Any advice for getting better

  • Thread starter Thread starter jake-owa
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I think (as somebody already said) that a good way is to learn songs outside of your normal genre. I sometimes work on country songs that my wife likes. It is quite a challenge, and I learn a lot that way. Works for me anyway.

Matty
 
Get yourself a copy of Eric Clapton's unplugged album and take six month's to learn it. You may not like all the music but you will become a very accomplished guitarist if you can learn all the technique used on this album. Have fun and good luck.
 
Get around someone who will burn the fretboard and tell you how bad you suck..... Best way to get motivated. Then start playing the major and minor scales that go from the 6th to the first string and play the scales all the way to the 12th fret, starting out slowly....etc.... You really have to love playing and be driven to stick with it. For rhythm , drop the low E to D and sharpen your rhythm skills.... Chords? Get a book and play the hard ones. As others have said listen to different kinds of music.
Now go practice....
Myx
 
oddly enough, the one thing that has helped me the most (i'm almost strictly ryhtym) is monkeying around with open tunings-most of the stuff i've messed with lately is in DADGAD-the simplicity of playing good-sounding licks in such a tuning makes it really easy for me to experiment, because almost everything sounds GOOD. when everything i play sounds pretty decent, i feel more motivated to experiment more, which means i'm really sharpening up my fretting fingers, without the drudgery of specific exercises. every riff i come up with is a new exercise, and anything i repeat more than a couple of times sounds pretty sweet. it may be more psychological than anything else that makes this work so well for me, but my playing has improved a great deal simply by working with an easy tuning to play in-and all that experimenting carries over not only into regular tunings, but into leads i play when i'm jamming with someone-finger dexterity and speed is always useful, no matter how you learn it.

note-most of the stuff i've been writing lately is a strange acoustic cross between bluegrass, celtic, and math rock (think dillenger escape plan if you're familiar)-so your milage may vary, but it's sure worked for me. i usually only look at books to monkey around with new chords.
 
I dont know how you will take this but if you have two guitars take one of them and remove one of the strings. It will force you to play around it and open many new possibilities. I have probably learned more when I was young when I broke a string and had to play without it.
And I also agree about the anyone can rip off a lead but can you play rythym. I have always shied away from those who tell me they cant play lead very well but can play rythym. Rythym is much more difficult than lead.
 
dragonworks said:
if you have two guitars take one of them and remove one of the strings. It will force you to play around it and open many new possibilities
Click to expand...

dragonworks is right

i was playing a satriani cover on stage once and I pulled the wang bar far up for a harmonic dive and I broke my high E string and when you use a floating tremolo everything goes out of whack when a string breaks.
so quickly I referenced a note position on the fretboard and built the patterns that i know around that note...
i was sweating like a pig but finished the songs thanks to memorization and no string practice :)
 
Losing the high e string is not near as challenging as removing the g string (seriously folks). Remove the g from one of your guitars and play lead on that for awhile and I guarantee you will learn a few new tricks.
 
Nothing like a string breakin at a gig when ya have a floating bridge. Oh what fun. You would be surprised at how much you can say with one note. The broken string method is great for preparing you to play live... I agree that if your focusing too much on solo playing and neglecting your rhythm playing your not going to be much of a guitarist. Rhythm is about 95% of your gtr playing. Start playing the hardest chords you can find and flow thru them. Listen to some old Rush. I think I learned more rhythm from Fly by night and 2112 than anything else when I was younger......
Myx
 
You want chord progressions, try some of the old standards from the thirties and forties. I had to do an acoustic gig for the older generation so I went and learned some of those tunes, like, "It Had To Be You", now theres some chord progressions.
 
just my 2 cents, my own playing ability improved more in the 4 or 5 years of homerecording than the other 20 or so years that I've played. I have done and still do things like play some simple chord progressions and then play with them. It's something we ( my playing pals and myself ) call exhausting all your possibilities. An example would be as I mentioned, play a chordal progression in a rythum you like, and them play everything you know with it over and over. And listen to these tracks over and over. Before long you will be trying different things. And as my fiddle pal Watt says when you listen back and hear a note or something that doesn't work, "I won't do that note next time". he he he he
But seriously, this method, however slow, is fun, will improve your playing, and also it will improve your recording skills. I don't do this with cover songs, which maybe is something you are trying to do, I do this with my own stuff. But it works either way. And I still only know "three guitar chords, G, C, and D, and sometimes A" he he he he he. We play a lot of bluegrass, where the rythum is normally simple, but exact, to go with the lead or break parts, and this style of music will really lend itself to helping with palying rythum.

dtb
 
Thanx dtb, that's pretty much my method for practicing as well. While I never play covers I always do some simple chord progression complete with bass and drums, then solo (guitar or keyboards) across an endless loop of the song.

I guess this is where I'm running out of inspiration. Anyone want to recommend a fun (maybe spooky) chord/rythmic progression that is interesting and challenging to play with?

Thanx for all the advice so far guys, even thinking about it helps.

I think I'll keep my G string for now.;)
 
Play lead for Minor chord progressions. It's much easier to expand on minor than a major. And the combinations are endless. Minors can take you all over.....then come back to major. It will be different!
 
My best inspiration comes from copying other player's solos. Especially in a genre I usually don't play in. It really helps me break out of the box. Especially when I try to copy their exact technique including vibrato speed and width.

Many guitarists say they prefer putting their own slant on solos for cover songs, but often that comes from being too lazy to learn another guitarist's technique.

While most of us aspire to have our own technique, many of the greats got to be great by first having the dedication to copy their heros note-for-note.
 
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