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How to get better at guitar

jakeworth.com

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Re: How to get better at guitar

#111

Post by dmux »

BizarroLand wrote: post #7
beachy wrote: 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.

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

I think it may be important to note _when_ to redo this. I started off this way, but after working with a guitar teacher (a Berklee graduate), he recommended that I continue on with the song and return to the problematic parts afterwards. If you constantly stop at the problematic parts to replay them and get it right, you'll have no idea what other parts you'll have trouble with further into the song until much later. In addition to that, being able to move on and continue playing the song after making a mistake is an important skill itself. If you build that skill, it's usually only other musicians that will notice -- a regular audience won't.

What's your take on it?

Re: How to get better at guitar

#112

Post by davemo »

jrop wrote: post #11

Tommy Emmanuel apparently learned by transrcibing, famously thinking that both the bass line and guitar lines he was hearing were a singular "guitar part". Just by having his expectations (incorrectly) raised, he rose to the occasion and played both parts. I forget where I heard this story -- it's probably either rather famous, or buried in an interview somewhere.

Tommy drew a lot of inspiration from Chet Atkins who was really the pioneer of the bass+guitar "one hand band" style of playing. Tommy just improved on it a lot, adding more rhythmic elements, but to your point, yes, he was largely self-taught and driven to learn.

A good interview on his background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py4T1qv9bnQ

Re: How to get better at guitar

#113

Post by iainctduncan »

zozbot234 wrote: post #82
iainctduncan wrote: post #64

Listening and transcribing is an excellent thing to do. But it would be terrible advice to say it's the only thing to do. Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is. On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn techniqu…

"Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings. When playing fretted notes, the guitar is a completely relative instrument. You should focus on learning diatonic patterns of tones and semitones on the fretboard directly, not individual notes. It's a completely different method than the piano keyboard, which involves working within a fixed diatonic framework, and altering it to…

I play electric and uptight jazz bass. While what you describe is possible for some genres, not knowing keys and the fretboard the same way you know keys on the piano is a non starter for jazz. All the competent jazz guitarists and bassists I know have this down cold. It's table stakes in my world.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#114

Post by bananamogul »

57yo here who started guitar from scratch 16 months ago, with zero musical background. For my fellow players, I'm at the stage where barre chords are playable but switching between them quickly is still tough.

I studied exclusively with an app (Yousician) for the first 13 months, then got a local teacher I see once a week. I practice 45-60 minutes a day and have only missed a few days in the last 16 months.

In my experience, it all comes down to practice. There is no magic forumula or shortcut. The 2000 hours to passable playing is very much accurate. I track that chart nearly perfectly.

It's very much a sprint-plateau experience. This week I was trying to learn the chords in Clapton's "Old Love" and for 6 days I could not switch between them, then on the 7th day I was able to make the leap. There's a bunch of brain science about consolidating memories and such but...it all comes down to practice.

I agree with the sentiment that you have to practice correctly, but even if you learn bad habits, more practice and challenging yourself will weed them out. It's really crucial to always challenge yourself. Practice is doing hard things, not playing things you already know. You have to separate practice from playing, because they're two different things. Yes, there's a value in picking up the guitar and fooling around, but to really get better, you have to challenge yourself constantly.

Guitar is a game of millimeters, to an extent I never appreciated. This is where a local teacher can be hugely helpful. How you position your hand, where your thumb is, the arch in different knuckles, how much you're pressing down, how you are positioning that barring finger, where your right hand is, etc. - it's all extreme fine-tuning.

It's massively rewarding. But the learning curve is brutal. I practice for an hour at mid-day and would never have imagined the incredible health benefits in terms of stress relief. It's an hour (to borrow a Steely Dan quote, albeit not in its original drug context) "time out of mind" where I'm doing something completely orthogonal to the rest of my life, for no reason except to hone a skill and enjoy.

I HIGHLY recommend keeping a journal and noting every day what you did. Day by day you'll think "I'm not improving at all, I suck, maybe I'm getting worse"...then you look and realize how much progress you've made compared to two months ago, etc.

BTW, my daughter, 16, practices half as much as I do or less, yet learns 2-3x as fast because she has a long younger brain.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#115

Post by ziofill »

grogenaut wrote: post #107
gritspants wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I picked up Violin as an adult, have done recitals, and I suck. Being able to suck and find joy in something anyway even if you're not top nth percentile is a valuable life skill.

I tell my Mentees one of the greatest skills is getting good at not being good at something. Being comfortable being uncomfortable.

This is good advice for most human activities. I told my students these exact words (you gotta get comfortable being uncomfortable) countless times when teaching math and physics.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#116

Post by defrost »

iainctduncan wrote: post #113
zozbot234 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings. When playing fretted notes, the guitar is a completely relative instrument. You should focus on learning diatonic patterns of tones and semitones on the fretboard directly, not individual notes. It's a completely different method than the piano keyboard, which involves working within a fixed diatonic framework, and altering it to…

I play electric and uptight jazz bass. While what you describe is possible for some genres, not knowing keys and the fretboard the same way you know keys on the piano is a non starter for jazz. All the competent jazz guitarists and bassists I know have this down cold. It's table stakes in my world.

> uptight jazz bass

mah man . . . too much of that loosey goosey stuff.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#117

Post by iainctduncan »

defrost wrote: post #116
iainctduncan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play electric and uptight jazz bass. While what you describe is possible for some genres, not knowing keys and the fretboard the same way you know keys on the piano is a non starter for jazz. All the competent jazz guitarists and bassists I know have this down cold. It's table stakes in my world.

> uptight jazz bass mah man . . . too much of that loosey goosey stuff.

Lol I have to admit, I do play "uptight bass". The Freudian thumb slip got me, ha

Relaxing on that thing is hard! :)

Re: How to get better at guitar

#118

Post by iainctduncan »

aanet wrote: post #97
iainctduncan wrote: post #64

Listening and transcribing is an excellent thing to do. But it would be terrible advice to say it's the only thing to do. Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is. On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn techniqu…

Curious to know more: Where are you doing your interdisciplinary PhD in music + CS? Thanks

Hi, University of Victoria in Canada.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#119

Post by nphardon »

There's some analogy around learning to play a song without using your ears and painting without using your eyes. Like the silliness on the drawing side is obvious. The benefits gained by using your ears to learn music (again this is such a silly statement when you think about it) are so huge and so overlooked by so many beginner guitar players. An hour of learning by ear is worth a week of reading. Also, as I see it, youtube is full of perpetual teachers looking for perpetual students; being a perpetual student sucks. All you need is records.
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