[Closed] I'm crap at guitar

Find someone to play with.

Yeah, not an option 🙂

practice, practice, practice.... have i mention practice already? 😀

no inspiration is a killer though

I am crap at Guitar, I don't practice enough though. I think someone else did mention practice. 10-20 mins 5 days a week if not every day. When I do that I get less crap

Practice what though?

When you pick up your guitar, what do you actually do?

When you pick up your guitar, what do you actually do?

Noodling.

If you want to get any good, practice NOT noodling. Otherwise it's the only thing you'll be any good at.

Either do specific exercises / techniques or play songs.

Don't noodle. It's a luxury for the skilled only and a trap for the crap guitarist.

Learn some new scales, I found that helped me when I was stuck in a rut, or learn some new songs that you like. I'm into doing three (or four if I'm feeling all noodley and that) chord punk versions of pop songs from BITD at the minute. It sort of eggs you on a bit more if you can get something recognisable out of the guitar when you pick it up.

I got Rocksmith 2014 for the xbox 360 to try and spur me on but I found it frustrating- too many bad habits already learned I think!

You should be ashamed, my 8yo is about to take his 2nd grade... 😉

I've been a noodler/part-timer on guitar and bass for years. Basically just playing riffs and tunes that pique my interest/

In that time I've not really had any formal training or study, but all of a sudden stuff is starting to 'click' and my level of ability seems to be getting better despite everything. I suppose years of listening and noodling are eventually paying off as practice!

Warm up playing easy strumming stuff - country, Oasis, folk. Play some things that require a bit more concentration that I know well and then move on to work in progress. If I'm feeling really keen and have time I move onto songs I'm slowly putting together using tabs, music or just listening to the original over and over and playing along.

i get on youtube and try to jam along with things. (not guitar, piano. but still)

there are a couple of sites which will allow you to loop up a section of a youtube vid, and even slow it down (quality is fairly poor on the latter tho) - these can be really handy

I also note down chord progressions in a notebook, and sometimes just try to refer to that instead of a computer to see how far I've come 🙂

How bad are you exactly?

1 Can you play chords and change quickly between them?
2 Can you bust out some Green day or something equally simple using power chords?
3 Can you play barre chords moving higher up the neck?
4 Can you play a couple of funky basslines?
5 What do you enjoy playing?

You Tube and lots of practise.

My son nicked my guitar and would watch Marty Schwartz,then try playing it.
He now just plays by ear and can pick up most tunes pretty quick.

Learn some songs that you like, and practice them. And practice some more. And then a bit more. Finding others to play with makes a huge difference if it is an option. Find songs that will push you beyond your current abilities, and keep practicing them until you can play them well.

Apart from working through Justin guitar lessons of course find some songs you like and find YouTube tutorials for them. Some tutorials are rubbish but some are great and you learn lots of little moves through doing it as well as being fun.

If it's too fast at the moment then there is a piece of software called Transcribe! that will slow down the audio and video as well as allowing you to loop sections. After a while you won't need it but it's great for getting going

I've had a guitar for 28 years and I'm still crap.

I too am crap at guitar but have only myself to blame.....not enough practice. I started lessons, but gave them up as it became clear I was wasting both my money and the teachers time.

I played Piano as a kid, showed some promise and talent but wasn't inspired, preferred to do other things. I stuck with it for a few years before my parents allowed me to give it up - much to my regret now. Anyway, my practice regime when playing the piano was at least 30 mins a day, 50% of the time drills - scales or other drills the teacher set me to do, and 50% of the time practicing a piece of music.

Practice, practice, practice, repetition, repetition, repetition. It is quite tedious so you have to really want to do it. And be patient because getting good takes time.

The problem I have (excuses excuses) is every time I pick up the guitar it's not long till the wife complains about the noise or the kids come over and want to join in, so trying to find some alone time is the most challenging thing.

The problem I have (excuses excuses) is every time I pick up the guitar it's not long till the wife complains about the noise or the kids come over and want to join in, so trying to find some alone time is the most challenging thing.

+1

This is why i am known as Willy One-chord

posting to bookmark, i've had a guitar since 93, had lessons in late 90s. was fairly crap then. Left it in the corner gathering dust since early 2000s, planning to pick up again for last 5 years. Actually have done in the last month or so as my 7 year old has just got himself a guitar obsession. Taught him smoke on teh water, seven nation army and wild thing and he has his first proper lesson tomorrow. i have started playing in the evening, my fingers hurt and i keep making stupid frustrating mistakes. But I can still strum and change quickly between open chords, and i remember the shapes well.

Youtube seems great for tutorials.

ordered some new strings (mine have got to be 20 years old) and lusting after an orange micro terror.

1 Can you play chords and change quickly between them?

Yes, most of them.

2 Can you bust out some Green day or something equally simple using power chords?

Yes.

3 Can you play barre chords moving higher up the neck?

Yes

4 Can you play a couple of funky basslines?

Mmm yeah with a bit of brushing up on bass technique

5 What do you enjoy playing?

Tricky. Anything this side of thrash metal really. That's part of it. If I had a favourite band I'd learn all their songs.

I would quite like to learn how to noodle, tbh, just because. I do learn by listening to songs but noodling is just too quick. I feel like there's structure of which I'm not aware. I had a classical guitar book once and it had studies and drills in certain finger positions.. guess that's what noodlers do.

GuitarPro on PC/Mac/IOS/android is a useful tool

Re amps, my wife got me an Orange Micro Crush which is cool. My main amp though I think is a thing of beauty. Peavey Classic 30, all valve.

my fingers hurt

Embrace the pain, it's just weakness leaving the body! 😀

Embrace the pain if you're intent on suffering carpal tunnel problems, trigger finger... .

If you can make time:

practice with technique in mind for even just 15-20 mins first thing in the morning. This is for repetive things like chord switching, timing, phrases (riffs), arpeggios. You're drilling in muscle memory and applying the discipline/framework of specific tasks.

In the evening, play for fun*. Play along to your favourite songs, play to a drum machine, or just noodle about with curiosity. No pressure, just explore.

At all times, listen very closely to all the sounds you make and be openly critical. If you make a mistake, just keep going and correct it next time around. Stopping when you **** up can lead to indiscipline, though sometimes it's the best thing to do. You'll get a feel for when a 'reset' is the most helpful thing.

Learn to tune your guitar without a tuner and play around with non-standard tuning. Different tunings give you a different perspective and help you out of ruts.

*it should all be fun, even the frustrations!

it's only the tips that hurt. the skin will soon toughen up.

keeping practice to no more than 30 mins, want to try to do it every day, but that's not always possible.

Oh, and stop telling yourself (and others) you're crap. It doesn't really even mean anything. Nobody knows everything; everyone makes mistakes; there's always somebody better; and there's always somebody worse. What makes a good player, to my ears, are players who feel what they're doing and who find a creative way out of their mistakes.

Ahhh, so years ago I used to strum a lot.. y'no the age of 17 and a few mates got together and we formed a band. Modelled ourselves on Rock of the day, Journey, Van Halen, Styx and all sorts of funk.. it was a giggle..

Then I moved away, lost heart in it all and one day someone offered me a,ticket to a classical acoustic/flamenco concert.. turned out it was by Tomatito (famous flamenco guitarist, like you'll have heard from him) so I bought an Alhambra Nylon and flapped and twanged and made my brow furrowed with all the gawd damn practice I did to emulate this ere' flamenco God.
It didn't work, least I thought I sounded like someone chucking a stick at a wire fence.

Fast forward a few years and my quest continued, all be it at a much slower pace and less constructive practice regime. Instead of watching TV or sometimes watching TV I'd pluck and flick and pick, endless arpeggios and chord sequences por graniana, por lavante, por minera and por rondena... and ghah! I was getting bored. So packed it in, lost the will to practice and learn and honestly thought it all a waste of my time.

But no. The end didn't come. I'd grab the neck like I wanted to throttle it, some days I sweat so much and cramp up so bad I barely had the strength to place the guitar back in it's stand. Frustration set in, anger even, cramp mostly and a loss of enthusiasm entailed.

A few years passed, dust settled on the case and one day the case fell over from behind the wardrobe and into my lap. I looked sideways at it, thought I'd get it out to see if it was still in tune (it wasn't) so sat on the floor of the spare room to reacquaint myself with a work of art that is both the instrument and its ability to make noise.

I flick and pick and flap and tap these days to all sorts of music, soul, funk, disco, county and yes flamenco.. because I know that by holding and cherishing my guitar allows me to focus on something that takes me well away from daily life, I enjoy the noise more now than ever. I play to amuse and learn, to progress sequences unknown and link to simple single plucks, and to centre myself.

Research some material you are interested in, some sound or rhythm or artist or style, copy and emulate, rip off and make your own, play to songs and videos and for a few moments just sit with the guitar in your hands and relax.

YouTube is an endless teaching method output. If you can stomach most of the intros and narrative horsecrap the presenters come out with you'll find a teeny bit of something out of the 15mins you endure.

Most recently I've been watching Bass Players (5 and 6 string mainly) and am amazed at what these guys are doing, but once they just plucked and fiddled and got pissed off and sore at just the thought of "practice, practice and more practice"
Adam Nitti.. bit of Jazz 6 string bass..

And for a bit of fun, some basic flamenco techniques

I think it's best to keep up interest in playing by mixing up styles and techniques which sound good to you, no one else just you. But mostly enjoy for relaxation when the bikes are muddy and resting, the kids are asleep or the TV is just so damn dull..

Enjoy..

When you practise chord changes do you move all your fingers at once or lead and follow? It's a formalised means of switching between chords that really drills it home, and embeds muscle memory.

If you want to learn to be creative you need to learn a bit of theory. For example three chord progressions: root, third, fifth and resolve back to root. Then add in the relative minors for breaks /chorus.

Really satisfying jamming you could learn 12 bar blues formula and get your head round pentatonic and minor blues scales. Once those scale shapes are in place all over the neck you'll have great fun fitting licks over backing tracks (some really good ones on YouTube)

Tricky. Anything this side of thrash metal really.

Phrygian mode and a few power chords will have you away nicely-

I watched a few of his videos and found them helpful, my other half not so much... 😆

Then I moved away, lost heart in it all and one day someone offered me a,ticket to a classical acoustic/flamenco concert.. turned out it was by Tomatito (famous flamenco guitarist, like you'll have heard from him) so I bought an Alhambra Nylon and flapped and twanged and made my brow furrowed with all the gawd damn practice I did to emulate this ere' flamenco God.

The father of Las Ketchup, you'll thank me for that.

If you've got the cash, buy an acoustic bass to warm up on as you listen to your fave bands

Or an electric bass, but not as 'immediate' as an acoustic.

Glanced at a recent article on 'musicradar' about slipknot guitarist mick Thomson saying that playing bass guitar is crucial to his skillz.

Listen to as broad a range of music as possible and play along (bass guitar style) as this will help develop your 'ear'.

If you have an audio interface, you _can_ play with others. I made a post about it a while ago, but search for jamtaba. Feel free to PM me if you'd like some setup help. It's essentially online jamming and is great for trying different things.

It used to be hard to learn guitar - you either shelled out for lessons and hoped the teacher was good or bought those utterly useless tab books.

It's so easy now with all the tutorials on youtube, I've been playing for over thirty years but I've probably learnt more in the last 5 of those.

Just look up a song you fancy playing and find a tutorial that sounds about right.

See, you actually know loads already. I'm at a similar point, I downloaded a music theory book last night, just to see what I'm missing out on.

Practice is futile if you don't have the knowledge to start with.

The only time I've come on in leaps and bounds was with lessons. Feels weird to sit down with another human and ask them to show you how to play but if you can bear it, it works.

Oh, and stop telling yourself (and others) you're crap.

This. Some of the best regarded guitarists in the world are "crap" technically.

BB King could make a solo sing using only one or two notes.

Slash is a really sloppy player, it hasn't stopped him.

That thing Bill Bailey did about The Edge when you turn the effects rig off - some (or a lot of) truth in that.

The Ramones were ace.

Slash is a really sloppy player, it hasn't stopped him.

Perhaps he is (strongly disagree) but he's also incredibly dynamic whatever you think of the company he keeps and is as fast as ****

Slash is a really sloppy player, it hasn't stopped him.

Perhaps he is (strongly disagree) but he's also incredibly dynamic whatever you think of the company he keeps and is as fast as ****

So what does everyone think of Slash?

Feels weird to sit down with another human and ask them to show you how to play

Yeah I'm considering it. I'd just say 'you noodle, slowly and I'll watch'

I'm quite musical in general, just not good at any particular instrument. I know how music works in general.

slash: great groove. As for 'sloppy', not a bum note here and spars well with Gibbons. Two of the best.

giantalkali - Member
So what does everyone think of Slash?

Sorry - my phone is older than my dog...

molgrips - it worked for me, might not work for you. I'm borderline autistic and have a hard time dealing with other people unless it's in a learning environment or if I'm working.

@user-removed: it wasn't a diss, I'm a big fan of his. Perhaps if I'd said "loose" rather than "sloppy" it wouldn't have sounded as critical!

edlong, that's exactly why he sounds as good as he does, imho. Much like Hendrix, he just relaxes and makes use of his innate ability to produce something extraordinary.

How long you been playing?

It just taken me the 26 years to get to a level I'm reasonable happy at! 😆

Basically time and perseverance is everything. Learn lots of songs and I'd suggest learning some theory too(massive learning curve on that mind, piano helps alot there, it makes much more sense, once you get it seems simple but it's a long road there to grasp the concepts.)

Much like Hendrix, he just relaxes and makes use of his innate ability to produce something extraordinary

Also idea that Hendrix never knew theory is nonsense too. He may not have known academic names for things but he would have learning all the theory he knew from the songs he learned.

Theory is all about intervals after all at its core. Which is essentially patterns.

It really helps to have a goal to work towards to give your practise a purpose and direction. For me its being able to play solo acoustic fingerstyle folk, blues and pop pieces so my practise is all about learning tunes from tab and videos and learning how to arrange a song by coming up with bass and accompaniment to go with the melody line and figuring out how to do that with three fingers and a thumb (I have the full compliment of thumbs and fingers its just the little finger isn't used for fingerstyle).

I would quite like to learn how to noodle, tbh, just because.

If by noodling you mean improvisation then its like learning a language. You learn words (licks) and then put them together in sentences. For blues it would be learning the pentatonic scale in all its positions then learning licks in all those positions, playing around with those licks to vary them and make them your own then sticking on a backing track and putting them together. That would then give you the basis to move into classic rock improv as well. To go further into stuff like Satriani or Vai you need more theory to be able to use the modes and also technique like legato, sweep picking, tapping etc

The main thing is when you have worked out what you need to practise then its consistency. Play every day if you can and depending on what standard you want to achieve bank on it taking at least a couple of years before starting to be happy with what you are playing. Progress happens very slowly so you have to stick at it and trust you will get better. Its a marathon not a sprint. Also record yourself. That's a humbling experience to start with but it will highlight any deficiencies in your playing a lot of which you don't hear when you are actually playing. Then a few months later have a listen to those recordings, compare them with your current recordings and I guarantee you'll be surprised how much you've improved.

I first got a guitar when I was 15 so been 'learning' quite a while 🙂

I know a bit of theory already. I know my way round the blues scale of course, as anyone who listens should to, but what impresses me is those guitarists who can move between scales and keys and make it part of the music.

head over to reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/ is an excellent forum. start to get to know the modes.

If by noodling you mean improvisation

Not quite what I meant by it when I said it originally

I was more talking about the casual pissing about playing a bit of this and a bit of that instead of concentrating on a firm goal that lots of people tend to do.

I know my way round the blues scale of course, as anyone who listens should

Sounds like you're quite the dandyman and not the n00b you initially claimed. Get thee to a music teacher!

Sounds like I'm about as crap at guitar as you. Here's what I have learnt in the last year of taking it up again after a long lay off.
There's messing about and there's practice.
Messing about has value e.g. playing songs you learnt a while ago, strumming chords, pentatonic noodling, etc.
Practice is different - it has discipline and intention e.g. scales to a metronome, new scales, new licks, new chords and inversions, theory. It can sound boring and mechanical, but all the You Tubers (and players) I admire have this at their core. It's how to get better.
I'm not there yet by a long way.

Also since you mention the blues scale, are you just randomly playing the blues scale and that's it, or are you thinking in chords, ie target notes and tension notes? the blues scale starts to come more alive when you think in those terms rather than just endlessly noodling without direction. You can play outside the blues scale, thinking about the variable 3rd in particular on the chords.. helps if you can think of chords in terms of 1,3,5 major, 1,b3,5 minor 1,3,5,b7 dom7 etc etc etc.

Sounds like you can play to be honest (unlike me!). I find Justinguitar excellent and he caters for all levels.

TS

It used to be hard to learn guitar - you either shelled out for lessons and hoped the teacher was good or bought those utterly useless tab books.

It's so easy now with all the tutorials on youtube, I've been playing for over thirty years but I've probably learnt more in the last 5 of those.

Just look up a song you fancy playing and find a tutorial that sounds about right.

Init! I'm self taught pretty much, which means I had a really ignorant teacher. Learnt a few chords from a folk songs book with my sister's nicked nylon string. After a few months realised that an E chord moved up a fret became an F - musical theory right there! - and left the ground playing with mates and annoying the neighbours.

But learning a bit of jazz meant working out chords and riffs by ear from Louis bleedin' Armstrong records. Kids today, including those of us well through middle age, don't know we're born.

or are you thinking in chords, ie target notes and tension notes?

Not sure what you mean, but I do try to change it around.

Biggest problem is my fingers, they just want to do what they always do, not what I want them to do. I think I just need scales and drills.

I mean your solos need to follow the chords, chords tones aren't the only thing you should play, but they are crucial to build your solos around so they are sounding like they are following the harmony.

Do you know what a root note is? Do you know the major scale?(learn this if not, everything is based of it.) do you know how chords are built? do your know chord arpeggios? extended chords etc?

(just giving you things to google here btw. You sound like you are ripe for learning some proper theory, spend a lot of time on that forum I linked.)

That solo with Gibbons and Slash is an example of target notes. The song goes from the key of A to the key of C as the solo starts. To start the solo you bend to C on the 11th fret of the B string and hold, you then run down to the pentatonic to C - 10th fret D string. after that there are the forward and back slides, finishing on C each time - get the idea, on each part of the lick you target C.

From personal experience. I find these computer based interfaces, libraries and multi effects units pretty crap from a learning point of view. I have found a good amp set up not to loud with a touch of reverb and delay and a good loop pedal. This way you get to learn what chord progressions work well with simple licks and runs. Pedals are always the way to go. A small pedal board set up makes playing a lot more fun. Easier to find your favourite tones. I have a Boss ME25 multi effects unit, never use it still in the box.

Or a modelling amp which will have the most popular pedals. Junior hasn't used a guitar pedal since I bought him a Mustang IV head.

I'm a vote for abelton live (recording and a whole lot more) + scuffham s-gear. (amp sim) tremendous! 🙂

Firslty @mols you are materially less crap than me. Based upon your posts sounds like you have your bad habits well practiced (something a golf teacher told me once, I had really practiced my faults and perfected them). You do sound like you need some inspiration and some new practice drills and dare I say it some well taught lessons. Are there Guitar workshops you can go to to practice / jam in company ?

I think Jam is right (for a change).

Do you know what a root note is? Do you know the major scale?(learn this if not, everything is based of it.) do you know how chords are built? do your know chord arpeggios? extended chords etc?

Answer yes to those. Thing is, I don't read anything guitar or music related so I don't know the terms for most of this stuff, but I do understand it.

From personal experience. I find these computer based interfaces, libraries and multi effects units pretty crap from a learning point of view.

The only reason for the computer is to stand in for bandmates I don't have. Having a drum loop, and optionally recording a bass line over it really forces my fingers to play properly, and to press on when I make a mistake. The ready-made drum loops are also inspiration for style.

Listening to lots of different types of music and musicians, I often think "damn, I wish I could play guitar/bass like [insert name here], I've even got a nice Sigma acoustic I bought forty-something years ago, and a JHS Rickenbacker copy; what I realised after a while is that, no matter how many hours I sat and plodded away, all it would achieve is a kind of instrumental karaoke, I don't have a creative bone in my body, and I'd rather invest the time listening to people who can create music that lifts my soul.
And I never have enough time to listen to the music I already have, let alone the new stuff I keep discovering!
😀

I'd go onto eBay and buy a shubb capo.
There's copies available for a couple of quid.

Place the capo behind the second fret and tune back to regular pitch across all six strings, so that you end up with EADGBE.

With the shorter scale length, it will be much easier to stretch for chords and much easier to press down on the strings.

It'll prolly feel like cheating!

Do you really though? As you didn't know what I meant by target notes, that's a fairly fundamental concept to understanding.

btw you don't need to know how to read music to know theory, i only read a wee bit. (incidentally I'm not claiming to be a know all here, far from it, I've just had some eureka moments over the last years, so I'm quite keen on it! millions and million still to learn!)

Lets test you a bit. Off the top of your head, if i'm play a Dm chord, what can you play over the top of it, and what are the target notes?

Also, as for practice, yes it if you are having trouble with the mechanics of the guitar and your fingers. Then that's just practising different things, all the time, mix it up, that's just time and experience. Forget about 20 minutes per day though, play until you fingers hurt, not so much that you cause yourself injury, but play for hours on end every day. When you are too fatigued, take a week off. (Again I ain't claiming no guitar god status, far from it! well aware of my deficiencies! We all think we are crap, but it's relative! 🙂 )

As for what to practice, here's a start

rick beato is a gold mine of information, fairly advanced though. He's hundred of videos that'll keep you going.

btw this is probably a bit OT, but these are well worth watching 6 of them.

As you didn't know what I meant by target notes

I might understand the concept, but I just don't know that name for it.

Well if you get it you now know the name for it. Canny speak Spanish if you don't know the words! 😉

But theory is more than names mind it's a map of compositional (or noodling) possibilities.

Dm chord

There's a Dm chord in Thunder road which is in the key of F. So logically I'll put my little finger on F on the E chord to find the first position pentatonic.

*picks up guitar and noodles over Thunder road* - that works, first position pentatonic with index on 10th pinky on 13th.

There's an F in the Dm chord too so targeting F when I'm playing the Dm in Thunder road seems a safe bet.

*noodles some more to Thunder road*

F works, the D sounds pretty good too as this is Dm.

Over the song as a whole C seems a good point to turn around.

So I'll go with F, D and ( C ).

Well teacher ? 😉

I've just started to learn the guitar as one of those bucket list things.
Rocksmith has been ok but I don't think it's really an aid to actually learning but fun to mess about with. I have found Youtube the most helpful some of the posters really break stuff down. I doubt i'll ever be any good but it's something to do on rainy days.

Teacher 😆

Well the target notes are DFA for the main chord, ie the chord tones. But all 12 notes are always available at all times, you're only ever a half step away from some sort of resolution, if you play a "wrong" note in a sense. (No such thing as a wrong note, just wrongly implemented!). Passing notes are always available.

You can think of it many ways, having just the 1 chord playing under opens this up tremendously(Even more so if you omit the 3rd and just play D5, that'll open up the major side of things too). You can essentially play anything you like, depending on the flavour you are after.

You can think in terms of the upper chord extentions, so basically any chord that contains DFA will work. There are loads of possibilities here, I'm not even going to start listing them! 😆 But say my intention is to get the sound of a certain chord then you should be emphasising which ever chord tones above that too, again you aren't just limited to the chord tones, but you want to be resolving to then. If other instruments are heavy on one note, say the root, you can omit this from your playing, jazzists do that all the time, particularly the root.

With pentatonics Dm Pentatonic that you you can play DFGAC, you can also play for exmple the Am pentatonic, that contains 2 notes D and A, so you can include the 3rd too from the main chord, D [u]F[/u] A C E G, That'll give you a Dm9/11 flavour.

You can think in terms of modes, so there you have D natural minor(Aeolian) - D E F G A Bb C, D Dorian - D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, D Phrygian - D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C, D, D Harmonic minor - D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#, D Dorian #4(4th mode of harmonic minor) - D E F G# A B C. D melodic minor - D E F G A B C# D, D dorian b2 (2nd mode of the melodic minor) - D, Eb, F, G, A, B, C, D... And essentially what ever other mode or scale contains the notes D, F & A.

With modes you can easily mix and match, which is mode mixture/modal interchange. It's just ways of organising the 12 tones in your brain.

Thing is this only works over a single chord, when you start introducing other chords, then it forces you into keys and the likes, and starts to limit your choices(which is what composition is, making choices), unless you want to deliberately jar odd keys against each other(then crack on nothing wrong with that if that's what you are after).

Anyhow, this is just a rough overview of how I see things and terms I try to think in (I emphasise the word [b]try[/b] there 😆 , I've obviously got the bits that I prefer to use and [b]I'm still very much learning[/b]!)

The possibilities are wild tbh. But the chords you play dictate what you can and can't play. It all depends on the flavour you are after.

Hm.. That's very theory heavy.

I don't know that much theory, so I think in terms of shapes. For a given chord shape, you add a finger here, it sounds like this, a finger there it sounds like that. So when playing, I want to hear this sound, or that sound, then I put my finger here and here. From what I can tell, it seems like 90% of guitarists do the same thing. But it's the 10% that don't that are of interest.

Wondering if seosamh77 started on the piano?

that works, first position pentatonic with index on 10th pinky on 13th.

Wait.. I thought if your index finger is on 10 then it's 10th position?

Only really started thinking in terms on notes when I started learning the piano 6 months ago as it works differently and the shapes don't work quite the same way.

On the guitar I generally think in terms of shapes, but the shapes are numbered and named, based of the major scale.

Ie I think of the major scale as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. I think of major pentatonic as 1,2,3,5,6. I think of minor pentatonic as 1,b3,4,5,b7 etc etc. I think of Dorian as 1,2,b3,4,5,6,b7. That's what is ment when I say everything is based of the major scale.

Things really start to make sense when you number them and understand how that works.

that works, first position pentatonic with index on 10th pinky on 13th.

Wait.. I thought if your index finger is on 10 then it's 10th position?

Yes, but no. I think in this case the poster meant pentatonic box/shape 1 at the 10th fret.

edit- I just found this-

It's a bit Comic Book Guy but still watchable and learnable from.

Your fifth paragraph is about where my brain and ears fail to relate theory to practice at present.

Thing is that's only really thinking in terms of notes, when you start thinking in terms of chords on the modes that's where the biggest benefit comes imo, ie when you can relate the chords under to the notes.

ie base chords are: (there are more)

C Major - CMaj7, Dm7, Em7, FMaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5
C Dorian - Cm7, Dm7, Ebmaj7, F7, Gm7, Am7b5, BbMaj7 (same as Bb, but that's what modes are, changing the tonal centre of keys.)
etc etc.

I should have said pentatonic shape/box, Molgrips, as kayala realised. So DFGAC starting with D on 10th fret of E string. There are five pentatonic shapes and the first one starting on the low E at the 10th fret is 10-13, 10-12, 10-12, 10-12, 10-13, 10-13.

Try it on Thunder Road through the first half of the song as seosamh77 raised the Dm thing..

Edit: Most of the songs I play and sing only need four or five chords and variants thereof, seoamamh77