When you’re trying to learn a difficult new song—whether it’s fingerstyle, a solo, or a chord melody—there are a few habits that will save you a ton of frustration. In this short, I’m asking what you do in the chat, and then I share what I tell my students when an arrangement feels like it’s fighting back. If it’s chord melody, the first thing I want you to do is learn the lyrics. I know you’re not “singing,” but you are playing the tune, and you’ve got to be able to sing the words with your guitar. Next, I want you to know the melody and its relationship to the chord underneath it—measure by measure, note by note—so you understand what each melody note is doing against each chord. Finally, you’ve got to play it in slow motion. I mean slow enough that every tiny movement can be analyzed and studied. Then use my “rule of five”: play it five times to get it for the day—because tomorrow morning you might wake up and forget it if you didn’t really build it carefully.