#52: Why You Make NO Guitar Progress | Change That Today!

why???????

no video playing..hyy?????????????

Welcome Jérémie and thanks for this comment! Great to have you here from now on, hope you have tons of fun getting started - greetings to France! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hi, after I took my guitar playing in hand a while ago and tried to analyze and reduce my various weaknesses and mistakes (many of which have been answered thanks to your videos). I opted for your modern version of the improvement courses and finally took the step of subscribing! Thank you and greetings from France, you're awesome :)

Hey Angelo, welcome to our community! Yes, I love that guitar, hope you enjoy it just as much :) Have an amazing week!!

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Greg, thanks so much for sharing this, and welcome to our community!! Happy to have you here, glad you enjoy the YouTube content - hope you have tons of fun with exploring the archive - and an amazing week :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Sujan, thanks for the kind words and welcome to our community!! Hope you have an amazing week :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Greg, welcome to our community!! Great to have you here from now on :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hello Bernth, I've played guitar since Febuary of this year, I have a teacher that teaches me he does a good job, but I want more so I will revolve my practice around your patron once I have nailed what I am supposed to nail with my teacher ^^ I am excited to be a part of this community! I happen to own the same Ibanez as you, I've seen your videos before but with that grey metal guitar no idea which one that is so when I bought this AZ ehm.. I wanted it xD I saw you owned the same guitar ^^

Angelo

Greetings Bernth, I played guitar for many years starting in high school, eventually attending music school and got the music degree, but for some reason as I got older I put the guitar down for almost 20 years. Trying to get back into playing was very intimidating and it wasn't until a few months ago, that I finally picked things back up. The music knowledge is still there, but the muscle memory is not. I'm looking to get back on a practice regime that keeps my interest and works on the techniques that I've lost. I discovered you on YouTube and you've inspired me to get back on the frets. Looking forward to progressing and being a more motivated musician.

Hello Bernth. I am here following your youtube lesson. They helped me a lot. You are a source of inspiration for me. I always feel picking guitar right after watching you play. All those lessons helped me a lot and joined here for revolution.

Hello Bernth. Just joined and looking forward to seeing all the content provided. Thanks

Welcome back Cody, great to have you in our community again! You got this, hope you have tons of fun catching up with all the new material!! :)

Bernd Brodträger

I'm back! I joined awhile ago and I got frustrated trying to learn. This time I hope I can empower myself to learn and persevere even tho it's hard

Groundhog8366

Hey Jason, thanks for the comment - great to hear about your motivation! Hope you have tons of fun getting started, have an awesome week! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Luca, thanks for the comment and welcome!! Hope you feel at home with us right away, have an amazing week! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Bernth! I started teaching myself around the time of my freshman year (about 7 years ago or so) and recently, I noticed that I had stopped improving. So I decided to do something about that, and I found your YouTube lessons which led me here. I am very excited to be able to partake in these lessons and to maximize my potential as a guitarist

Hello Bernth! And greetings to all the comunity. I've become a supporter right now, since I've really enjoyed watching your videos and trying to play all the workouts and exercises you've posted. I choose to support you because i think you have a really good and clean technique in all the shred aspects i'm intrigued. Recently i've started to commit again in improving my skills as well and i hope wour lessons and your teachings will help me.

Luca Onida

G'day Bernth, I was getting disheartened regarding my learning pathway and struggled to find a teaching technique that I found fun and interesting (and rocking to my music taste). Well, that was until I stumbled across you.... Happy days ahead :) Thanks heaps for your hard work and dedication. Excited and thanks again :)

Welcome Lukezo, thanks so much for the comment - it's great to have you here from now on :) Hope you have a lot of fun getting started, some new and very exciting material is already on the way!

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Bernth. Have been really enjoying your lessons on YouTube and appreciate your hard work and love for what you do. Signed up today - my first Patreon. Primary instrument is the drums, but I've been playing the guitar (very average having taught myself...) for like 15 years. Decided I want to take it seriously! Looking forward to going through the material here! 🤘

Lukezo

Hey Christopher, thanks so much for sharing this, and welcome to our community!! Great to hear that you also have an RG in your collection :) Hope you have an amazing week and tons of fun getting started!

Bernd Brodträger

Hiya Bernth! I'm so glad to have finally joined you on Patreon after watching many of your videos on YouTube. I've become a stagnant guitar player over the years and I'm really excited to reinvigorate my journey and realize my potential through hard work and dedication. I really love your RG! The only RG in my collection is a modified RGR320EX but my favorite guitar is my fixed bridge Ibanez XH-300 LSH Halberd. I'm just in the process of setting up my practice plan and really looking forward to the work ahead. Anyway, thanks for all of this!

Also, id rather a mug than a t shirt. And i dont want the mug after 3 months. I want the mug when you say my progress shows that i deserve the mug. Is this kind of thing allowed here? LOL

Bernth, My Austrian brethren! Im back here again, after dropping out of my last membership. Just wanted to say i appreciate your work and success. You're partly molding our current and more importantly, our next era of guitarist. You are doing what Paul Gilbert did for us on VHS back in the day. Do you ever think about it that way? Having said that Im excited to start again today! Pleasure to be back. Im starting my new years resolution today and that is to actively involve myself and dedicate to your class, for an entire year. EVERY DAY. Ill be recording my progress so i hope one day you can share these progression experiences to other people.

Hey Oscar, thanks so much for this comment and welcome to our community! Great to have you here, you've been playing for quite a while now :) I think you definitely won't regret looking more into theory, there's an awesome video on that coming next week - hope you have a great day!

Bernd Brodträger

Hi Bernth, I just join to the community, I've been playing around 20 years but I have a dsorder with my studies more exactly at the theory, so I hope to learn so much here, thanks!! and best regards.

Hey David, welcome to our community, and thanks so much for sharing your story! Great to hear that you're back at it, you definitely won't regret it :) Hope you have an amazing weekend!

Bernd Brodträger

What's up community, I use to play alot. Then I broke my hands multiple times. I was in the army and stopped playing because life got busy. Both of those things i was using as an excuse and after losing my uncle. I realized life is short and I should enjoy the things that I love most. So I'm now getting back in to playing and writing my own music.

Hello Kavin, welcome to our community!! Yes, music is life - great to have you here :)

Bernd Brodträger

Welcome Felix, hope you have an awesome week and tons of fun getting started! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hello fellow guitarist community. Im here to learn as much as i can about guitar playing and techniques. i never really learned how to play the guitar since i bought my guitar 12 years ago. Being that what life is at 39 now im really getting into music. I love music. Music is life.

Hey community.... after not playing for over 10y I decided this year to relaunch my guitar playing... I am excited to start shredding :-)

Hey Pascal, great to have you here - welcome to our community!! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hello Bernth, watched a few of your videos at the end of 2021, and found them very easy to comprehend and to put into practice, but wanted to go a step further, so here l am :) having played on and off for the last 30years wanted finally to put some real effort into becoming more than an intermediate player. Will start this afternoon with my first lesson after buying some new picks lol

Pascal Verschaffel

Welcome to our community Dmitry and thanks so much for sharing this! :) Happy holidays!

Bernd Brodträger

Great video Bernth. Another point I would add is -- when you're stuck at a concrete exercise, lick, tempo, etc: 1) Switch to something else on guitar. 2) Make a complete break, sleep a night, or even don't come back to this particular exercise several days. And you'll be surprise how the brain/muscle memory will adopt to the particular problematic piece after these breaks.

Hey Michael, thanks so much for sharing this, and welcome to our community!! :) Great to have you here from now on, hope you have an awesome week!

Bernd Brodträger

Hello BERNTH I have played many moons over 40 years. I really liked what I saw on YouTube and my wife got me a subscription to your Patreon for a year. Keep Rocking!

Michael Rasbid

Hi new to the community and looking forward to getting stuck in..

Deej

Hei Bernth! I just found your Youtube channel today and I was so impressed with the lessons, and everything there, that I joined immediately to the Patreon also. I am not a brand new guitarist, but I very quickly hit plateaus in the past some of the reasons were the lack of good learning materials back then, and very poorly built practice routines from my side (I mostly practiced the band's song where I played at that time at that was mostly about it, very few other things.) I stopped playing for almost 8 years now... I decided to pick up where I left and I am more than happy to find such a valuable teacher and community, I am already pretty sure that I will achieve much better results than in the past. Looking forward to this! By the way currently I am using my own built gitar which has a little disadvantage I messed up a little the neck anno didn't sand the proper angle into the neck :) , so it has more fret gap on the higher frets and almost none on the lower. It is totally playable, I used it on concerts also - and my own child hehe - but can be a little uncomfortable sometimes, and I don't want this in the way of learning, so I decided to buy a stock gitar instead. Totally fell in love with the Ibanez RG652AHMFX. What do You think about that one for shredding? Best regards, Gabor

Gabor Toth

Hi Bernth, thanks for everything you do, your tips and lessons have helped me a lot to improve my guitar playing

Hi Bernth, just joined your patreon after seeing you on youtube. Very impressed with your down to earth approach to teaching. I've owned a guitar for the best part of 30 years and have struggled to progress beyond beginner/intermediate. But after watching just 2 videos I've broken the plateau so joined up. Thank you for inspiring and helping us poor mortals :-)

I grabbed guitar during last year's lockdown, 20 months passed and I feel like I didn't move forward at all. Tried to pick some knowledge here and there on internet, spent lot of time with guitar. Finally I decided to stick to one place, one path and I hope that's the right one. Shredding or even metal music is not really my thing but I I like Bernths videos and the way he explains things so here I am. Wish me good luck as I wish that all the newcomers.

Hi there!

New here, looking forward to getting started :D

Congratulations for the site, it's really a big plus for an almost beginner who wants to progress! In order to follow a daily routine as you advise, I would find it really ideal if you could in relation to each practice, advise one of your courses. I of course did some research to find on Alternate picking, on Hybrid Picking, Minor Arpeggios. But there are so many things on the site that it's not so easy to find the course that goes well! In the meantime I really don't regret being there! Well done

Just signed up! I'm stoked!! Been playing since 1992. Stuck in a rut forever.

I think I have found what I wasn't looking for?!

Hey fellow guitar peeps.. Im a retired guitar player from the Navy Band. I have been practicing guitar for, well, my first concert was Yngwie Malmsteen in 1984 then the next weekend it was Van Halen 1984 LOL. I gave up playing after I retired because I was done with it. I lost the love. Too many tours, too many Mustang Sallys. So I went to Berklee for Film Scoring and I just graduated. Yeah, go my old self. But I have always been a shredder at heart. But in my formative years there was no place for information when you got stuck or bored. So I kept the same hybrid caged, 3 NPS method and I never solved its problems. Until I saw Bernth videos. In one video, he summed up everything I just didnt have time to fix or work out. So here I am.. Thanks for your time and effort Bernth.. ROCK ON

Kenny McLaughlin

I joined just because I need a plan to follow to learn exercises to get better. My main goals are just to be able to play songs and video game tracks but with limited time I can't just use the free YouTube videos only. Looking forward to the journey! 🎸

Andy P. Scott

Thanks so much for sharing this Justin, great to learn about your journey so far! Greetings right back from Austria, hope you have a great weekend :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Bernth, this sounds exactly like what I tell my students... practice plans, notebooks, etc. I've definitely been stuck in the same place for errrr about 15 years. I practiced a lot in college after shattering my right index finger and having to switch from trumpet to guitar in the jazz band. Built up a lot of good skills practicing all night long and really working on skills, but since then, not so much. I've been stuck in this pattern of rhythm guitar/playing songs I've learned in the past. Looking forward to picking up speed and better techniques again and applying the music theory I've known for 20 years to the fretboard. Cheers from Southern California where it's still somehow over 42 degrees Celsius in November.

Justin R Papreck

Hey there, welcome to our community, and thanks so much for the kind words! Great to have you here, greetings to Chile :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Bernth, been watching your Youtube channel since a few weeks, awesome playing and teaching!! ty for sharing your knowledge :) !! Hug from Valparaíso, Chile

Welcome to our community Fhynix, great to have you here! :) Yes, it's a really cool book, hope you have fun checking it out!

Bernd Brodträger

Hi Bernth, I just joined and am already hyped to start with a practice plan. Funnily, I can't count how many times I've stumbled across recommendations of "Atomic Habits", I'll probably give it a try :-)

Fhynix

Welcome António and thanks so much for leaving this kind comment - greetings to Portugal! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hi! Just arrived! Big fan of Bernth's videos and style of playing. I've been stuck in the same level of guitar playing for years. Can't make significant progress. Hope I can improve with Bernth's courses! Cheers from Portugal.

António Mota

Welcome, Juan! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Finally in!

Bernth, I really appreciate that your videos are geared towards teaching us, rather than just showing off, or giving less than useful content. I've played for about 20 years, and have been stuck for 15 of those. I am very much looking forward to a structured practice habit.

I've been playing for 10 years but I've never really progressed from a death metal rhythm guitarist. I know I've got the ability so Bernth the time has come to take your course! I can't wait!

Checking in.

Hey Terry, welcome to our community, and thanks so much for leaving a comment! Hope you feel at home with us right away, great to have you here :)

Bernd Brodträger

Been watching you for a long time and finally decided to take your lessons! You've already helped me immensely so far!! Thanks man!

Welcome Eugen, great to have you! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Okey, Im here) time to make metal great again :) Tnx for great videos)

Eugen Emakov

Hey Damien, welcome to our community - great to have you here! :) In case you didn't check this one out yet, this is a great summary of all technique mistakes I can recommend to avoid: https://www.patreon.com/posts/154-6-worst-and-48030384

Bernd Brodträger

Hi Bernth , i'm joining your awesome community today ! I'm french so my english may seems a little bit broken . I want to thank you for all your amazing work and videos . I'm mostly in the beginning of my guitar journey , i bought my second guitar one month ago (my first was bad and i never really used it ) and i practice every day . I want to absolutely avoid bad habits and bad things that could get me stuck in my learning experience , and i found you on Youtube so i've decided to train hard with good exercices and good advices. Again thank you so much , and if you got advices to where i can begin , and make things right , i'm all yours . :)

Hey Cody, thanks so much for leaving a comment, and welcome to our community!! Great to have you here from now on, hope you have an awesome day :)

Bernd Brodträger

I have been playing guitar for 5 years and I still feel like a beginner. Your YouTube videos have been helping a lot so I just decided to join patreon! Thank you so much bernth for all your help!

Groundhog8366

Hey there, thanks so much for sharing this, and welcome to our community! :) When it comes to playing faster, I think this is a great starting point: https://www.patreon.com/posts/167-extreme-in-5-50839230

Bernd Brodträger

Hello Bernth, i've been yearning to join ur patreon the moment i first saw ur first video. I don't know how i can classify myself as a beginner or intermediate but i just want to know more how to play and play efficiently faster.

Hey Seth, welcome to our community, and thanks so much for leaving a comment!! Yes, this recent legato package is much more detailed than the previous one - but they are both tons of fun :) Hope they will help on your journey, have an awesome day! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey Bernth, big fan of your amazing YouTube videos for a long time. Finally decided to jump into Patreon while trying to figure a legato practice routine and coming across your 6 steps legato video. Originally I was just keen to check out your 15 min practice routine, so I am super stoked to find this 30 day monster legato course you just put together!

Seth

Hello there and welcome, great to have you here!! :)

Bernd Brodträger

I am in brother

Hey Kenny, thanks so much for leaving a comment - great to have you here in the community from now on!! Greetings to Belgium :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hi bernth, finally joined your Patreon after owning the 10 steps to modern shredding and watching your YT videos for almost a year now. I'm a left-handed guy, but learned to play guitar right-handed (tnx to my right handed brother). After a 10-years break (marriage, kids,..), I picked up my guitars again about 20 months ago. Ready and motivated to learn next level playing, your videos are definitely an inspiration to me. Looking forward to start practicing with your Patreon lessons... Greetings from Belgium, Kenny Claes (Sanity's Rage thrash metal)

Kenny Claes

Thank you so much! I will try that right away.

Jason Bajis

Welcome Jason, great to have you here!! :) I personally always like to see my 7 strings as a 6 string in E standard with an additional low B string or as a 6 string in D standard with an additional low A string - that helps me out a lot with music theory :) But I think it depends on your style and riff writing (drop tunings can be cool as well) - the only mistake I made was going too low, drop G was pretty crazy for me personally and you need super thick strings, but it works for many players I guess!

Bernd Brodträger

Finally joined this awesome Patreon! I'm super excited. I have a quick question if you have a minute or two to answer. I've been playing 6 strings for years but I was given a 7 string for my birthday which I'm super excited about. My question is this: my band plays in dropped C tuning and I'm not sure what to tune my 7 string to to be compatible, what are your thoughts? (I'm leaning toward either F,C,F,Bb,Eb,G,C or G,D,G,C,F,A,D). Thank you again for teaching all this!

Jason Bajis

Hey Carmelo, welcome and thanks so much for leaving a comment :) If fretboard mastery is currently a big focus for you, I can really recommend checking this course out: https://www.patreon.com/posts/169-fretboard-51121969 Hope this helps right away :)

Bernd Brodträger

Just joined today! I have been watching your videos for over a month and have greatly helped! I consider myself an intermediate player, and I’m slowly but steadily learning all the notes on the fretboard. I'm looking to build a good practice routine for improving my technique

Welcome Bradley, great to have you here! I'm happy that I could help out already - awesome to have you in our community from now on :)

Bernd Brodträger

I have just joined today. Been watching a lot of your videos on youtube. Been a great help so far!

Hey Eduardo, welcome to our community :) You definitely won't regret this approach, hope you have fun building your personal routine!

Bernd Brodträger

just joined yesterday but yeah will try to make it a habit to practice always

Hello Russ, welcome to our community - great to welcome you today! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hey all I’m new here, I hope your guitar journeys are going great, I can’t wait to get started

Welcome Francisco, great to have you here - greetings to California :)

Bernd Brodträger

Just joined today! Very excited to begin this journey! Cheers from California USA!

Willkommen, Otto! :)

Bernd Brodträger

Bin heute neu dazugekommen, spiele seit ich 5 bin Geige und habe seit einem Jahr meine Gitarre, und jetzt hast du mich richtig motiviert krass zu werden im Gitarre spielen! Freue mich schon aufs üben :3 Viele Grüße aus Marburg

Hello. I joined today. With love from Japan.

Hey @Bernth, if you could link the videos in the PDF document, that would be great!

Santosh Subramanian

Yea no kidding! Great book 👍

Hi, regarding tracked practice session, where is the link for those exercise? i not found

Great question Wayne! This is very different for all of us - which techniques and theory concepts do you really need in order to play/write the music that you love? I personally work on alternate picking, sweep picking, legato, improvisation, and chord/scale theory right now :) I'd suggest identifying 4-5 topics for yourself and filling these blocks with exercises from Patreon!

Bernd Brodträger

How do I choose what to practice every day? Is there a recommended plan?

Wayne Cagle

Hi Bernth, I’m a new member. I need help with scales and modes so I can solo better. I’m hoping you can help😊

Paul Watson

Hi Bernth, I'm very happy with your approach. Instead of just learning licks you really take it to another level to use the ideas behind the solo's and licks. And building ones own. Thank you for your lessons !

Peter Suijlekom

Hey Bernth, do you have suggestions for maintaining muscles involved with guitar playing - fingers, shoulders, arms, etc?

Arcanist Bear

Hey Bernth, the tracking app, Habitica has been great to use.

Arcanist Bear

I’m not a English speaker but i wanna tell u how I’m exciting with these advances from u. I started play guitar about 5 or 6 years and I can’t play any entire song, my time to play guitar is very short per day so I’ll try to start practicing 2x15min. Per day like u said. I really wanna see progress in

Wow, a guitar teacher that brings up "Atomic Habits" by James Clear? I finally know that I'm in the right community. Looking forward to make improvements.

Hi Bernth, I´m a new member and I´m trying to follow the tracked practice sessions you recommend but find it a bit time consuming to search for the right exercises and just hope that the ones I picked and printed are the right ones. It would be awesome if you could suggest which exercises to follow or maybe just examples.

your tracked practice sessions 2020 gives out a list of things to practice, but what lessons do I look up to follow along ? sorry im new and dont know where to find them,

adam brungardt

Everything you have said in this makes sense,. I am a new member, I am a rhythm guitaris mainly doing covers of songs but am always seeing ways to improve. I keep track of my hours on a sheet in the kitchen and write the total hours for the day on that sheet. I have been following your youtube videos before I joined Patreon and have a 1 hour as soon as I wake up routine to practice the sweep picking exercise to a mretonome in crotchets/ whole notes increasing tempo by 5bpm each succession til I get till 200. But after wtaching this I will be splitting the hour into 4 chunks of 15 minutes each. Thanks mate. I have a lot of work to do

Stuart Mander

Bernth everything you say makes sense

Paul Dugdale

I am one of those "playing the same scales for years but not really learning anything new" type of players that you mentioned. My difficulty is making myself sit down and practice. It's easy enough to pick up the guitar and plunk at it while I'm sitting on the couch binge watching Netflix, but again that's just running the same scales and noodling around with the same techniques I've always done. The creative spark isn't really there. I have all the equipment I need at my disposal to write and record original compositions, but I just don't feel like my skills are up to PAR to record anything worthwhile. I need that creative push to jump start the writing process.

Ronald Gillespie

Thanks so much for sharing that Jennifer! Yes, I recommend picking 4 blocks/topics in the beginning that you really want to improve (they should serve your greatest goal and vision as a player). Then you can fill the blocks with either one 15-minute exercise, 2x 7-8 minute workouts, or 3x 5-minute workouts. I usually change the exercises every week to keep it exciting and interesting and over time you will definitely find out for yourself which kinds of exercises work best for you (progress will come fast when you are consistent with these sessions). When it comes to picking, I really recommend checking out episode #102 and #85 to get a headstart :)

Bernd Brodträger

Hi Bernth, I'm a new member and I have the same question as the previous post. I feel like I am both stuck in progressing and I don't know what to focus on to progress. You said we should define a practice routine based on the various topics (alternate picking, sweep picking, chord theory, scales, arpeggios, timing, rhythm). Is there a repository of exercises for each of these skills that you mention (alternate picking, sweep picking, chord theory, scales, arpeggios, timing, rhythm)? I am also not sure how to choose the exercises for my particular level. Do I choose new exercises to keep it interesting and challenging? Any guidance on this would be helpful, thank you!

Hey Vivek, thanks for sharing that! When it comes to figuring out the perfect routine, I would start by defining 4 topics you really want to improve (for example alternate picking, sweep picking, chord theory, scales, arpeggios, timing, rhythm,...). As soon as you have that initial list, you can challenge your skills with different exercises every day! You will find a lot of cool workouts on here that will help you with progressing quickly. When you change those blocks at a regular basis and challenge yourself with different exercises/tempos every day, things will never get boring :) Hope that helps!

Bernd Brodträger

Hi..i am an intermediate level player....getting difficulty in assessing self development...not sure whether the acquired skill is good enough and ready for the next level or another skill. Landed up in doing same thing for many months and getting bored..... Please guide

Thanks for sharing! Please let me know how it works out for you in the upcoming weeks :)

Bernd Brodträger

I've been practicing the same stuff.....and almost felt failing in every single practicing. Thank you for your great supporting. I'll follow your suggestion!!

Great to hear Scott, please let me know what you think about the book! It made me look at life a bit different in quite a couple of aspects, organized schedules like that are very effictive for tracking progress :)

Bernd Brodträger

Thanks for the advice. I have a general practice routine that I do each day but I've never broken it down into defined time segments. Also, thanks for the book recommendations. I plan on getting a copy of Atomic Habits this week.

Scott Walden