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How to get better at guitar

jakeworth.com

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Re: How to get better at guitar

#151

Post by atoav »

The most important ingredient is time. Just make sure you do something regularly. At the beginning you may just care about making anything that works and measures up to stuff you like, but the truest truth is that you can't start getting into a thing and expect your taste to remain the same.

As you learn more about the instrument you will learn more about what you like and it will eventually shift. There are people where this is not the case, but they are rare and they don't make better or worse music than others.

You may also start to notice more and more that the guitar playing was the simpler part in most music you like,the harder part was how it all came together as a band, how it was composed and recorded and mixed. Guitar players the world over try to compete with sounds that have run through microphones, mixing consoles, channel strips, mixed with other instruments and mastered. And some of them can't even hear where the guitar ends and where the bass guitar starts. So you have generations of guitar players chasing dragons and spending a ton of money on gear that gets them nowhere.

Gear isn't nearly as important as anybody makes it out to be, especially if you go your own way. And that is my recommendation: Go your own way. Sure copy others for learning, but develope your own sound, style of playing, your own music.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#152

Post by adrianh »

I’ve transcribed hundreds of hours of guitar music over 25+ years, using the method described in this article. It was such a slog that I ended up creating tool to help streamline the process: Soundslice (https://www.soundslice.com/).

It combines audio playback directly with a tab editor, so that you can immediately write down what you’ve figured out and your transcription stays in sync with the original audio. This makes transcribing incredibly fast and (importantly) accurate.

It’s got audio slowdown, precise looping, “synth overlay” (playback of the transcription and original audio at the same time, to spot errors), auto stem separation and a full-featured tab/notation editor with support for hundreds of notations.

When you’re done, you get a very useful artifact: a synced transcription, effectively a bespoke practice environment for that piece of music.

Over the years, Soundslice has expanded into a lot more than a pure transcription tool, but lots of people still use it for its original intended purpose. (It supports any instrument that uses western music notation, not just guitar.) If you’re at all interested in transcribing music, give it a shot.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#153

Post by atoav »

niek_pas wrote: post #146
shermantanktop wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s it. The individual who has a breakthrough often feels compelled to call it a “system” and start telling others about it. The great advice someone has is just what worked for them. It will probably work for others, especially if it repeats common advice, but it won’t work for everyone.

There’s also a causal bias here. If I practice guitar for 6 hours a day (like John Petrucci in his teenage years) while always wearing an orange hat, I’ll get pretty damn good at the guitar in a few years. I can then spread the word to everyone that the best way to learn the guitar is to always wear an orange hat. As with the dangers of ‘productivity porn’, ultimately what matters most is putting in the hours.

Right. It is all about the time you put in.

But one thing I like to stress is: You get to decide how to spend that time. Sure it is occasionally good to spend the time on "no fun" practise, especially if you feel your playing is lacking. But you don't get magically better results if you suffer while practising.

I'd argue the opposite: The person who has fun while practising will also learn and they will be inclined to put more hours in.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#154

Post by benrutter »

gritspants wrote: post #66
analog31 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a jazz musician, and my kids are both professional classical players. I've asked them why they don't learn to play jazz. My daughter described pretty much what Glass is saying here. She calls it "fear of sucking." She knows what good jazz improvisation sounds like, and trying to make herself do it is pretty discouraging. Not that there's anything wrong with loving and playing classical music, which is a factor to…

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.

This is so true! I think as kids we naturally don't mind doing something creative and it not working out well, but as adults, we worry too much about seeming competent.

In a career, seeming competent can be valuable, but for learning something new and creative, it often just creates a barrier to getting started.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#155

Post by nathell »

gritspants wrote: post #66
analog31 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a jazz musician, and my kids are both professional classical players. I've asked them why they don't learn to play jazz. My daughter described pretty much what Glass is saying here. She calls it "fear of sucking." She knows what good jazz improvisation sounds like, and trying to make herself do it is pretty discouraging. Not that there's anything wrong with loving and playing classical music, which is a factor to…

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.

Can attest to this.

I picked up singing 4 years ago (I’m 42 now), starting from nothing, and I’ve been taking regular lessons. I still suck. But I suck slightly less than I did when I was starting, and what motivates me is the sheer joy that it brings. I just hope it lasts.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#157

Post by elric »

raincole wrote: post #141
jcattle wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for absolute pitch. All you need is relative pitch. You play a note, compare to the note you heard, maybe even play them at the same time. And then change the note till you find the right one.

How do you do that with chords? I know everyone who isn't completely tone deaf can do that with one single note. But when it comes to chords, unless you already know some music theory, aren't there infinite number of combinations you have to try before you find the correct one?

You don't have to get it right. If you know the basic guitar chords in the open positions, you can sort of play along to the vast majority of popular songs. As your hearing, knowledge of the neck, and maybe music theory improves you will start to recognise more things.

The point is not a perfect outcome. The point is the effort.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#158

Post by rimliu »

bsder wrote: post #80
jedimastert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 to…

> 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. I'm not convinced for guitar. Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique. As long as you're not injuring yourself, practice and determination pretty much overcomes everything.

I see this "bad technique" angle expressed quite often when talking about self-learning. I tend to think it is overblown a bit. I started learning piano by myself during covid. Then I went to two teachers. Neither one had anything bad to say about my technique.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#159

Post by rimliu »

senko wrote: post #29

Wow, Justin with his hair! Been plucking at the guitar (literally and figuratively - trying to learn) for a couple of years now and Justin's (free) course was the best I've found. His videos are compassionate, funny, explain things really well and easy to follow. He also dog-fed the instructions by learning to play left-handed (and posted those videos as well, hilarious to watch). Compared to that, some time earlier…

I second that. Switched to piano, however there is no better course for a quitar than Justin's.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#160

Post by emsixteen »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84
WalterBright wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at a dance hall the other day, and this young lady came floating in. It's hard to describe how she walked - just like she was effortlessly gliding. It looks easy, but anyone else would look like a moose trying it. It's the result of a lifetime of ballet dancing. Probably 10,000 hours, at least. I was just in awe.

It's not just the 10,000 hours, it's learning it very young. I am an ex-professional ballet dancer, and one of the things I always find interesting is that any experienced ballet dancer can instantly tell who trained as a child and who didn't solely by how they stand (literally not even moving) at the barre. But the thing is, children with only a few years of training under their belt will often show this good form,…

My partner's also a dance, and this is what's always come across from her, too - that you can tell a dancer from a glance in an instant, even on the street. I have a little bit of an eye for it but only by virtue of being around that environment.

(also: ex-pro ballet to HN? Can't imagine there's much crossover in that Venn!)

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