Love playing guitar and singing, mostly just chords, there’s a few “trickier” songs that I’ve worked through with finger-picking.
But I just feel like I can’t be bothered with exercises in scales and rhythm and think it holds me back.
Has anyone else just skipped the exercises and feel like they’re a competent guitarist? Any YouTubers I should check out?
In a way I think it’s made harder by being “intermediate” as it’s difficult to see where to go next.
Exercises, scales, rhythm, timing, practice, et al can definitely be holding you back. It might help to view those “building blocks” as aspects you can work on that limit your playing less. For me, practicing these things allows me to think LESS about scales, timing, etc by increasing my muscle memory and confidence, which allows me to focus on the music itself and get lost therein when I’m playing.
To use some ambiguous terms, you can hit every note “right”, but that’s a very small part of what make music “good”-- that’s more about hips moving and heads bobbing.