practice......

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GhettoWayz

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don't you hate it when as a guitarist, you feel like you've hit a brick wall? you just don't seem to be getting any better?

I'm currently in one of those ruts. I have various techniques for getting out of them, but not practicing can't be one of the options. I want to be the best axeman I can be.

Sometimes frustration can send me away from practicing my instrument and into experimenting with EQ settings in Cubase for something else to do, but still musical and creatively.

what do you guys do when you hit these ruts to get out of them?

do any of you guys practice heavy technique??

Im going to spend the next year in full out 12 hour a day practice modes for at least 5 days per week, just because i want heavy technique....is anyone else here in one of these self improvement missions? ha ha

keep playin and recording.
 
To get out of a rut I just dont play for awhile, put away my guitars for a few days.... easier said than done though...

12 hours a day?.... damn.... your fingers are gonna be hamburger..:p


:D
 
LISTEN to players you admire, and maybe even some you don't, music that moves you - the subtle nuances, the notes they play, the notes they don't play, and for lack of a better word, the spirituality and feeling. A couple of times in my life when I felt I had moved up a notch on the guitar, I felt that I had been listening on a deeper level, and absorbing, I wasn't practicing more...
 
When I think I hit a "brick wall" I just listen to some of my favorite guitar players (especially the really fast technical guys like malmsteen, kotzen, becker, timmons etc) and then try to play along with them... that usually shows me that I still need to practice. Sometimes, when I've been playing for a long time, and feel really warmed up, I try to do runs really fast, generally playing the "Paul Gilbert 3 note per string pattern":

E---------------12-----------
B---12-13-15----15-13-12
G-----------------------------
D-----------------------------
A-----------------------------
E-----------------------------

These 16th note triplets at around 130 bpm can get your hands pretty tired after less than a minute. If that's not challenging enough, some crazy string skipping is pretty cool to try like:

E-------------12---------------------12-13-15
B-----------------------------------------------
G-----------------------------------------------
D-----------------------------------------------
A--12-14-15---15-14-12-14-15-----------
E-----------------------------------------------

This one up to speed sounds mind boggling.

Carlos
 
when i start to get in a rut with one thing, i put it down and back away slowly. then after im done with that, i pick up something else. like if i feel my sax skills are starting to get in a slump, ill play my bass more, if the bass is lackin, ill play the electric, if thats not doin it, ill play the drums. if thats not working, i play the computer. and if all else fails, just take a break. listen to some new music, expand your horizens.


freak
 
The best thing when your in the rut is learning scales. Major scales or minor scales.















Or playing a Led Zepplin album......that always gets me charged up.
 
I have almost same problem as GhettoWayz has.
I've played guitar for a while and taught by a teacher
BUT now I fell like I'm getting nothing from
the lesson with my teacher(I still like this guy =)
because we can not do many, or something(that's real)
in 30 min(actually about 25 min).

In other hand, however, some senior guitarist in the internet
told me that i must have some kind of teacher or adviser
to improve myself. (guess what? this teacher is only one whom i know
in my local area - of course there should be more teacher tough =)

I want to hear you guys advice,
1. having teacher(+paying 52 dollar a month) or
2. no teacher(+saving $ + probably afford some gear!).

I am considering that if there is nothing than boring -not advanced
or inspire me- half hour, i'll stop to go my teacher.
also .. i'm little bit worry about not having teacher .. (oh child~)

Everyone have nice day and see you!


P.S : oh!!!, please tell me some decent website that provide bass guitar lesson, specially for guitarist. because i want to play bass too!
(my teacher-again- always told me that guitarist easily can play bass.. sorry all the cool bassist .. specially jaco)

tough.. Bass Freak, what else can you play?!
 
hum.....what else can i play....


well, im still in high school...

i play alto and tenor sax, electric and bass guitar, drums, i hack at the trombone and the harmonica *i learned myself amazing grace during a road trip lol* um....what else...i can play the didjerydo...not quite sure if thats how its spelled or not...but its that long stick thing those people play in australia...you know what im talkin bout....when i get bored with on insturment i pick up another....i really want bagpipes lol


but the wierd thing is....i dont practice....i just...play


freak
 
well, as a musician I reasess myself every once in a while.

I'm determined to become the best musician I can be. There's 24 hours in a day, anything less than 12 hours of complete devotion to my craft is a half-assed attempt at improvement.
And when I improve as a musician, I improve as a person, so a 12 hour investment in myself is never a lost cause musically. There's nobody better to invest it in, I don't have kids yet.

One key I use to get out of a rut is to stay inspired. Go buy a new CD. Go see a great band play live. Meditate. Search within. I mean, why are we musicians anyway?? does you guitar collect dust, or is it a living breathing part of you???

I'm no longer gonna sit on my ass cursing my lack of progress when a rut hits.

What Im organizing is a 3 day rotation. Each "day" consists of 4 blocks, consisting of one hour each. Each hour is devoted to things like Exercises, Sweep picking, Legato, Sight Reading etc etc..... The three different days contain some of the same blocks with a few variations to keep each day different.

Then Ill repeat each "day" 3 times in one day for a total of 12 hours . Then the next day, I do DAY 2 3 times for a total of 12 hours. Then I just repeat the 3 days over and over again.

I havent been on this for a few years, but Im back on track. Im gonna get good....the best that I can be. That may not be as great as Steve Vai, but if Im not the best I can be, then Im not tapping into my full potential as a musician...and thats not good for you.
Thats letting yourself down. I cant do that.

Im completely deconstructing my playing and rebuilding it from the ground up. Im tearing apart picking techniques that I thouight I had pretty good and slowing the click down to about 35 BPM and really getting to the click.

Try this out. Set your click at 35 bpm, fret a 4th fret on the G string (B note)
and just play totally even 16th nots with the click, EXACTLY.....man, that is like riding a bicycle so slow you just wanna fall off the damn thing!!!

this little experiment has really improved my picking, just today!!
it's totally tightened it up.

Hey Carlos, those exercises are killer at 130 bpm...I have the video Paul Gilbert did years ago, it has lots of cool stuff in it.....I can't do that string skipping at 130 bpm yet though...but I will!!! do you have any advice ona practice schedule or tips to keep motivated as a player? I sometimes write something inspirational the night before I go to bed so that early in the morning I am inspired and reasy to work....got any tips to getting better?
maybe we can all improve our playing here....

keep playin'!
 
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Whenever I feel like I'm in a rut the first thing I do is post something about it here. Then I get out all of my how to play guitar videos and watch them. It never hurts to review the basics and I almost always find something that I'd forgotten about.
 
I think it's also good to remember that making music isn't all about technique and speed.
If you finish a song 30 seconds before the rest of the band, you suck as a guitar player ;)
 
that's true.... but I think great technique would prevent such things from happening.

why does having technique mean playing fast to you?if indeed that is the mental association you have... I say technique does not eqaul speed. It takes good technique to play slowly, while sounding good doing it.

Nothing is worse than a slow guitar player with crappy technique.Ecept maybe a fast guitar player with crappy technique. SO clearly, fast or slow is not the issue when you speak of improving technique.

I dont care if your just strumming bob dylan songs, a bad technique will make people cover their ears, and WISH YOU FINISHED THE SONG BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE!!

remember, there is no excuse for sitting on your ass watching progression on the instrument happen to somebody else.

Technique and speed ARE a part of music. Pretending they aren't is just going through life with your eyes closed. They WILL improve you as a player.

You can ALWAYS CHOOSE NOT to play fast. There's always somebody saying here's 10 reasons to ignore speed and technical development...but they always come from somebody who cant do it because they havent put the time or work in, and they dont want you to either because then your capable of something they're not. It's true. Its how human beings work.

A simple formula thats proved to be true:

"He plays too fast" = "I can't play that fast."
 
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Playin' too fast...Not able to play fast..

Playin' fast is fine..as long as you don't ignore phaseing,feel and content..and importantly..vibrato

When I was younger I wanted to be a "blur"..Youthful energy maybe.
Now that I'm older I want to savor the music..Conservation of energy..humm maybe
Do most of the players who have been playing for many years also experience this same cond. ?

;)


Don
 
I've been playing for about 20 years, so speed is already part of my guitar arsenal. When I want to play a Malmsteen lick, I can. But the albums that made me want to play guitar were
Smash Hits, In The West, Disreali Gears,
Sabotage, Blizzard OF Oz, Van Halen and If You Want Blood.

Rising Force came out when I was about 12 and then Trilogy and then I wanted to have that kind of speed in my arsenal.

However, I recently re-assesed myself musically. I want to put MORE IN, simply because i can.

SO as a player who's been playing for years, no I have not mellowed out with age. I've always payed attention to phrasing and feel because it's part of the musical language...

But, by the same token, I think youthful energy is what rock n roll guitar is all about and is what keeps you youthful.

For instance, I saw a show last week on these old blues guys.
This old black guy was about 60 still dressed like Hendrix, playing with his teeth, playing some japanese thrown together crap strat copy the headstock looked like a sharks fin! but anyway this guys had the big fake diamond rings and thought he was the shit....but his eyes bug out of his head from clearly what Id call a drug problem or the results of suffering for years of one.....and the guys playing stank..
Buddy Guy with broken hands would still smoke the house down.

Now why did he do the drugs? cuz he was unhappy. WHat would make me unhappy? being ten years down the road with LESS ability on my instrument
as I have NOW, and whats worse, making excuses to justify it!!!!!

To heck with that. I KNOW that as a musician there is always somethign to work on. There is always an area to develope and improve at. There is always at least 12 hours of musical work in front of any musician.

With anything less than that, I'd call myself a hobbyist or a retired millionaiire rock star who doesnt need to practice - just pump out the crap, package it nice and the kids will eat it up. Creed could shit ina tin can and it would go platinum so does he need to practice? Hell no, he can pay me to play the riffs in the studio.

The point is, how much time you put into your instrument will be evident when you get out of the studio, take a dep breath, and play in front of real living people who can clap or boo and be pretty brutal if need be.

What you put in is what you get out.
But I guess it depends on what you want to achieve, how committed you are to achieving it, and how much time your willing to put in, and the qaulity of time.

After studying rock guitar playing for many years, I think thats what seperates the Van Halens, Malmsteens and Hendrix's.....it wasn't about getting the high score on the Playstation. It was about putting time in on the instrument..all natural born practicers.
They worked at it.

I think for me as a player as the years go by, I want to do more and more on the instrument...

anybidy want to do less and less???
 
I can't argue with your logic...But you gotta admit that that you grew up in one of the better eras of rock guitar playing..I'm a little earlier than you..early 70's,so I understand..I put in alot of time studying modes/scales also speed ect..Somewhere along the line I became more of a songwriter than a guitarplayer..And then the speed thing became less important {to me}..Well..Depends on your goals I guess...If that is what you want to do then "let her rip":)But if someone thinks that speed isn't important..doesn't ness. mean they can't...Good luck and Peace


Don
 
I've been stressed for a long time because of school and now I don't feel like playing much let alone improve my technique.
 
GhettoWayz,

I don't want to put too serious thing here,
(and I don't know your race),
but you really don't have to say "black".

i hate to say something like this. anyway..
you know what i am saying, please don't misunderstand ^_^
 
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