Hello, I recently bought an acoustic guitar, and this is my second attempt at learning to play.

I made some progress, teaching myself basic chords and strumming, but I’m having trouble following sheet music/chord patterns and similar resources. Sometimes, when I’m watching a YouTube video on how to play a song, they don’t provide the strumming pattern or other details.

I’ve only been playing for a month, and I really enjoy it, but I feel like I’m starting to slow down again. I did download a book on how to improve my playing, which I plan to read later today.

I was wondering if anyone had a few resources they’d be willing to share.

Thank you!

  • @abysmalpoptart
    9•18 hours ago

    In my opinion, outside of some specific songs, strumming pattern will end up being your personal touch. You’ll strum in a certain way, and as long as the chord progression is right, it’ll sound correct. More attention will be paid when you’re playing individual notes. The rest is really up to you, and that’s probably going to seem frustrating at first, but it’s really liberating once you’ve been playing for a while.

    My personal recommendation is to learn stairway to heaven by Led Zeppelin in its entirety. There are a lot of unusual chords, barre chords, techniques, etc in that one song. Additionally, you’ll need to either practice hybrid picking or finger picking. When you finally learn it completely, almost any other song will seem easy to learn. I learned it in my first few months playing guitar (20 years ago) and I’m so happy that i did, i still find it pretty easy to pick up most other songs, but also find myself playing it from time to time.