I have been playing guitar for 5 years and I really suck in my opinion even though others think I'm pretty good on guitar but mainly songwriting. I can't play any of my favourite songs still and it really makes me want to quit because that is surely one reason to play guitar to be able to play your favourite songs. I'm making steps towards becoming better by 1st joining this awesome resource of lessons and secondly I am having guitar lessons now off of David C Bond off these forums so hopefully he steers me in the right direction. I really want to get faster on guitar to be able to play my favourite songs for example Symphony X songs, Death songs and to be able to solo well.

What I wondered is what solos would you class as building in difficulty between incredibly easy to doable but difficult and if you could give me 10 solos in order of difficulty that are worth learning in popular rock and metal songs. For example Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Derek and the Dominos, Rush etc. I'd be very grateful if you can help me out with this sliding scale of solo difficulty and also if you could tell me what technique lessons help with each song and maybe this can help others improve their soloing.

I am playing guitar for 1 and 1/2 year now and I can play these songs including the solos, a few of them might be too easy for you:

Black Sabbath-Iron Man
Motörhead-Ace Of Spades
Judas Priest-You've got another thing coming
Deep Purple-Smoke on the Water
Iron Maiden-The Trooper
Metallica-Enter Sandman
Pantera-Cowboys from hell
Ozzy Osbourne-Crazy Train
Slayer-Angel Of Death

The first ones are quite easy to master, the last ones are really hard to nail so you can work your way through like I did. Hope this helps.

5 years is too small period to play tunes and solos by Symphony X imho.
When I was playing 5 years...well...I was all around Metallica,Iron Maiden etc,
Symphony X is few steps above if I may say,technique wise.

So just take you time,play/practice something you're comfortable with and enjoy music.
As more you practice,the more you keep pushing towards complex stuff aka X.

Sounds like a challenge.

*Runs off to try and learn some Symphony X*

That's the problem all my favourite music is ridiculous so I gotta build up to it. I love country, jazz fusion, power metal and death metal. Possibly 4 of the hardest genres to play I'd say

I know your pain

I dont think I could play ANYTHING on my iPod

I dont think I could play ANYTHING on my iPod


Of course you can't play anything on your iPod, there are no strings...just kidding! Seriously, you have to relax, 5 years isn't alot of time when playing unless you are a musical prodigy, which most of us aren't. Give it time and practice, you'll get there!

Man, I've only been playing for a few months so I don't think I can help a 5 yr player much. It does sound like from your post that it's become more of a chor/ obsession to play your fav's. I agree with Muris, SX is on a dif level.

The first solo I learned was the intro to Fade to Black. Have sinced learned Star Bangled Banner (with a few touches of my own), Muris' beginner solo lesson although at alot lower tempo on the AP part,and have improvised a few of my own using scales. Songs I know include Dokken's In My Dreams, Seek and Destroy by Metalica, Symphony of Disruction by Megadeth, Life in th Fast Lane by the Eagles. I know pieces of other songs such as the beginning of Crazy Train and a few others.

With my limited Knowledge, I would recomend alot of scale and Alternate picking practice. This is basicaly all I practice anymore. I do give my sessions 15-20 min of Jam time with the video lessons here. THEY ARE Excellent!

Maybe its just the faulty battery

I think it doesn;t help with my practicing. I write songs a lot rather than practice techniques and I sometimes go a week without practicing but when I practice I practice for about 9 or 10 hours.

Haha, I have this problem too, when ever I sit down to learn things I have this inner demon in me that emerges from his corner in the depths of my skull and proclaims;

"You dont need excercises or songs - You've got alternate picking and DROP D - write teh riffz of satan"

Or theres the other inner demon thats called "GMC" that seems to have taken up a lot of my time with its guitar related rediculousness.

My apologies for my rubbish replies, I'm feeling rather overly energetic tonight.

Actually it's great that you love different genres and high-tech music.
You just must have patience,work hard,practice hard and remember,
always try to impress yourself and not somebody else,that's the key.
Don't bother yourself that much with facts like how many years you've been playing etc.
You keep going and don't look back.

This sounds like a classic case of "exam cram syndrome". Sounds to me like part of your problem lies in how you are practicing. Instead of practicing 9-10 hours in one day, break it up to 3 hours for 3 days or 2 hours for 5 days. You may find that you will retain more of what you have practiced without such a long pause between sessions. Just a suggestion.

hey man, don't get down on yourself. I used to feel the exact same way.

"Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded. " - Jimi Hendrix

Even the greats feel this way from time to time.

Remember, guitar is about FUN. Don't take it so serious, try to just enjoy when you play, I find this helped me through all that stuff.

Then more you practice the easier everything gets.
Practice 2 hours a day and build from there.

Good luck man, and don't get down on yourself.

Remember that if you spend your time learning through GMC, you can see the correct way to do things the first time Learning your favorite songs of tab may be ok, but there are so many things you can get wrong with this way or learning IMO.

I would recommend working through some beginner to intermediate solo,exercise and riffing lessons here and you will learn only good habits through watching the instructors!! It may be that even though you have been playing for 5 years you might be lacking in a basic foundation.

For example through GMC I have learnt not only key skills like alternate picking, tapping, sweeping, riffing, hamonics etc but core theory concepts / timeing and music appreciation. I have been with GMC over a year and I have not once tried any of my favorite peices, simply because I feel I gain a much broader skill here than just learning a tune

For example by chooseing a lesson like In the Style of Paul Gilbert just for example sake, i am not only working on multiple skills but it actually helps building my sense of timeing and applying my newly learnt music reading skills in the real world.

So why not choose a few lessons that you can starting laying your foundation blocks with and soon you will be on a steady path to your goals

p.s failing that Im sure David will point you in the right direction hes really awsome

It´s not how many years you played, it´s how many hours

I´m pretty sure any dedicated "newbie" player with a good practice ruitine and good hinters can outplay in a few months a guy that for many years perhaps have tried to play too fast while practicing, without metronome and other stuff that is really helpful. Maby the practice ruitine has been to narrow or maby too wide. I´m not an expert in these things. But I know that even if you put in the hours you will not get so much out of it if you don´t do it fairly right.

So hopefully that might be your case and it might be easy to start doing it right with a few good pointers. But still hard because you might have to change many bad habits which isn´t easy... Good luck man!

The point is, if there is something you want to learn, say Symphony X....do it now, just break it apart, learn small chunks and take it slow. You'll get there in time, and your learning something challenging and something YOU WANT. It'll be good for you.
There's no point in asking for songs or whatever, because learning Master of Puppets won't get you to play any Symphony X. Don't waste your time learning something half-heartedly in the hope it'll get you to your goal. Just do what you want and do it now. You'll reach your goals much faster .

P.S - I went through the same thing. I always asked what I could do to get better so that I could play Strung Out songs etc...then one day I realized....what the hell? it's been 6 months and I STILL don't know any strung out songs....so I thought about it and...guess what? It's cause I wasn't DOING any strung out. So I sat down and did a couple of songs by ear....I stuck with it...and in a matter of maybe 2 weeks....I had an album tabbed...because I picked up on their writing trends, and most of the songs are similar.

DO NOT BE discouraged because something is hard or maybe too hard....it's never too hard...take the effort and time...and do it now
Good luck, cheers!

I agree some with Paul Coutts here. But just because something isn´t what you really want to play doesn´t mean it´s super fun playing it. And playing techniques/genres that´s not really what you want to play may improve your ability to play what you want. Not to mention you get more versitile in your playing! Practice what you want to play real slow, always perfect technique, speed has to come later. And have other songs on the side that you actually can play or is not far away.. and pure techique drills I think will be a good strategy.

Having some cool tunes to play a long too is way more fun then just doing slow licks in front of metronome that doesn´t sound cool at the speed you master.. (for me that is ) And you get some of a music feeling to your playing as well.

you can always simplify those hard solos but also while simplify try to mantain qhat you fell it´s important, what you think it makes those songs sound so good, if you´re good at it even you can "replace" parts and put your own, not all notes have the same importance or are so distintive. The same goes to atack, articulation, timbre, etc. Have fun.
In a mechanical point of view the time is not so important as concentration and good technique (the how to do...) good technique gives you acuracy and relaxation, if you ara playing for 5 years and still don´t have relaxation qhen you play let´s say something you can already play and find "easy", may be you´re doing something wrong and should consult a live teacher. Mechanical easyness and cleaness and less efortlesly as posible doesn´t have to do with the particular difficulty of the piece....if you can play "easy stuff" confortably and flawless you can also do it with more difficult stuff, if it has similar techniques but slower or faster tempos, or challenging phrasing, that´s a attention thing.
For attention thing you should try to focus only on the guitar and the song and how you fell about them....forget the other stuff (work, I´m playing for 5 years, etc) grab your guitar and concentrate about how it feels in your hands, how it sounds in your ear, like an easy ride, then you can play with less disturbing stuff in your mind.

Good points. Can you belive before I joined GMC I only wanted to play like U2's the edge I had never even heard of "shredding". But haveing learnt the ways of the shredder it gives you the technical abilities to try your hand at anything you desire.!

Don't worry about that man! I've been playing for around 6 years and still feel like n00b no matter what people tell me Just practice and enjoy music - just like Muris said! I'm slowly starting to realize that -> you can't only be focused on PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE - well, you can - but make that PRACTICE more of a MUSIC kind of practice. Let it be technical and all but try to work on music at the same time. That way you'll build up your chops and skills and build a cool sounding lick library

That's how i approach my practice now - i play exercises which sound cool so i work on technique and music at the same time Try it - might work for you also!

I have been playing for over 20 years now and I have found that I never feel like I am very good at all. I also find that once I master a song or a technique, I then feel that it must just be an easy song. I think it's a blessing and a curse. This attitude keeps me practicing and improving. I think we are both better than we suspect. Keep at it.

Yeah I wouldn't really feel that bad about not being able to play Symphony X songs, because lets face it: Michael Romeo is an incredible guitar player. He makes anything look easy.