Live data from Hacker News

How to get better at guitar

jakeworth.com

1–10 of 276 posts

Re: How to get better at guitar

#2
It's still tabs, but marginally better because you're making your own tabs. Work on hearing the key and chord progression and you won't need tabs. You'll be able to jam with anyone, anytime. It'll take a couple months to get there, but you'll no longer rely on tabs - which I think is the goal.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#3
Sting famously learned to play bass using this sort of technique with music on LPs, lifting the needle and dropping it back a bit in the track over and over again as he gradually worked out the notes and fingering.

Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#4
The Way I Learn Now: Listening & Transcribing

I lived near a music school and took proper guitar lessons. After getting down the basics from the Alfred Method book, this was the homework my guitar teacher gave me.

Coincidentally enough, I was also transcribing RATM back then too...

Re: How to get better at guitar

#5
I learned to play guitar this way -- listening to CDs and scrubbing back and forth, writing down what I heard. It's great, but it only gets you so far. Learning pentatonic scales was a step-change for me.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#6
Are you telling me that spending time writing an app to learn the guitar neck isn't the best way?? Blasphemy, I tell you!

Anyway here is my app of shame:

https://kelvie.github.io/chord-finder/

I also came to the realization after making this that my time was better spent transcribing, but I wanted to learn egui (and this was before coding agents, so it actually took some time).

Re: How to get better at guitar

#7
post #3

Sting famously learned to play bass using this sort of technique with music on LPs, lifting the needle and dropping it back a bit in the track over and over again as he gradually worked out the notes and fingering. Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.

My music teacher said that practice does not produce perfection, only perfect practice produces perfection.

If you mess up, redo the part you messed up correctly 5 times in a row.

And, don't just practice the easy stuff. You have to challenge yourself to grow.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#10
post #3

Sting famously learned to play bass using this sort of technique with music on LPs, lifting the needle and dropping it back a bit in the track over and over again as he gradually worked out the notes and fingering. Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.

> Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.

There are a few pedagogical points here to keep in mind:

first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them.

Also, different ways of learning have different values in terms of what goals you're aiming towards and very importantly what kind of practice will keep you motivated in a sustainable way. Sometimes, taking shortcuts in some ways means you might slow down your growth rate but you'll have better overall growth because you'll keep at it for longer

Post reply on HN