stuff fast is to jam with other guitar players.

With everything being tabbed out these days, learning to read music isn't really needed, unless you wanna be a session guitarist or are gonna play with an orchestra.


Plainly said, practice practice practice, lear scales open chords, simple songs to start (black sabbath, early metallica, ramones) Best advice i've seen in this thread is, find another guitar player who has more playing time than yourself and learn frm them. I knew some stuff, then met a friend who started teaching me the notes and some other stuff years ago now, it really helped alot, and didn't cost me 20 bucks an hour to get the lessons.

Fast is relative...

If you think one year is fast, then there IS a way to get better that fast. DO NOT SLEEP! Practice ALL THE TIME! Make your guitar part of your body and play, play, play. Play to the newspaper, the television, the people next door arguing, the traffic, the trees... What is comes down to is it's going to take as long as you let it take. The only way to speed things up is to compress more of it into every day. Those who practice one hour a day don't advance very fast. One particular arts college expects their musicians to practice 6 hours a day. (That schedule is so "light" because they have other classes too.) If you don't practice that much, then it's not long before the school says goodbye because you're not dedicated enough. If you want to be good, then you have to live and breathe guitar and put the rest of your life on the back burner.

So cut back on your sleep and up the number of hours you spend with a guitar and pick in hand. The longer you can maintain that pace the "faster" you will learn.

Of course, if you're into the blues, you could just go down to the crossroads and have a chat with the red horned bloke.

"With everything being tabbed out these days, learning to read music isn't really needed, unless you wanna be a session guitarist or are gonna play with an orchestra."

Sorry but I COMPLETELY disagree with that statement. You HAVE to have a basic understanding of theory and how notes relate to each other to advance beyond anything other than "passable". The best way to obtain this knowledge is to learn to read.

Tabs are, in my opinion, a HUGE crutch that people who haven't developed the skills necessary to actually play and BE a guitarist use. You MUST get to a point where you can hear a piece and have an instinct of what is happening with it. Develop your ear, develop your mind by thinking about something not just looking at a piece of paper someone else has done the work on.

If you think for one second that any professional or anything above a "hobby band" is going to wait for you while you find a tab for some song they are playing or trying to play you're REALLY fooling yourself.

the list of guitar professional guitar players who CAN'T read is a long one. especially blues players like clapton and the like. stevie ray vaughn.....it is NOT so crucial to read staff......it is crucial to develop your EAR....theory can also be learned thru tab. lots of sites teach theory thru tab. but playing along with your cd's will help you to develop your ear and also give you a good sense of rythm. tabs can help you identify the really odd chords in a song so use them only when you need to find that weird chord. don't rely on them as your ONLY source. learn as much as possible with your EAR first. not that learning to read is a bad thing. but it is a tedious task. often newer students will become discouraged much quicker. so work on your ear. that will give the biggest advantage in the end......

Townshend doesn't know theory and can't read music very well either. He is a pro. There are exceptions, but those exceptions are "stars." If you're looking to get there, reading and knowing theory is an advantage. History says it's not "necessary" but common sense would dictate otherwise.

If you're going to be a "star" then by all means, don't bother. But, if you don't have a clue where you'll end up, knowing how to read and knowing theory, will move you up the ladder of your choice more quickly.

"the list of guitar professional guitar players who CAN'T read is a long one"

I'm unsure about that one. Clapton can most assuredly read. Slow as it may be he can still do it. I've seen it.

Lots' of guys say they can't read when in fact they can but not "at speed". I say I can't because it takes me a bit to work it out but I really can just slow at it.

Developing your ear is critical I agree. My point is developing your ear alone will not get you in the theory ball park. When I do work sometimes it is just chords on a paper, or someone saying "we want a thing like blah blah" or god forbid a piece written out is dropped in front of me.

Now, with all that said, to me being a "professional" musician is making a living from it. You take the gig, Broadway shows, studio stuff, working/touring bands, doing movie soundtracks, all of that and more.
If you have a "band' and you're a VERY lucky man maybe you don't need any of that (Sight reading, theory, etc) but if you're not one of the "chosen few" you better have it in you back pocket if you intend to eat on a semi-regular basis.

Also famous doesn't mean good. I (personally) would not consider pete townshend to be a good guitar player, but I do consider him an excellent entertainer. Big distinction.

Also, theory really can't be learned through tab any more than physics can through english text. They may aid the transisition to note (or mathematics in the latter case) but you will never truly be an accomplished musician without learning the language, anymore than one could become an accomplished physicist without learning the math.

So...how to get better fast? I think Johnny Cox hit the nail on the head. Seek out those who already play and pick their brains. Let them show you things. Theory and music reading can come later if you decide music is really something you want to do and dedicate the hours too.

Lastly, and this is the most important lesson I've learned about learning. If you want to learn fast, practice very slowly. If you want to learn a lot, study very little. Overkill in terms of material will hurt you, and trying to jam too much information into small spaces of time will accomplish very little.

Practice one small thing and master it. Practice one scale, not all scales! Practice one song, not a full album of songs! Mastering and being able to play one song well will do more for your playing than learning pieces of a lot of songs, and being able to play none of them.

Go slow, meet others who play, and focus on mastery of small items as opposed to tackling symphonies right out of the gate.

The last secret is to have fun. The more fun youre having, the more you will want to play, and the more you play the better....as long as it stays fun. When it feels like too much work, your doing to much at once.

-sallan