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How to get better at guitar

jakeworth.com

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Re: How to get better at guitar

#211

Post by TimByte »

crtified wrote: post #21

One truth I've observed from decades of keen hobbyist involvement in guitar music and playing is that a lifetime of music is largely an individual journey. The fact that some players learn by transcribing, while others learn by jamming, and yet others learn by rote theoretical study, or 10-hour practice sessions, etc, is a big part of the variety which results in the wonderfully varied tapestry of music styles and ap…

I'd see this less as "the way" and more as a really powerful tool that some people discover earlier than others

Re: How to get better at guitar

#213

Post by sanitycheck »

I'm only good enough to impress people who don't know what a good guitar player sounds like.

My advice to people, which seems to work OK, is just to have the guitar out and ready to play wherever you're likely to be - maybe even in the way so it has to be moved sometimes - and just pick it up and play it as often as possible.

Waiting for the kettle to boil? Play the guitar. TV is showing ads? Mute it and play the guitar. Your partner needs to go to the bathroom before you both go out? Play the guitar.

It doesn't matter what you play, it doesn't have to be good, it can be a random improvisation, it can be scales. Your fingers are learning.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#214

Post by 9rx »

newdee wrote: post #150
9rx wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique. The universe didn't offer a manual on how to play guitar, so how are you determining that their technique was bad? Given what you say about them, maybe they actually had the perfect technique?

The universe didn’t offer a manual, but mankind has largely arrived at some orthodoxy for the most efficient and ergonomic ways to fret, bend, pluck, tap, strum, etc. In many cases, these are objectively better techniques to use once mastered, but they’re not the only way.

> In many cases, these are objectively better techniques to use once mastered

Given a certain set of quantifiable measures that is no doubt true, but then that only pushes the question to how are the measures determined to be objectively relevant? If the aforementioned fast/famous guitar players had started with a different technique there is a chance they wouldn't have become fast/famous. In that case, given the criteria of reaching notable speed/fame, it is possible their "bad" methods were actually best of all.

But also, even where everyone agrees there is a better way, that doesn't equate to an alternative being bad. So the original question still stands: How do we determine "shockingly bad" as opposed to "different"?

Re: How to get better at guitar

#215

Post by butlike »

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.

Embrace the suck. You don't become great coloring in the lines; that only gets you to the 100th percentile. Smearing the paint creates the 101st percentile, which drops everyone else to the 99th.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#216

Post by tarentel »

sanitycheck wrote: post #213

I'm only good enough to impress people who don't know what a good guitar player sounds like. My advice to people, which seems to work OK, is just to have the guitar out and ready to play wherever you're likely to be - maybe even in the way so it has to be moved sometimes - and just pick it up and play it as often as possible. Waiting for the kettle to boil? Play the guitar. TV is showing ads? Mute it and play the gui…

It depends on what your goals are. If you're doing it for fun or as a creative outlet this is great advice. If you're trying to actively get better you won't do it this way after a certain point. You need to be actively practicing and engaging your brain. It does matter what you play and how you play it.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#217

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

[deleted]

Re: How to get better at guitar

#218

Post by harrall »

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,…

I used to think this was true in skateboarding but eventually I found exceptions.

4-5 times / week is not a lot on its own.

You need like 20-25 hours / week. That’s how many actual hours a lot of us kids were spending, at least skateboarding.

If we take the 10,000 hour figure literally, at 20 hours/week, you get good in 9 years, which kind of fits when kids get good.

Almost zero adults I know can (or are willing to) spend 20 hours/wk on a physical hobby.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn something new, but you gotta be a little strategic.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#219

Post by tarentel »

dmux wrote: post #111
BizarroLand wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

>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 ot…

When learning a new piece you should play all the way through once. You should play through it again, stopping at all the problematic areas and making note of them, but continuing. After that there are a lot of ways to go about practicing a piece. I think repetitions on the problematic areas in conjunction with working backwards, especially if you want/need to memorize the piece, is fastest.

Playing through the whole song from the beginning over and over again is not an efficient way to learn a new piece of music.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#220

Post by javier123454321 »

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…

> "Keys" and "note names" literally only come up on the guitar when playing open strings.

That is a false statement and stated boldly.

While it is possible to not know the note names, it is such a simple thing that takes very low effort (5 minutes a day for like 3 weeks) and it helps simplify, find and simply understand the instrument better. I would advise any player to just do it.

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