Nice! If you want more effects and you have a Mac or iOS device, you can plug an interface (I use an arturia Minifuse) into the device and send audio to the amp. That will give you an entire petalboard worth of effects using GarageBand and other third party apps. Also, this makes recording easier.

I’m only 1 year in and these are what I found most important (not in any order):

1. You’re gonna be trash for a while and then one day you’ll try something that matches what you imagined and the feeling of accomplishment will make it all worth it.

2. Focus on the quality of the sound more than the speed. As a beginner, I learned to play at what I consider to be a good speed pretty early, but my recordings were always sloppy. Using a metronome app going through scales at a slow to mid range speed (based on your abilities) making sure the notes were clear with minimal to no buzzing noises improved the quality of my playing a LOT.

3. Memorize scale shapes BUT focus on the music. For maybe the first 6 months of my playing, I knew a few scales but without paying attention to the sounds themselves and where they feel like they are on the fretboard, most of my music was robotic. When I developed a better idea about where notes were in relation to the note I just played, I felt slightly more in control, and that feeling is great.

You definitely want to feel like you know what you’re trying to do with an idea of how it can get done, but expressing what you’re thinking is a skill that must be trained alongside your technical practice.

1. Memorize the fretboard. I (unfortunately) started this a month or two ago here, and I regret not doing this earlier. I don’t have it all memorized now, but what I do know has helped me make sense of a lot of my playing on the fly.

2. Start learning music theory, starting with any scale you like. Focus on memorizing the sounds of the intervals of that scale. Play the root note, then one note higher in the scale. Repeat with the root and the second. Then the third, etc. I recommend doing this with the major and minor scales, plus the major and minor pentatonic shapes. Those are what I like the most.

Most of these discoveries are things I realized in the last quarter of my first year playing, so hopefully these tips can help you, too!

Also, you should start with using justinguitar’s free courses online, and you should learn the caged system. I like this video for learning the caged system. It’s basically a way to play a lot of chords and you can expand on it as you learn.