One thing I'd add: slowing the track down (without pitch shifting) helps a lot in the beginning
How to get better at guitar
201–210 of 276 posts
Re: How to get better at guitar
#202Music and guitar performance is an academic subject like any other, and has a standard curriculum. There are a few well known top schools, Berklee, MI etc. There are a couple of standard method books.
There really is no need to try to discover "how to get good at guitar" any more than you need to discover how to get good at mathematics.
Music is a language, you practice reading, writing, listening and playing (speaking).
How to get the time for the study, is the challenge, of which there's no "secret solution". Only people who are relatively well off can afford these schools, and/or take the risk of studying something so frivolous with such a low chance of paying off.
If you practice something diligently for 30min every day, it will still take you something like 25 years to rack up the hours of a 4 year masters degree.
Re: How to get better at guitar
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Practice make permanent.
This is the one I use, both for myself and the kids. How you practice will become how you play, so it's important to make sure you have good form and technique.
There's another, similar saying used in fighting-related disciplines: train how you fight.
Same idea. You're building muscle memory and technique, so make sure your training/practicing matches how you'd do it in a performance (or fight). It's one less thing to have to think about when you're under stress.
Re: How to get better at guitar
#204My appoach is more focused on continuity rather than stop-analyze-go style suggested on this article. Select a song, get a well sounding tab of that song, pick a section, loop it slow enough so you can reasonably hit the notes, once you play it well speed it up and repeat this until 120% speed, repeat this whole process for all sections and you're done.
Interestingly, when learning Morse code, many will tell you to learn it at the speed you'll be using it. The theory is it's easier to overcome the hurdle and learn the faster speed, rather than relearn each speed as you ramp up.
However, this creates a higher barrier to entry that only the truly dedicated will overcome.
Re: How to get better at guitar
#205I’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…
I just recently discovered Soundslice after decades of transcribing with various tools and libraries. They worked butyour tool puts everything together so well. Immediately subscribed. Thank you for making this tool. Cheers.
You're very welcome, and thanks for using it!
Re: How to get better at guitar
#206I’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…
Hey, just wanted to say I really love your software and it was a pleasure finding out that you guys are active on HN (I remember your ASCII tabs post). It's very pleasant to use, especially with the sync mode to help play over tabs I have with the official music video. Cheers
Great to hear. Thanks very much, and keep playing music!
Re: How to get better at guitar
#207This brought to mind a quote from Ira Glass: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your…
Yes, the struggle is kind of the whole point
Re: How to get better at guitar
#208This brought to mind a quote from Ira Glass: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your…
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…
"Fear of sucking" is such a perfect way to put it
Re: How to get better at guitar
#209The way I learned guitar: 1. Lessons for 6 months, didn't learn much. 2. Started playing cover tunes, did that extensively for years. Practiced by butt off. Played with a lot of different people. 3. Went back to learning theory. For me my main motivation to learn guitar was to play in a band, not to become good at the guitar itself. But it turned out that I was talented enough to learn a lot by just screwing around.…
> I'd just start with learning all the notes on the fretboard, [...] and scale shapes
This is not as simple as it sounds. It seems, from my experience of learning a guitar and observing others, that there is something inherently illogical how tonality changes between strings. There are two main ways to do it, either you remember by memory, or you simply hear what happens. Both are hard for average beginner, because it just doesn't make sense.
After I have been practicing a guitar for quite some time I started learning a piano for some reason, and seeing the keys in front of me it all made sense instantly
Re: How to get better at guitar
#210I’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…
The core value of transcription isn't the friction itself, it's the attention: looping, listening closely, testing hypotheses, correcting yourself