Improving your chops

  • Thread starter Thread starter djhead
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djhead

djhead

Military Intelligence
As some of you may know, I'm a self taught guitar and bassist, though i tend to be better on the latter.
This is whats bugging me. I have plateaued in my playing ability. I don't have the time or the money to take pro lessons or anything, but my range and skills have stagnated over thpast few years to the point where i write the same shit on guitar, and the same patterns on bass. I was hoping some of you more ejimicated folk might be able to point me to a place where i can download or print off some good chop-building excercises so I don't suck so much goat ass anymore.

Also, whats a good way to write bass riffs?
 
If you can read music (you don't have to be a sight reader for this) pick up copies of the Wolfhart violen studies and work through the books. They will really help.
To improve your chops you need to play and perfect unfamilliar music ..... makes your hands and head do what they don't want to do naturally. This will improve the motor reflexes.
If you can find a copy of Dennis Sandole's "Guitar Lore", there is a lot of realy good stuff in there also.

Practice arpegios and sweep picking.
 
Do you know music theory? When my playing started getting stale, I just buckled down and started to learn alot more about theory. It helped me alot.
 
I do know a bit, my pops was/is a high school band director, so ive been playing music my whole life. Just that writing for rock and roll is a little boring, and I'm trying to expand my abilities. Anything online i can print? Tab preferably, never learned notes for teh axes....
 
Put the guitar down and emerse yourself in different styles. Once your brain is saturated with these different styles, your approach to your instrument will be noticeably different.
 
I always go through some of my old Guitar Player magazines etc and learn little licks and go through some of the lessons in them. Sometimes something simple but different can open up new little doors and windows in your playing!
 
Cyrokk said:
Put the guitar down and emerse yourself in different styles. Once your brain is saturated with these different styles, your approach to your instrument will be noticeably different.
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I already listen to everything :(
 
Yeah but do you listen to it obsessively?

Sometimes I spend months listening exclusively to one artist or a group of artists in one style, not intentionally, but because I tend listen to styles of music until I get sick of it and then I move on. When I pick up the guitar after such an obsession, my writing and playing on the instrument reflects what I've been listening to.

For example, I'll spend two to three months listening to nothing but stoner metal: Kyuss, Solace, Black Sabbath, etc. When I pick up my guitar then I basically play those styles almost subconciously. I do the same thing if I listen to nothing but other styles in blocks of time, whether it be Zeppelin, Tool, the Beatles, James Brown, or Slayer.
 
I like what Cyrokk said, with the exception of putting the instrument down.

Listen to a bunch of things, but do it with your guitar or bass in hand and play along. Figure it out. If you hear some lick you dig, figure it out - then learn the lick in all 12 keys. After a while, those things will creep into your own playing. Don't worry about sounding too much like someone else. Your ears and your hands will add your own flavor to it.

When playing alone, always practice with a metronome. Seriously. Makes a huge difference. Playing with a metronome helps you on so many levels. You have to develop a strong sense of time in order to really understand and add something to a groove. Anything else is just wanking.

Do this for a couple hours a day and you WILL hear big changes in your playing within a few weeks.
 
hold up..I'm confused....what do chops have to do with writing?
 
brandrum said:
hold up..I'm confused....what does chops have to do with writing?
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Writing can have a big impact on chops. If you write a song or solo in a particular style as opposed to just sitting around riffing what you know, you will discover additional notes or places on the instrument that you never used before.
 
You could always go buy "Rock Discipline" by John Petrucci.
It's an excellent video.
 
Cyrokk said:
Writing can have a big impact on chops. If you write a song or solo in a particular style as opposed to just sitting around riffing what you know, you will discover additional notes or places on the instrument that you never used before.
Click to expand...

Actually, i can vouch for that.....played a bass line in swing tempo before my A-hole drummer switched to some salsa-ish shite, but we ran for it, and I found like 3 extra notes just by switching rythms.
 
metalhead28 said:
You could always go buy "Rock Discipline" by John Petrucci.
It's an excellent video.
Click to expand...
or he could just get it from me. :cool:
 
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