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How to get better at guitar

jakeworth.com

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Re: How to get better at guitar

#231

Post by ProllyInfamous »

calebm wrote: post #226

I very recently inherited a guitar-harp. One thing I love about it is that it is so straight forward to play - unlike guitar (where you have to press frets), a guitar harp is laid out like a piano (left to go lower frequency and right to go higher frequency). So it's been easy to just listen to a song and play along. I can't sight-read music, and trying to learn a song by reading music is tedious and boring to me. Ju…

I just bought a harmonica.

I have played only a few times, many decades ago..

Bless my poorest neighbors...

----

>Just listening and playing along feels MUCH better.

This is how I strumbanjo, intoxicated within the noises (often more).

Re: How to get better at guitar

#232

Post by sanitycheck »

tarentel wrote: post #216
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.

Sure, there's "deliberate practice" and it matters - but so many people seem to think if they're playing that's what they should be doing, or it's a waste of time. In reality that often isn't much fun, and they start to associate the instrument with this sort of difficult and often disappointing experience, and they give up.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#233

Post by customs2 »

freetime2 wrote: post #32

This 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 get sad whenever I read this quote and know I was one of the people who quit. Not for lack of trying, I had severe mental issues that trained my mind to associate practice with distress. It caused my burnout twice on an optional activity

The struggle is real for all people but in particular I feel robbed of resilience to even do anything. I can't speed up my therapy so the thought of years of practice being lost to time always hits me like a truck

Re: How to get better at guitar

#234

Post by jzemeocala »

analog31 wrote: post #48
freetime2 wrote: post #32

This 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…

this reminds me of when i was 16 and a multi-instrumentalist but in love with the bass i had a chance to go to any music school anywhere that i could get into (top choice was the academy of music in rotterdam) i eventually settled on what i thought would be a rock school (based on the instruments taught) in clearwater by some guy id never heard of named jeff berlin.....lol

Re: How to get better at guitar

#235

Post by elevatortrim »

lesostep wrote: post #182
hirako2000 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying some people don't have taste, or less of it? I like to call it interest. What makes something interesting to some that I'm not sure.

Taste absolutely can and does evolve the more you play. It doesn't mean that everyone taste evolves towards one absolute taste, people stay different. I kinda think it applies to all artistic hobbies. On one hand you learn a practical hands-applying skill, on another hand you learn how to express yourself and/or listen to expression of others in chosen medium. And, well, the more you look at something, the more you s…

I can attest. After 7 years of practising guitar, the gap between my ability and my taste is even greater compared to when I started.

Actually I can say the same thing for programming, I can build most software I would think of building when I started 20 years ago, but there is still a large gap between what I can build but what I discovered later and now would like to be able to build (I'd need to learn lots of maths in addition to other things).

Re: How to get better at guitar

#236

Post by BrokenCogs »

adrianh wrote: post #193
BrokenCogs wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually trying to build something similar to this for personal use, not as a product. What did you find was the most difficult technical step when building? I'm finding it particularly challenging to separate rhythm and lead guitar parts (both in terms of stem separation and also when transcribing by ear).

I've been working on it full-time since 2012, so it's hard for me to reduce 14 years' worth of work to a single "most difficult technical step." Sorry, I don't mean to be rude or unhelpful, but that's not a question I can provide a meaningful answer to. There have been dozens, probably hundreds, of difficult technical challenges in building Soundslice.

fair do's

Re: How to get better at guitar

#237

Post by elevatortrim »

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.

Putting in the hours is important, but not I would not single it out as what matters because there is so much varienty of talent between musicians who put in similar hours. What you do in those hours at least equally matters.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#238

Post by iainctduncan »

defrost wrote: post #175
iainctduncan wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol I have to admit, I do play "uptight bass". The Freudian thumb slip got me, ha Relaxing on that thing is hard! :)

RiP Eugene Wright - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZs

I adore those albums with Paul Desmond and Jim Hall. So killer.

Re: How to get better at guitar

#239

Post by a96 »

chucksmash wrote: post #194
freetime2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rick Beato did a video about being able to identify guitarists by a single note. David Gilmour was by far the easiest to recognize. It got me wondering how much work would it take to even be able to play a single note as well as David Gilmour. And even then I would still only be imitating someone, not creating something original. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gESY87hn7_Q

Wow, true. The David Gilmour note is plain as day. Only other one nearly as easy for me was EVH. The Jimi note sounded like Jimi but like the top comment says, a lot of the others sounded like Jimi too.

Jimi and Eddie are the two singularities of guitar, though. Before them it was unimaginable for anyone to sound like that. After them it was the normal.

(Although they're also tones that a lot of players still try to chase for their entire lives and never really reach. There's some magic to them beyond the more obvious steps.)

Re: How to get better at guitar

#240

Post by elevatortrim »

senko wrote: post #169
rimliu wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do you have a recommendation for a piano/keyboard one?

If you can afford it and have the time, your local conservatoire.

Piano is very different than the guitar, it is much more technique and repertoire focused (as opposed to improvisation and interpretation of guitar).

In comparison to guitar, there is much more and much higher quality material available for piano as it is being taught for hundreds of years, but most of it is accessible through classical teachers.

There is definitely opportunity for someone to create the justin guitar of piano though, I do not think it has been done yet.

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