Q:

Developing speed, expectation

I have been taking lessons for three months.  I practice 1 to 2 sometimes 3 hours 6 days a week.  I always practice my finger exercises, pentatonic and major scales as well as the 18 chords I've learned.  At what point in time will it start to come together, I am diligent but getting frustrated!!!!Slow and steady but speed is not coming as quick as I thought.

A:

As dwoz says, you need to practice, practice, practice ...
You seem to be a bit pre-occupied with speed, and really, speed is not the most important thing to be worrying about. Musicality is much more important.
You might like to concentrate for a while on some slow pieces of music (or songs) - there are some terrific pieces of music which do not depend on how fast they are played.
When you can play a piece of music and make it sound beautiful, even at a very slow speed, then you can start to worry about maybe playing it a little bit faster.
Also, three months is not a long time in the scale of time it takes to learn a musical instrument - just remember that Rachmaninov (after many years of being an accomplished musician) used to practise piano pieces by playing them incredibly slowly.

A:

The guitar is a wonderful and versatile instrument.  Learning to play it will give you untold hours of enjoyment over the course of a lifetime.  At three months you are only starting to take your first step on a lifelong journey.  
Learning to play the guitar well - takes time, practice and dedication.  From what you describe, you are putting in the practice and based on the amount of time you are devoting to practice, I would say you have the dedication you need.  
But it takes time!  I have been playing guitar for over 30 years and I get better every week.  That's one thing I love about playing the guitar - there is always room for improvement.  One thing you may find comforting, is that the hardest part of learning to play guitar (or any new instrument) is in the beginning.  As your skills improve, you will begin to notice that your progress from week to week begins to accelerate.   
It's normal to be a little slow after only three months of practicing.  You are training your brain to train your fingers to contort into very unnatural and unusual shapes and positions.  Mastery of the timing and coordination needed in your picking hand takes a great deal of repetitive practice over a long period  of time (much longer than 3 months)!
The most important thing to concentrate on is accuracy in hitting the correct notes and the correct timing (not speed).  Rhythm and musicality are more important than speed at this point.  Speed will come over time with continued correct practice.  
To increase speed between chord changes, you can start by learning to quickly form the shape needed to play one of the two chords.  Practice going from a neutral hand position to the chord over and over until it becomes almost natural.  You are developing muscle memory and it takes time and repetition.  
Once you can go from a neutral hand position and play the chord fairly quickly, do the same exercise with the next cord.  Then practice switching between the two chords, concentrating on cleanly playing each chord and gradually building transition speed. 
To increase speed on a particular passage consisting of notes - as in a lead solo, or a lick or run or playing a melody - use a metronome (digital and on line versions will work fine) and start painstakingly slow!  You want to start at a speed where you can play each note accurately and keep the timing between notes accurate as well (that is where the metronome comes in).  
For example, if you are just trying to build speed on a scale, you can play one note per tick of the metronome starting at a speed where you can achieve 100% accuracy.  Once you can consistently hit all the correct notes on the correct beat, then speed the metronome up slightly until you are missing a few notes or beats and keep practicing at the new speed until you achieve consistent 100% accuracy.  
This is important because if you are playing too fast and making mistakes each time, your brain (and fingers) will remember the mistakes.  Whatever you practice over and over eventually becomes ingrained in your muscle memory.  So accuracy is important during this learning process.  
Another way to build speed in learning a musical phrase consisting of notes - is to break it down into small segments and master one segment before moving to the next.  Then you can add them together after you master them all.  
Don't worry so much about speed at this point in your development.  It will come.  Focus more on accuracy and most importantly - try to keep it fun!
Don't get discouraged!  One day soon things will start coming together and you will begin to see rapid progress.  It's tough coming out of the gate but it get's exponentially easier to improve over time.
Good luck on your journey!

