Learn to Play Guitar in 2026 - My TOP Tips for New Year's Success!

All right, let's see if you can hear me. Yes. Okay. For some reason, when I turned my microphone on, it was not giving me video. I don't know. It's kind of weird. We think New Year, new difficulties. Happy New Year from Boston. Hello, Jeff. I'm. I'm near Boston right now myself, so just outside of Boston. So welcome, welcome. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, student. Trying to learn. And I found your videos. They've inspired me to keep going. That's awesome. And that's what I hope to do today on this live session. So if you're joining me this morning, it's morning here in New England. So if you're joining me today, hopefully this session is going to get you inspired to stick with your guitar playing throughout the year, because there I am. Yep, I'm here, Rob. So this the hardest thing about anything in the new year. You know, it's the new year. We're all making goals. We're all trying to be like, okay, this is it. This is the year. I'm gonna make the life change. I'm gonna do this. Holland in the house. Hello, Holland. Must be early evening for you guys over there. You know, we get into these things where we're just like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna lose weight. I'm gonna learn guitar. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna learn how to sing and do all these wonderful things. I'm gonna learn to speak another language. And. And then we get one or, you know, two months into our process and it all falls apart. Okay. It's kind of like when everyone makes all their, their weight loss goals for the New Year's. You know, the gym, if you're someone that goes to the gym, the gym is very, very busy in January and February. And then like by the end of February, by the time we get to March, the gym's empty again. Because it's the people who really weren't committed to, to making that change. Because change, unfortunately takes time. And it usually takes more time than we want it to, unfortunately. But where the real payoffs are, are inconsistency. Okay, so I, I wrote down some notes here on, on a pad of paper that I wanted to share with you. These are things that I used to share with my students in person. There's some things that I share with students in my seven level system or if you're in my private community, which just as a note, the private community is open this month. So if you go to Lauren Bateman, guitar.com forward/ Fellowship, I think enrollment opened up on January 1st. So we have a private community where I'm there and I do lives like this and we participate. So if you're interested in joining a guitar community, I do have one and it's open right now. So the first thing on my list here is, right things down. Okay? So the first thing you're going to write your goals. Okay? So this is going to be in relation to guitar, but it can apply to literally anything you want to do this year. Okay, so what I want you to do is I want you to write down five goals. And that's what everyone usually does, but they don't do this next step. All right, so they write down the goals and they're like, great, I'm going to do X, I'm going to do Y, I'm going to do Z. But they don't write down what the reward is for accomplishing that goal. Because there should be a reward at the end. If we, if we complete and accomplish something, there should be an award. And as someone who's an entrepreneur, I, in my early years, I was very, very guilty of just setting a goal, blowing through it, and moving on to the next goal. Okay. Kind of like if you're a type A high achiever like me, you set goals, you hit them, and then you're like, cool, I hit the goal. What's the next thing? We don't take a second to reflect and appreciate the work that went into doing that. So if you're someone who's trying to play a clean C chord, if, like one of your goals this year is, I want to play a C chord without any muted strings, you and I know that that could take weeks, it could take months. It depends on your hand, your strength, your flexibility. There's so many things that go into making a C chord sound beautiful. And, you know, it takes some time. So when you finally play that clean C chord, you should have some type of award that goes with it. So, you know, I wrote down a couple examples here. So I had someone who was like, oh, I just completed your seven level guitar system. So the seven level guitar system is my beginner, my step by step beginner guitar program. So some students, a goal or a reward for completing that is they buy themselves a new guitar. Because it takes time to get through that system. Because it is. It's a lot of lessons. There's seven levels and you take your time to go through it, and it's a big achievement when you complete it. So something big like that, you should Have a big reward and it doesn't have to be a new guitar. Maybe you're going to go on like a special vacation for yourself. So those are things I do when I hit goals in my business. Sometimes they'll be like, hey, we're going to take a break and we're going to go on, on a vacation. Okay. We work so hard. There's the reward. We're going to go on vacation. Or sometimes we'll go out to one of our favorite restaurants. We have a couple select restaurants that we like to go to that are a little bit more on, on the expensive side. But we only eat there like once or twice a year. And those are saved for really special occasions, you know, anniversaries, birthdays, but also for rewards. Okay. Or you know, if you're someone like me, I do like wine. Maybe, maybe it's a nicer bottle of wine. So maybe I'm not going to buy, you know, a ten or fifteen dollar bottle of wine. Maybe I'm going to splurge and maybe get like a thirty or forty dollar bottle of wine, you know, something a little bit nicer that I wouldn't typically, wouldn't typically buy. Okay. So I'm a big fan of Italian red wines. I love Barolos and Brunello's and those are not cheap. So you do not drink those all the time. I just drink them on very, very special occasions and I use them as like a reward for myself. So I don't do it all the time, but if I did something great, I'm going to treat myself. So that is an important thing. Write down your goals but also write the reward that goes with completing that goal. And the bigger the goal, the bigger the reward. Okay. So the reward should match the level of effort that goes into that. Oh, we got some other people. I got Pakistan in the house. Hello, North Carolina. What can I do to use another way to play a C chord? Yeah, I can't play it because of, I probably wanted the string. So I do have a two finger C chord. I'll show you that after I go through my list here. I will take some questions at the end of this. So maybe we'll, I'll make a note, we'll come back to that other C option. There's a few. And that's the thing, you know, if you're having trouble with something. Sometimes asking a teacher like what else can I do? Is there alternative to this? Is there something easier I can do until I can get to the point where I can play the full C chord. The answer is yes. There's always. Yes. There's always ways to make things easier. There's always ways to make things harder. If you need a harder C chord, I can give you that too. So that was number one. Write down your five goals and then write down the five rewards that are going to go with that. So maybe it's, I'm going to play it my first open mic or I'm going to learn 12 songs this year, one song a month. Okay? Whatever your goal is, write it down. Write the reward that goes with it. Number two is be realistic. Okay. As I said earlier, it's things take time. And this is why, you know, going back to that example of the gym, when you go to the gym, January, February, it's packed. By the time we get to March, it's empty. Same thing happens with learning guitar. It's like, January, February, everyone's, like, really pumped. And then we get to March, and they're like, oh, this is hard. Or this is work. It takes effort. Okay? And I work with. I work with a lot of older adults. So most of my students are probably over the age of 50. I do have younger students too. My age, I have people in their 30s and 40s as well. But the majority of my students are probably over the age of 50. A lot of people in their 60s, a lot of people in their 70s. And I know you guys have a really good outlook on life. You guys are not afraid of hard work. But we get into learning the guitar and we're like, man, it gets hard and we start questioning like, can I do this? Can I do this? So I just want you to have realistic expectations that in 90 days, even if you take my seven level guitar system, in 90 days, you are going to make a lot of progress. You are going to accomplish a lot of things. You'll probably even be playing your first songs. Okay? They're going to be simplified versions of songs, but you will be able to play real music in the next 90 days. That is a very realistic goal. I was able to do it in the first lesson with Stu when I would teach in person. My first lesson was to get them to play a song by the end of the first lesson. I did it. Every single lesson. Never failed. I never had one person who could not play a song by the end of their first lesson with me. The reason I did that is because I know if you believe you can do it, you will follow through with it. Okay? So the expectation is in the first 90 days, you are not going to be Eric Clapton. You are not going to be Steve Vaugh. You are not going to be an Ing Day Malmsteen. All right? You're not going to be BB king in 90 days. It's just, it's impossible. The amount of time it takes to get to that level is really years, okay, for to play at those master levels. But over the course of a year, you should make a lot of progress. You should be able to play lots of songs. I have one student, he took lessons for about a year and I think he played like 20 songs. He was like, I learned 20 songs this year. He's like, I couldn't even play one song. So there are realistic goals that you can set for yourself. Okay. It's just like, again, let's use the gym. Okay? If I go to the gym tomorrow and I'm like, I'm going to do 100 push ups, I'd probably fail. I could probably do maybe 100 if I took a lot of breaks. But if I was like, I'm going to do 100 in a row without stopping. That would not be realistic. That would not be realistic. But if I was like, hey, in 90 days I'm going to try and do 20 push ups like on my knees without stopping, that's realistic. That's a very realistic goal. I could probably do that right now, but it's a realistic goal and you can then work your way up. So make sure when you're setting your goals that they are not so far in advance because then you have this real. It's great to have long term goals, but if your goal is too long term and you don't have little stepping stones along the way, you get frustrated. You really get frustrated. And it's really the frustration that makes you quit. It's the frustration that makes you stop. What do you think about scale patterns? Scale patterns are great. That would be a great goal. I want to learn in the next 90 days. This would be a good goal. If you're interested in learning scale patterns in the next 90 days, I want to learn all five pentatonic scale positions. Totally doable in 90 days. Okay. If you. You could probably, depending on how much you practice, you could. If you were getting into modes, you know, you could learn all seven modes in 90 days. I've done that. I've done it in a month. But it just again depends on how much time you practice. So again, you have to put that into the reality of your goals. If you're practicing one day a week, if you're practicing every day. You'll be able to accomplish more if you're practicing three or four times a week. That's what I usually Recommend to people 3 or 4 times a week. If you can do that fairly consist you will make progress every week. But if you're just practicing once or twice a week, the progress is really, really slow. You'll make twice as much progress three or four times a week. Okay, so that would be an example of a goal for scales. Could you learn all five pentatonic positions in 90 days? Absolutely. That would be a great goal. Okay, forget the C chord. The F chord is my nemesis. That could be a goal. That could be a great goal. And we'll talk about how you can work through that. So let me. I'm going to write down F chord, chord, goal. I'll talk about that at the end. Number three, track progress. This is super important because we often forget where we start. This is one of the first things I tell students when we learn our first song and my seven level guitar system. I tell students, you should record yourself playing this song. Okay. And. And you don't have to share it with anyone. It's not. If you want to share it with the community, awesome. Go share it with the community. Get some, you know, well wishes and congratulations and motivation. But you don't to share it with anyone. It's for you. It's for your record. Because what I want you to do is you're going to save this video because when you're frustrated three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now, you're going to come back to this video and watch it and you're actually going to see how far you've come. This is why in my 7 level guitar system, and probably some of the videos you've seen here on YouTube, I'm obsessed with the metronome. And I'm picking up my phone because my metronome is on my phone. But the metronome is just a scorecard, okay? It's just a scorecard. I always remember one of my business mentors was like, your bank account is just a scorecard of how well you're doing, all right? How well your business is going. So your metronome is just a scorecard of how well things are going. So in my seven level guitar system, you know, we do strumming patterns, we do chord changes, we kind of do everything to a metronome. Because if you don't have a measure, how do you know if you're getting better or if you're getting worse because some people are like, I don't know if I'm making progress, but if you're writing your metronome speed. So say you're doing chord changes and you start off at 30 beats per minute. Okay. The first week, students came into my studio. First thing we did, I teach them some chords. We would write down their chord changes, and usually they were pretty low. Okay. So in a minute, maybe they could do 15, 16. 16 people who had a little bit more finger dexterity maybe could get into their 20s. Very, very few people I knew could get into their 30s the first week. Very, very few. So most people were in their teens or twenties when they were starting. And then I'd say, great, we're going to write all these down for all the different chord changes. C to G, G to D, E minor to C, E minor to G. Okay. And when you come back next week, we're going to do it again. And then the next week they would come in and maybe they would be in the 30s the next week. Or maybe all of them now are in their 20s. We didn't have teens anymore. And. And that doesn't sound impressive because, you know, if you're in my seven level guitar system, you know that my goals are much higher than 20 or 30. We're trying to get to 68,100. Okay. So it's still a long way to go. But you can look at the number and you're like, oh, I was at 17 last week. I'm at 27 this week. It's not where I want to be, but it's better. It's better than last week. So it's a visual of the progress you're making. Now. I want to make a note because sometimes, and this is everything in life, we do hit plateaus in our training where sometimes. And for a lot of my students, that tends to be the 60 to 80 bpm range, especially on that C to G chord change. I know you. I see you guys. I see you. You know, that is what can be a plateau point for some people that they're. They, they tell me in the community, they're like, lauren, all my other chords are in like the 80s. But it's like this one chord change and it's usually like C to G or like C to D or something like that. It's always something with the C chord. And they're like, I can't get past 60. I'm like stuck at 55. And there's some tricks that I teach people to try to push that. But sometimes there's a plateau point, and it's going to take some time. It's going to take some training and some experience for your hands and stuff to relax enough to get through that point. So sometimes if you don't see that number going up quickly anymore, it just means you might have reached a plateau point and you need to move on and then come back. Okay. Because your hands, to get faster on the guitar, you have to relax. And if you're not relaxed, you cannot force yourself to go faster. So sometimes it just takes experience with the instrument for you to relax enough to actually go faster. Okay, so just a note on tracking progress. So write down metronome speeds. So you should have a journal. Write down your metronome speeds and record yourself. That recording is going to be invaluable to you down the road. Trust me. Trust me. I used to do my singing students as well. I was a voice teacher as well when I taught at my music school, and I used to keep recordings, and I would say, hey, we do a song, you know? And they had a song that was really, really hard. And I say, hey, let's go back to that song that was really hard, and let's try singing it again. And then they would sing it, and they'd be like, oh, my God, this was so much easier than the first time I did it. And you can do that with songs, too. Go back to a song that was hard three or four months ago, Try playing it again today, and you're going, oh, my God, this was so much easier than the first time I learned it. It's because you. It's proof that you have gotten better and that you should keep going. Do not give up. You need to keep going, okay? Because if you quit, you will never reach your goal, all right? That is a certainty. If you quit, you will never reach your goal. And number four is to keep things fun, all right? When we are practicing, one third of your practice should be working on kind of review. Review of old concepts, okay? So you learned your chords. Now you're just trying to get them up to speed, all right? A third of your practice should be getting out of your comfort zone, learning something new or trying maybe a song that's more difficult than you can play. Okay? And then a third should be having fun, all right? A song that's super easy. You know, you can nail it. You can do it. It's fun. You enjoy it. This happens a lot with my students is they get stuck practicing the old stuff, and they're Trying to learn the new stuff, which is frustrating because whenever you push yourself out of your comfort zone to do something new, it gets frustrating because it's hard. It's not as easy as the stuff you've been working on, right? So you get frustrated, and frustration, as I said, makes you quit. So a lot of my students, they forget the fun part. They get so stuck in doing the chord changes and the scales and the hand warmups or whatever you're working on, they forget to have fun. And whenever I had students come into my personal studio, I could tell I had a very good measure on my students only because I would check in with them a lot, and I had a student or I had a few students where I could tell they were getting frustrated. And I'd say, hey, you know what? You know, we're going to do the next couple weeks, we're just going to go back to old stuff, and let's just go back and review some of the stuff we've. We've learned. Let's take some of the pressure off of you and have fun again. Let's enjoy the instrument for a couple weeks. Maybe we can learn some new skills. Maybe we can apply some more advanced techniques to these songs than we did the first time we learned them. But let's just have fun, fun for the next couple weeks. And sometimes I would do that with the student. We'd take even a whole month, and we would just have fun. And then they'd be like, okay, I'm ready again. I'm ready to get back into it and ready to get to the grind and work through the hard stuff. Okay? Because if you're constantly doing hard stuff, constantly, you feel like you're not getting anywhere. And again, that's when people quit. You stop. You stop when you feel like you're not making progress. Why do people stop make going to the gym? Because they learn. They lose those first 5, 10, 15 pounds very quickly. And then they hit a plateau and it becomes hard, and they're like, this is not working anymore. And then they quit. Okay. Same thing happens with guitar. I made a lot of progress. Okay? I learned some chords, I play some songs. Now I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I must not be good enough to get to the next stage. And it's not that you're not good enough to get to the next stage. You just haven't spent enough time where you are to get to that next level. So that's super important. So a couple questions here. So someone asks other C options. Okay. Other C options. There are many, many other C options. 1. Now the best sounding is the one with the most fingers. So your three three fingered C chord. There's also the two fingered C chord if you just play the bottom four strings. Okay, let me. So I got my first finger on the B string first fret. My second finger on the D string second fret. The other is just your first finger on the B string first fret. And you play those bottom three strings. That's a C chord. The reason it's a C chord, if you just got out of my music theory intensive, you know, it's a C chord because it has a C note, an E note and a G note, which makes it a C chord. So those are three options. We've got C, you know, C. We've got this C and we got this C. Okay. We've also got C, add 9. We've got a C major bar chord. If you want to make it hard, we can also play a C major. I mean, I'm trying to get out of the way of the microphone up here. Okay. You can play C's all over the guitar, but those are some, some different options. And then F chord. If, if one of your goals this year, I'm going to move this over so you can see my first three frets. If one of your goals this year is to play the F chord, you're like, I'm going to conquer bar chords this year. Okay? The first step, I always tell people, learn power chords first. Why? Because a power chord, if I play up here looks, my hand looks. So I'm gonna play an F power chord. Now here's an F bar chord, okay? And a power chord is half of a bar chord. So one, the first half is just to get comfortable with the position. Okay? So this, you know, because a big stretch for people is this first to third finger. They're not used to doing this and it needs time to stretch out. So by starting power chords, you can work on that. You can do it with just your third finger. First and third. I like doing my third and fourth only because I feel like it takes some pressure off, okay. Plus it also gets me ready for doing bar chords. Okay? So start with power chords. Now the F is the hardest bar chord to play. And the reason for that is because of this nut up here. This is the tightest tension point on your strings, okay? So your first fret needs the most strength to press down. And we're trying to play three strings at the same time. So that can be very difficult so what you can do is you can move to the middle of the guitar and practice the F shape. So I'm playing a B major bar chord. So this is the three fifths. Seventh fret. That is B major. Yep, seventh fret. My coffee's kicking in. Okay, so play here and then work. Work your way down to the F. You need to build enough strength. There is a strength component to learning bar chords. People don't understand that. Okay. So that's one way to work on that. And you know, it could take you three months to play a clean F bar chord. It really can. I don't. I wish I could remember how long it took. I do remember first times playing bar chords, and they were horrible. I think it took me a very long time and I was doing this all on my own without help, so I was probably making a million mistakes. But you can do it. You can do it. It's just having a process. Yeah. Someone says, I like the second C chord. Awesome. You can play Sweet Child of Mine. That's awesome. That is a great song. You started July 9th after watching my videos. Look at that. So July 9th. So what's that? Five months and you're playing a really, really cool song. That's awesome. See, that's a realistic goal. In five months, I want to be able to play Sweet Child of Mine. Now can you play the guitar solos like Slash? Maybe not because those require a little bit more level of difficulty, but to strum and play that song is absolutely doable. Great job on that. John says great and positive energy. But playing one year, awesome. Congratulations on making it to the one year mark. A lot of people don't get there. That's really impressive. Primarily with tabs and can play dozens of tunes. I play early morning after my workout schedule. Love it. And the guitar is like early morning reward. Age 74. Thanks, John, for saying that. So, yeah, John brings up an important point. Having a schedule so he works out and after his workout he plays guitar. All right, you get into a routine, build that schedule for when you're going to practice or you won't. It's the same with working out. John knows you have to schedule your workout. It's an. It's a non negotiable. Okay. It's a non negotiable. You have to do it and then you can move on with the rest of your day. And early morning is the best, even for me because I find during the day people start calling me. Stuff starts coming up. It makes, you know, things get in the way. Later in the day. So do it early. Early in the morning. Someone said he can't play a song in 20 years. Tell him to play oh Horse with no Name. It only has two chords. Yes. Yeah. Great. Beginner songs. If you, if you have been trying to play the guitar for years and you cannot play a song yet, go to laurenbateman.com crashcourse go sign up for my crash course. All right. If you do those lessons and you do them as prescribed, I guarantee you in 14 days you will play your first song. All right? Another great song is Eleanor Rigby or by the Beatles. It's a little faster. The chord changes are a little bit quick. But it only uses two chords, E minor and C. And I show you a very easy way to transition between E minor and C using my pivot method that I teach in my seven level system and I teach it in the crash course. So if you, if you are stuck, you're like, Lauren, I don't. I wish I had a system, you know? And you don't want to go and buy the seven level system right off the bat. Go check out my crash course. LaurenBateman.com forward/crash course. Okay. All one word, no hyphens, no nothing. And you will be able to play a song by the end of that crash course, I promise. Yeah. Oh yeah. Keith. Hey, Keith. I just emailed you this morning. Just finished the intensive theory 102, ready to dedicate. Practicing and finishing the seven level. Keith, I really hope you do. I really hope you do. Thanks for being here this morning. Appreciate it. Just going back and seeing if I see some other questions here. Oh, awesome. Thanks. You. Yeah, Mike said try seat nine. So C add nine is like that. Stuck like glue. It's like a four finger. There is a three finger one too. So there's so many different ways you can play different chords. Yeah. So that answers the C chord question. Three months for me using Creep by Radiohead for bar chords. That's a great song. For bar chords. That's a good one. Another one, I actually, I don't have a lesson on Creep. That's a good one. I should do that. Another one is actually. Tracy Chapman gave me one reason. I can't remember it off the top of my head. I think it's. Something like that. I. I can't remember the exact progression. I think it's a 12 bar blues, but it's all. You play it all as bar chords. It's a great song and I have a. I have a tutorial here on YouTube. Just look up Tracy Chapman. Gimme one reason. Super, super good one. Another one is Melissa Etheridge. What's the one? I can't remember the name of the Liz Etheridge song. It's not. I want to come over. God. But I'm the only one. I'm the only one. That's it. So that's another good one. You can use power chords or you can use bar chords. I have a tutorial on that here. So those are great songs. If you're trying to get into barre chords. If you want to get good at bar chords, you have to play bar chords. All right? If you want to get better at something, you have to get out of your comfort zone. And you get out of your comfort zone by doing the things that you don't want or like to do. And you do them long enough until you do like them. Because bar chords, they're not easy. Okay, they're not easy, but they're fun. I'm trying to move this out of the way so you can see my. My fretboards, because you can do. You can do really cool, like, percussive stuff with bar chords. That's actually stuff I'm going to be teaching. I have a strumming intensive. I think it's sold out at this point. I might have one or two seats, but I think it's sold out. I have a strumming intensive, which is more for intermediate guitar players. I think it's mostly the students in my community sold it out. They always get first access to my. My group classes, and I have an intermediate class, and we go over different, really intermediate strumming, because everyone gets into the habit of doing that. Down, down, up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up. You know, everyone gets in the habit of doing that strumming pattern. It's a great strumming power. It's so versatile. You can use it on so many different songs. But eventually, and that's what happened to me. I know this story myself, intimately, because that's what forced me to finally take guitar lessons. After playing guitar on my own for, like, 10 years. I said, I really need to learn how to do something else besides this down, down, up, strumming pattern. So I finally took lessons with the guitar teacher and really, really worked on my. My rhythm skills and my strumming skills. And I think a lot of students come to me with that. They're like, great. I feel good, but I feel like my strumming is stuck with, like, one or two strumming patterns. So the course if you're. If you're someone who's like Lauren, I know my. I know my chords. I feel pretty good about my playing. I just wish my strumming were a little bit better. The expressive rhythm and strumming course is where I would go. Okay, so if you go to laurenbateman.com courses, it has all my courses. And the expressive rhythm and strumming is a really great course. It's a big course. I think that's like 50 plus lessons. And I just added to it last year I did a whole section on rock rhythms and electric guitar. So I added. Added that in I think last year. So it got even bigger. It might even be like 60 lessons at this point. But it's a great course just on rhythm and strumming. So if you're someone who's like Lauren, I really want to this year. This year my goal is to become a better strummer, then I would go check out the rhythm and strumming program. Okay. If you're like Lauren, this year I want to learn guitar. That's the seven level program. The seven level program is more for begin. Or maybe even like a late beginner who maybe knows their chords, but their strumming isn't. The timing is way off. Your picking's not the greatest. You're trying to coordinate your hands and you feel like. The biggest thing I hear from people, especially here on YouTube, is they're like, YouTube's great. I watch a lot of your videos, but it's all over the place. You know, your YouTube's recommending this video and I don't know if this is the right video for me to watch with the course. Everything's in order, so you're learning in the correct order. So you know what the next step is. You know what the next lesson is. So that's the. That's the great thing. Good morning, everyone. So Wayne here says done joined your crash course. Awesome. Checking out the seven level. I can play chords caged and some bar chords. Okay. Yeah. So you know, if you're. Check out the crash course. If you're feeling like that's super simple, the next level program might be for you. The next level is a. Is also on that course page. It's a bundle of courses. So it's. It's strumming, it's finger picking, it's pentatonic scale. It's a music theory. Oh, Empower and bar chords. So it's basically five courses for 297. So it's actually a really, really good Deal. And it's more of like my late beginner, intermediate type stuff. So that is. That's a good one to check out too. Do you have a guitar? I don't know what a guitar. Guitar Laylee. Is that what it is? I don't have that. This is a parlor size guitar. It's just a smaller guitar. So it's not like my tail Taylor. So in my videos you'll usually see my tailor or you'll see my crafter. Those are auditorium bigger guitars. They're not dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts are the bigger that they're one size down from a dreadnought, which is a grand auditorium. I'm smaller. I'm just under 5 5. I'm about like 5, 4 and 3 quarters, 55 ish. Okay. So I'm smaller. So parlor size guitar like this is. Is really comfortable if you have a smaller frame body. I also like. This is. So this is a PRS tonaire. Okay. Great sounding guitar. I. I used this at my live event. It was great. Yeah, the PRS acoustic, very, very nice. They sent it to me to try it and I liked it so much that I ended up buying it. But it's. It's a great. It's a small size guitar. It's thinner. Maybe a little thinner than my tailor. Not that much thinner, but just a little bit. The body size is smaller, so. Because a lot of times people have shoulder issues when they hold the guitar and they're playing a guitar that's just like got too big of a butt here. Because some of these butts, especially if you're playing like the country style guitars, they can really fan out here on the hip. And you can see here how my shoulder is nice. And like, I mean, I don't know if you can see it through my little sweater, but my shoulders relax. My shoulder's not up like this. If your shoulders up like this on your guitar, it might be too big for you. Okay. So go to a smaller. I have a lot of female students who love parlor size guitars. Like I said, this is the PRS tonair. A lot of my students love those Taylor GS minis. I have many students, both female and male students who have the. The Taylor GS minis. And they love them. They're. They're great sounding guitars too. The smaller guitars tend to be a little bit more punchier and in your face. This one's definitely in your face. Where my tailor. The bigger guitars tend to have warmer sound to them, a little bit more warmth, a lot more mids and you can also change out your strings to change out the sound of the guitar bit. I like phosphor bronze strings. I don't know what's on here. They look phosphor bronze. Phosphor bronze strings have a warmer sound to them versus like 80, 20 bronze, which is really bright. But if you're doing country, you know, and. Or you're doing blues, you might want that brighter in your face sound. So it's really. It's really up to you in your personal preference. Tangie. Hi, Tangie. How are you? My New Year's goal is to really nail down the triads at exprn. My fretboard knowledge, I got. I've met Tangie at my live event, and she just took a music theory intensive with one of my teachers, Mike. So she's learned all this great music theory knowledge that she now has to apply and into the new year. Happy New Year, Tangie. Good to see you on here. Oh, someone says, I have a Taylor 12E. It's a middle size, okay? Your budget's only $70. Listen, listen. If that's your budget, that's your budget, okay? So if you have a cheaper budget, okay? Tip here. And you're trying to get started. All right, get started with what you can, okay? You can find nice instruments, okay? If you go to Facebook Marketplace. I don't know if people still use Craigslist, but if you go to Facebook Marketplace, you can probably find a $300 guitar for $70, okay? So see if you can find a used guitar. There's so many guitars because in January, there's so many people who said I was going to learn guitar, and they never followed through with it. Pawn shop is also another. That's a good suggestion, Michael. Find a used guitar for $70, okay? Because you can. You can get. If you buy a new. A new guitar for $70, it's probably going to be particle board. It's not going to be that great. If you can find. So this is an electric behind me. This is an Ibanez. But you could probably find a 70 electric and get a decent guitar. So if you. Because electrics are usually solid body. Okay, this one's very thin. I like this. This is an Ibanez. Ibanez, sa. I like very, very thin electric guitars. I don't like them too big or bulky because they're solid in the. The wider they are, the heavier they are, too. The biggest thing when you're looking at a used guitar is to check the frets. These first Three frets. Check them for pitting. What does that mean? So your frets, when I push the strings aside, I can see a little pitting here. It's not too bad. I. I haven't refread this. I don't think I've ever refreaded this guitar. But sometimes they will have really deep indents. All right? Your frets should be flat because if they get indented too far, the string will not make contact with the fret, and it will be a dead string. And then you're gonna have to refret the guitar. I. The most I saw this at was Guitar Center. Do not buy a used guitar from Guitar Center. Most of the ones I saw, or at least the one I went to, they were all pitted out in the first three frets. Very nice guitars. But you're gonna spend three, four hundred dollars refreading them. Okay. Because they were. They were pretty bad. Really, like, totally gone. So just check your frets and make sure a little bit of an indent is okay. Just make sure it's not like a pit, a deep groove, because then that's a no go. You do not want to buy that guitar. What you want to try and do. What you want to try and do is see if you can find a guitar from someone that's been lightly played. They tried learning to play guitar, and they gave up because they didn't have my help. Okay. They didn't find me on YouTube like you guys did, and they got lost and they got frustrated and they quit. So see if you can find someone who got maybe a 200, $300 guitar and they're just trying to get rid of it. Seagull is also a nice brand. Yes. Someone. I just bought an art in lou theory for $50 yesterday. I'm not familiar with that brand, but if it's great and it works, awesome. The thing with more expensive guitars is they are easier to play because usually the action and you just get better parts. Right? It's like it's driving a Toyota versus driving a Porsche. Okay? Toyota is. They're great, reliable cars. They'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're like me and you like sports cars and you like to have a little fun when you're driving. I don't own a Porsche. I have the Camaro, which is. Which is plenty of 650 horsepower. Is. Is plenty of horsepower for me, but it is that same concept. You know, if you buy a cheaper level guitar, it'll probably get you started. It'll get you from point A to point B. But hey, eventually save up and maybe get yourself, you know, something in the 300 to 600 range. You'll definitely get a much better guitar. I think I paid six or seven hundred dollars for this one. God, I don't know, maybe 15, 15 years ago. This acoustic, this PRS I think is a 600 guitar. Very nice guitar. For $600, you, you just get a whole different quality of guitar when you get closer to the 300 to $600 range. One that I really like. I don't know if it's called the art core. Ibanez has a 300 guitar or it's, it's like 329. It's close to 300. I don't know now with like taxes and imports and tariffs and everything. But it was a beauty. I think it was a parlor size guitar. Beautiful acoustic guitar for 300. I almost bought it because I was like this sounds great. Yeah, the Artwood. That's what it is. The Artwood series, not the Art core. Thank you so much, Star Fox. Appreciate that. Star Fox. Is that like the video game? Wasn't there a Star Fox video game? Something like that. If you don't know me, I'm a video game nerd. I don't know if I have a video game. No, I have Wonder Woman on today. You can't see it. Wonder Woman. So I love superheroes. I love video games. Facebook market is cheaper. So there you go. Yeah. Tuning my guitar. Is it better to use the clip on or one of those app tuners? I, I use the app tuners just fine. The clip on is probably going to be a little bit more accurate. But if you're in a quiet room, because that's the thing, the, the microphone on your phone will pick up ambient room noise. So if you're in a loud room, it's going to pick up other noises versus the clip on uses the vibration of the guitar. So either way, I, 9 out of 10 times, to be honest, I'm using my phone to tune my guitar because one, I either can't find the. I put the clip on tuna. That's the thing with the clip ons, I lose them. I lose my phone too, but I don't lose it as much as I seem to lose the clip on tuner. But you know, when I'm performing on stage, I use a pedal. I use, I used to use a tuning pedal. Because even on stage if you use a clip on tuner, the stage is so loud. Especially if you're playing in, like, a big stadium or a big, you know, with the drums and everything, then your guitar is picking up the vibration of all the other instruments and noises around you. So even those won't work on a live stage, but either one is fine for at home. And the ones on your phone are free. So if there's a free option and it works great, go with the free option. Yeah. So. All right, everyone. Well, I'm going to hop off because I have to go to the music school today. I actually have to go bump and check in with some people. Oh, my God. A 625 horsepower Camaro. Yes. Yes. I have a ZL1. Before I hop off, I'll tell you the quick story behind the Camaros, because people ask me, and some of you know the story, and if you have heard the story, have a happy new year. If not, you want to stick around for the story or you want to rehear the story. So where my love for Camaros came so in. In my old setup, they used to have Aries to have a red Camaro. I don't think I. I think I took them all up to. To New Hampshire. So I. I love Camaros. So my stepdad, who passed away, gosh, I'm gonna say, like, 13 years ago, he really loved old cars, okay? So he had a 1956 T bird, okay? White body, blacktop, okay? And it was sitting in our garage for a very, very long time. I think he blew the engine on or something happened with the engine. It was sitting in my grandfather's garage. And I think When I was 16 or 17, I asked him, I said, can I take your car to the prom, my senior prom? Would you let me drive your car to the prom? So my stepfather, who is an amazing person, restored the engine and got his car up and running for my senior prom. And I drove it. He let me drive it to the. He didn't let anyone drive this car. He let me drive it to the prom. And my prom dress was black bottom with, like, a cream top. So it was like off opposite of the T Bird. So I drove this 1956 T Bird. And, you know, back then, there was no power steering in those T birds, okay? There was no power steering in 1956. So I was. I drove that to my senior prom. So after that, I. You know, my stepfather got his car back up and running, so we started going to car shows. So I went to car shows with my stepdad because he. It was a beautiful car. He didn't really enter it as, like, a show car. It wasn't, like, pristine like that, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Mint car. Beautiful, beautiful car. And we would go to all the car shows. And I fell in love, of course, with the sports cars. I fell in love with the Camaros. I'm not really. I'm sorry. Mustang people. Ford guys. I am. I like the Mach 1 Ford Mustangs, but I don't. Mustangs just were not my thing. They just didn't seem aggressive enough to me. So I really like the Camaro. And one day, I think I was 18, so very shortly after I, you know, my senior prom, my stepfather was driving down the street locally in the neighborhood, and he said, I saw a 1968 Camaro, a red 1968 Camaro for sale with a for sale sign just sitting on the street. He goes, do you want to go look at it? Okay. My dad's a Ford guy, so he has the Mustangs, I have the Camaros. So we go and we look at this car. And I purchased a 1968 Camaro fur for $7,000. All the seats were torn out. The headliner was falling off. The springs were like this, because it used to have a V8 in it. And they. Then they put a V6 in it. So, like, the springs, it was riding high. And so I bought my first car. My first car that I bought was a 1968 Camaro. I still have it. I still have it. It's in a garage. And so I've just loved the Camaros ever since. Unfortunately, they stopped making the Camaros in the early 2000s, so I couldn't buy one. Okay. So I ended up driving an Eclipse for a while. And then in 2010, when the Transformers came out, they brought back the camaro. So in 2000, December of 2009, my dad calls me. I've been looking at these Camaros. My Mitsubishi Eclipse was, like, blowing up. It was about dead. And my dad found this silver 2010 Camaro RS. And he goes, this is the price point. And I was like, that cannot be the price point. I've researched this. I think they were selling for, like 30,000. He found one for 27. I was like, that's not the price point. Said, if it isn't going to the dealer today, and I'm buying it. So I did. I went to the dealer, and I bought it that day because it was. The dealer had drove the car 500 miles on it. So I bought it with some dealer miles on it that the owner had driven it and, you know, they were trying to sell me, like, oh, plenty of room in the back seat. I was like, this car's for me. No one's sitting in the back seat. And then they're like, there's 300 horsepower to push you through the snow. I was like, it's a rear wheel drive vehicle. It is going nowhere in the snow. Stop trying to sell the car. You're not doing it. I just want to buy it. You don't have to sell it. Okay. So I had that car for like 10 years. And then I upgraded. I bought a used 2019 black Camaro SS. I will never buy a black car again. They look great when they stay clean. Hard to keep clean, though. But beautiful, beautiful car. I had that for a while and wasn't planning on getting a new car until they said they were going to stop making the Camaros, which was last year, two years ago. So they said they were going to stop making the Camaros. And I had always, you know, loved the ZL1s. We talk about goals. So that was my goal. I was like, okay, I'm going to find. They stopped making them. So that. That was it. It was 2004, 2024. So I found a 2022 ZL1 with 130 miles on it. And I went to the dealer, I drove it, and I bought it. Just like when I know I want something that. So that's the second car that I bought brand new. So I have that. It's in my garage. It's being winterized for the winter. I'm driving a 2006 Grand Mar Blue with a black top. So that is my winter car is the. The 2006 Grand Marquee, which is so much fun to drive. I've got a CD player. I have Elvis. I have my. My great aunt passed away earlier this year, and I went to see my cousin. She's like, nobody wants the Elvis stuff. I was like, I'll take the Elvis stuff. So I took all the Elvis CDs. I've listened to Elvis and the Grand Marquee. But I bought the. The Z01, which is a 650 horsepower. It's. It's the most powerful Camaro you get. Can get that stock, you know, without you getting like a Yenko Camaro or doing some. Some stuff. Yeah, Grand Marquis is a yacht. But because my Camaro is so big, that Grand Marquis is only like 1 or 2 inches longer than my Camaro because you got, you know, the real bumper, but that front plate sticks out. So much so. I'm actually very good at driving the Grand Marquis and it gets about the same gas mileage, so. But now I can put regular instead of premium. So I'm saving a lot of money on gas right now. But it's still, it's still a rear wheel drive vehicle. It's so funny because I'll tell you another quick story. And then I do probably have to run because I have to. I have stuff to do today. But I love talking with you guys. We were going to work out one morning and I thought we live at the top of a hill, very, very steep hill. And I thought they had iced. I thought they had iced the roads. They had iced one of the roads, but they didn't ice the hill. They iced our hill. But I took a different turn and when I looked down, it was all a sheet of ice. And I had already made the turn. And we're on the hill and I just look at Megan and I go, hold on. She's like, what do you mean, hold on? I was just like, I was like, we're gonna go this. Because it's like a 4,000 pound car. I was like, we're gonna go. I said, I said, I can make. I know I can make it down this hill. I was like, we're just gonna have to go slow. So we start going down the hill, the car starts sliding, and it's nice because it has the push the pedal emergency brake. So I was going very slow. I puppet in reverse, I put the emergency brake on, and she's like, do I need to walk home and get my car? And I said, you're not going to be able to walk. Like you're going to slide down the hill walking up the hill. So anyhow, I slowly got the Grand Marquis down to the bottom of the hill and I said, if it's ever another icy day, we will not take the Grand Marquis. Because I mean, if you took anyone's car on black ice, it's black ice. There's not much you can do. But we made it safely to our workout. I just had a slowly inch down and I was definitely driving on the wrong side of the road because I said, if we're sliding, I'm sliding into the curve. Like I'm just going to turn and we're just going to. We're going to the curb is what's going to stop us from going all the way down this hill. So. So I'm used to driving rear wheel drive vehicles. I've been driving them for years. So I'm pretty used to being not in control of a video of a car. And sometimes intentionally, I will intention spin out the car, but that's, that's fun. I don't recommend doing that all the time, but it's great. I hope you all have a wonderful day. I hope this was informative. You're welcome, Wayne. Have a happy new Year. Practice hard, write your goals, write your rewards, and I hope to see you in a course. And if, you know, if you're someone on a budget, you can't afford a course. I'm here on YouTube. That's why I do these videos for free, so that I can, I can help people. No matter where you're at, if you're on, you know, Social Security, you have a limited budget, you can still learn from me here, you can at least go get the free crash course. That's a free course. And have fun with the guitar. And just remember, keep it fun. Guitar takes time. It's not easy, but it is so worth the challenge and worth the journey. So thank you all for being here. I appreciate it. And I'll see you in a lesson video real soon. Everyone. Happy New Year. Bye bye.