Just how bad are you?

[Cyrokk]

Personally, I try to erase or ignore the line between wanting to do something and doing it. It has been my philosophy when writing music to not consider whether I can actually play the part or not. It's a bit idealistic, but I usually can blur the line by a 1) warming up each and every time before playing (say what you will, but five minutes of warm up has completely eliminated most of the pains in my wrist and joints) and 2) practicing about an hour a day for a block of three or four times a week (which is about all I can do, not just because of time constraints, but I get kinda tired afterwards). There have been only one or two occasions when I wrote something and then realized "shit. I can't play this. No way." And one of those occasions no longer count because I learned from just watching someone play on TV that my picking approach wasn't correct. I fixed that problem and now that part is almost too easy to play.

I've been playing for almost 20 years, and I can only get through an entire song on my "good" days which are few and far between.

Cy

 

[flapo1]

I think it's rather subjective.

For example, to me David Gilmour is far better guitarist than Satriani or Vai, because he's more melodic.

So if I can play well enogh to sound the way I like, I'll be pretty satisfied. On the downside, If someday I wanna play like Yngwie, I'll get a hard task!!! .

My weak point is (obviously) speed, and I think my strong point is bending and vibrato.

 

[Bass Freak]

im fast when i play *much faster than my friend thats been playing bass for a couple of years* becuase i have thinner fingers and they are trained from years of sax playing. but my weak spots are comming up with licks. i cant do it. at all. i can play around with scale progressions and make some pretty good bass lines, but no big licks. i need to get some help...and not just on the bass

freak

 

[Even]

I have my strengths, and I have my flaws.

I can sing a scale in any key, even modes. But I can not play a scale on a guitar with more than two fingers, and generally thats done by lifting each finger 3 inches off the neck. So speed is out of the question (add delay to substitute when needed).

I can seek and nail keys and chords well, and given the intrest I can wrtie out the chart.

I have a god awful time "starting" a tune, but always find that I am playing one. Christ will return long befor I ever figgure how to end a song.

I learned to play guitar by fingerpicking a 12 string and will boast a fair prowess at that skill.

I have every effect known to man but still seem to only use two.... chorus, or distorted. (depending if acoustic or electric).

I play excellent blues if I were in an all white club for retired vets, but would be tarred and feathered if I tried it in weezy-anna.

On the upside, my acoustic instrumental ballads make a folk choke back a tear.

 

[Christine K]

Fingerpicking is my strong point. I used to play bluegrass banjo before switching to guitar a year and a half ago. I can't handle a flat pick worth a shit. I usually drop it in the sound hole. I need to tie a string on it like a pair of mittens.

 

[zer0sig]

i can sing my fool head off, i can come up with riffs, and i'm starting to learn to improvise leads somewhat. i'm rather unsteady on quicker lead parts, though (kinda like jimmy page, except that page could play circles around me), i can't sweep pick, or do much picking changing strings a great deal over and over without using my fingers, and i'm just in the last year really starting to learn to use my pinky. my pick hand has like 4236542x the dexterity that my fretting hand does, but my fretting hand can't pick for shit, so i'm stuck playing righty for now.

i find that most of the technique advancements i've had have involved writing a song, not being able to play at (at least at speed), and working until i can play it smoothly and really quickly. seeing as how i work primarily in rythm, perhaps that's why i can't shred. i'd like to be able to, but i don't know that i'd ever use it.

 

[PFDarkside]

Here's my problem. I can play legato strings of notes quite well, and I can machene gun a set of plam mutted notes, I just can't get them to work together. Picking a string of notes (that changes ) results in a nice mess of slop.

 

[Doug Quance]

I suck big time at fingerpicking....and at regular pick picking....I'm not too keen on my left hand skills either. I know some chords, but most chords I don't know. I also don't know any scales, but I do know what scales are, so that's good. I do know how to find the key...I guess that's my strongpoint. If you play a song for me, I will find the key, although sometimes it takes me a while. My timing is so bad that I don't even know it's bad until I record myself. I can't play a 60 second part without making at least one mistake. I can't play rhythm, and I don't know enough tricks to play lead. I'm not sure how some guys can seem to play both at the same time, that always amazes me. I also don't really know any songs, and I must say that I've never really known any songs. I guess maybe I've figured out several dozen songs over the past 12 years, but mostly on accident. I don't even remember my own songs a lot of the time. Also I'm not very good at tuning the guitar...I wish I knew how to do that harmonic tuning trick the guys at the music store do, but I just do the regular 5th fret reference thing....I'm semi-tone deaf so even after tuning I'm usually still out of tune.

Slackmaster 2000

Big Fuckin' Slackmaster! You're my hero!

 

[Doug Quance]

Re: I'm so bad, I should be in detention!

Seriously though, I realized by the time I was about 25 that I would never be on the same level as "The Greats".

Remember that when Steve Vai first showed up at Joe's, he didn't even know how to put strings on! Now listen to him.

Miles also said if you hit a wrong note, hit it again so they know you meant it.

Some of my better playing friends believe the wrong note is only wrong... when you hit the NEXT note. I guess that's when knowing your scales and modes comes in handy.

 

[Toki987]

I`ve never been anything but a bassist. All I know is I like to get down about neck deep in the groove and play pong with the snare and bass drum and try to make it sound like it has meaning. I just wish I could play some of the stuff I used to do as well as I used to do it. Oh, and hats off to James Jamerson and Willie Weeks.

 

[bullyhill]

Yeah me too , I used to be pretty keen on the guitar and a little bass, even played bass in a steroid juiced rockabilly band...crazy...Now I look at my left hand way to much, well my right too and I'm older and watch the cables a little closer when playing out, don't want to fall and break a hip.

 

[James Argo]

To be GOD ?

...why should it "Eddie" ?

 

[badassmak]

practise?

I learned to play the tuba thru sight reading
I learned to play the guitar thru tab
I am learning to play the drums by ear.
I wish I had learnt to play guitar by ear, although I am getting better at it. The funniest thing about playing tab was always when it came to solo's. I was learning all kinds of Metallica and Megadeth at the time, so the solo's I had to slow down. The rythm parts always sounded heavy, and then the solo's always sounded like some real slow blues tune on the higher frets.

Either way I still cant play a solo for shit. Im guessing its cause my fingers have become knobby over time from bashing them with hammers in construction. Along with that I sliced my pickin thumb once pretty bad some years ago, and since then the feeling has all but dissipated in ther, meaning I drop the damn pick all the time!!

For an eternity I never played with the pinky, and thats probably one of my best improvements over recent years.

As well I don't exclusively play heavy metal anymore. I try and mix it up as much as possible, with forraying into country .

I suppose that one of my other weaknesses is just jamming out, and that really sucks. To much reading off a page. Although now that I play with real people, that area is also improving .

One other nasty habit I have is I'll just play 8 billion riffs all in a row, with bits of solo's, all cover stuff, but never seemingly one whole song strung together. Maybe I was just showcasing myself to myself all that time.

I always figured I would be a lead guitarist, but it doesnt seem to have turned out that way. Rythm Im not too bad, I can do relatively good when it comes down to playing a decent take in under a day.

I never practise , suppose I should...

 

[djc]

Well, there's good players and there's good players. What I mean is I've known guys that can run a scale up and down in 64th notes at blazing unhuman speeds but didn't have a clue about what "sounds" good. No sense of, I don't know, melody for lack of a better word. There's technical proficientcy and there's musicality. Ya know what I mean?

Absolutely. Music is all about how it makes you feel. A good guitar player can put more feeling in one note than all these shredders combined. The real skill is in putting soul into it. I think Carlos Santana (some might not like him too much) has that kind of talent. Me, I suck. But I play for myself and not to impress anybody.

 

[Shakuan]

I suck I guess... but I dont mind really. For now I feel like I wanna play everything not so bad. I own a guit, a bass and a drum. I'm building my own recording studio in the basement and I don't care about how I play instruments really. I can play them ok enough to record what I need and compose my songs and that's it. All I care about is making nice music in a radiohead kinda way and obviously you don't need to be impressive at any instruments to make great music. Just practice the part you wanna record and have as many takes as you want until it's perfect for you. Patch it all with the comp and you're an entire band on ur own.