alt Hacker NewsI sometimes wonder if I'm broken in some way. I bought my first guitar in 1996 (a Mexican Fender Stratocaster) and my last guitar in 2018 (a Gibson SG). I've taken lessons with three different teachers. I've worked through a Hal Leonard book series. I've subscribed to Guitar Tricks for a while then switched to Justin Guitar. I have YouTube playlists a mile long where I try to learn songs. I keep a guitar in my office to help me stop thinking about a problem when I get stuck.
After all this, I don't know any (real) songs from start to finish. The closest I come is playing Nirvana's About a Girl.
I might have some kind of rhythm disability. If I try to play along with a record, I'm almost always lost right away because I start strumming to match the drumming pattern or the vocal rhythms.
It's so frustrating, especially when I see how fast my kids learned to play an instrument. They make it look so easy.
Replies
Start in a very slow fashion, like you're teaching kindergardeners songs, and key here is to use both feet to tap, every other beat on each foot, and do it slow as molases, count it 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 while alternating the feet. You can also move the body to that slow rhythm. After some time of doing this you'll realize you don't need to go that slow. Good luck!
If you're not looking for random person's advice feel free to ignore :-)
> If I try to play along with a record, I'm almost always lost right away because I start strumming to match the drumming pattern or the vocal rhythms.
Are you able to play any strumming patterns (however simple) with just the metronome? Ideally you'd practice this enough that you are able to do it consistently with almost zero thinking, and then check if it has improved your ability to play along with the record.
Another thing that has helped me when learning new strumming patterns (and just rhythm in general) was practicing just the strumming, muting the strings with my left hand instead of playing chords. First with the metronome, then along the record (all without any chords, just muted strings). Give that a try if you feel like it.