You may be at a point in your playing, whether you’re a complete beginner or much more experienced player, where you’re just feeling a really powerful sense of frustration. And you may be asking yourself, “does the frustration ever end?”
In fact, I was asked that very question not so long ago from one of my more advanced students. I had presented him with a challenging piece, and he had to navigate both some tricky chord changes and some fairly complex key and mode changes on the fly, and it was a frustrating experience for him, in spite of his advanced skill level.
He asked me, “does the frustration ever end?” And I said to him, “no it doesn’t — but the things that frustrate you will change over time.” What frustrates you today probably won’t frustrate you in 6 months. But so long as you’re continuing to challenge yourself, there will — and there should — be something new to frustrate you.
Speaking for myself, I’ve been playing for 40 years, and there are plenty of things that frustrate me about my own playing. That doesn’t mean I’m a lousy player (hopefully!); it’s just that I’m constantly trying to improve and add new skills. I wish I were a better slide player, for example. There’s always a new challenge to take on, and necessarily that means there’s always something new to be frustrated about.
So, if you’re feeling frustrated, how do you manage your emotions and not let the frustration get out of control? First, you need to have some means by which to measure your progress, and in using that measurement, you have to learn to celebrate the small victories. So, let’s say you’re a beginning level player, and you’re practicing very simple pentatonic scale to a metronome. And let’s say that you’re able to play it pretty accurately just playing quarter notes at 80 beats per minute. Well, if with a couple of weeks of diligent practice you’re able to move the metronome up to 88 beats per minute, that’s a measurable improvement. It may not seem like much, but again, you have to learn to recognize and really appreciate the small victories. There are other ways to kind of measure your progress, depending on where you are. Maybe you just fret an F chord more comfortably, and the sound rings out a little cleaner. Maybe you move between a G chord and a D chord more smoothly. The point is just to be aware of what you’re doing, what challenges you’re facing, and be aware of the subtle improvements that you’re experiencing. And yes, to enjoy those subtle improvements. Learning anything, whether it’s a new language, or a martial art like karate, or anything else, involves not one big breakthrough, but smaller breakthroughs over time. Believe me, there is no A-ha! Eureka! moment. There’s never a momentous breakthrough; again, it’s a series of small victories over time. The second thing I recommend that you do is actually learn to enjoy the *struggle*. That may seem a little strange, because who enjoys being frustrated? But I want you to consider this. What if you could simply “download” a skill, like in the movie, The Matrix? That may sound really exciting. Maybe find yourself wishing, “yeah if only it were that easy.” Actually, the truth is that if it were that easy, it wouldn’t be meaningful, and you wouldn’t enjoy it. If it were that easy, picking up an instrument and playing it would be no more rewarding than going over to your music player and pressing the play button. You might enjoy the sound, but there wouldn’t be any deeper reward . There wouldn’t be any emotional reward.
So, I suggest you think of the struggle, the frustration, as a necessary part of the overall artistic experience. Try embracing the idea that it’s the struggle and the frustration that actually makes it as emotionally rewarding as it is when you do make progress. You think about any kind of art whether it’s music or sculpture or anything like that. Art basically is human beings reaching for something that’s just beyond their fingertips. And if everything is so easily in your grasp, it’s just not meaningful.
And after all, remember the old saying, “if it were easy, then everyone would do it.” So again, the struggle is what makes it all worthwhile — that you can play something, even if it’s something fairly simple, and you can say, “yeah, I did that. I’m playing that. I had to reach beyond myself in order to create that sound.” That’s what makes it all meaningful. So when you’re feeling that bitterness, that frustration, embrace it. It is an absolutely necessary ingredient. It is a necessary component of being an artist.
My last bit of advice is so simple and such a cliche that I’m almost embarrassed to be telling you here, but I’m going to go anyways, and that’s just to be patient. If you have a good, structured curriculum, you’re measuring your progress, whether it’s with a metronome or by some other means, you’re continually challenging yourself with material that is appropriate to your level, then maybe you just need to be a bit patient, and let your skills develop over time. Pretend you’re baking a cake, and you’ve done everything right. You greased the pan, you measured all the ingredients perfectly and you blended them in a mixing bowl very carefully. What do you need to do now? The answer is you need to put the cake batter into the baking dish, and then put the baking dish into the oven, and let it cook for 35 minutes. And no matter how much you beat your head against the wall, no matter how frustrated you are, no matter how many shortcuts you might want to take, the truth is that that cake batter needs to be in the oven for 35 minutes on 375. And you just can’t get around that. So, if you’re doing everything right, following a structured curriculum, practicing consistently, working on level appropriate pieces and exercises, you do need to be patient and allow the process to unfold. And you know, this brings us back to my first point, that you have to enjoy small victories over time. I have a wonderful student who has been with me for several years. He’s 83 years old, and he’s still improving, still challenging himself. He has a saying: “Enjoy where you are on the way to where you’re going.” And that’s true about learning music, it’s true about learning anything, and it’s true about life. So again, when you’re feeling that frustration, there are three things you can do. One, find some way of measuring your progress, and be absolutely sure to enjoy small victories over time. Two, embrace the frustration, and recognize that it is the frustration that makes the whole process meaningful and enjoyable. And three, if you’re doing what you need to be doing, just be patient. Think about that cake in the oven, and like my student and friend Silas says, “enjoy where you are on the way to where you’re going.”
If you’re feeling frustrated with learning guitar, whether you’re a beginner struggling with basic chords or an advanced player working on complex solos, you’re not alone. Many guitarists ask, “Does the frustration ever end?”
The truth is, frustration never completely disappears—it just evolves. The challenges that seem impossible today, whether it’s barre chords, speed picking, or fingerpicking patterns, likely won’t frustrate you six months from now. But as long as you’re pushing yourself, there will always be a new skill to master, a new technique to refine, and a new sound to chase. That’s the nature of learning guitar.
I’ve been playing for 40 years, and I still find areas where I want to improve—whether it’s refining my slide playing, getting more fluid with hybrid picking, or exploring different phrasing ideas. That doesn’t mean I’m not a good player, it just means I’m always growing. The best guitarists never stop learning.
The key is to recognize progress, even when it feels slow. If you’re practicing a scale at 80 BPM and, after a few weeks, you’re playing it at 88 BPM, that’s real improvement. Maybe an F chord rings out cleaner than it did last month, or you switch from G to D with less hesitation. Small wins like these are proof that you’re getting better, even when it doesn’t feel like it.
It also helps to shift how you think about frustration. If learning guitar were easy, everyone would do it. But the struggle is what makes it feel rewarding. There’s a reason why playing a song you worked hard on feels so much better than just pressing play on a music app. The challenge is part of the experience.
Patience is everything. If you’re following a structured practice routine, focusing on material that matches your level, and showing up consistently, the progress will come. It might not happen overnight, but no amount of frustration will change the fact that some things just take time. Think of it like baking a cake—you can measure everything perfectly, mix it right, and preheat the oven, but no matter what, that cake has to bake for 35 minutes. There’s no shortcut.
A student of mine, who’s been with me for years and is now 83, always says, “Enjoy where you are on the way to where you’re going.” That applies to learning guitar just as much as anything else in life. No matter where you are in your playing, frustration isn’t a sign that you’re failing—it’s proof that you’re growing.
I offer guitar lessons in Lake Helen, serving DeLand, Daytona, Deltona, DeBary, Sanford, Orange City, and nearby areas, as well as online. Contact me now for a lesson!