Progressing with the Guitar

[Heckelgruber]

At the risk of too much guitar wanking and not enough Opeth...

a lot of you on this forum seem to be play the guitar, and from what I can tell a lot of you are many years ahead of me in skill.

It seems to be that it's all too easy when you sit down with your instrument to just noodle around in your comfort zone, play a few
riffs you know and never push yourself at all. Recently I started working through a book of exercises where you stick to a short routine
of these in on top of other daily playing and it has helped a lot with dexterity and accuracy.

So I was wondering who else does any kind of exercise routine, because at the same time as being useful it seems kind of anal. If
you do, can you recommend some good sources of exercises at higher skill levels? Every now and then you seem to make a bit of a jump - what else has helped you get your playing to a new level?

 

[affinityband]

The most important thing id say when playing guitar ( other peoples songs mostly ) Is play it exactly how the artist will play it. If you can transpose what the artist is doing through guitar playing id say that is the real skill of it. Personally i havent found an excerise for it. I dont know if there are many ways of being abel to interperet dynamics in such a way.

 

[Opethian666]

Well I've only been playing guitar for 2 years now, but most people that have heard me play say that for the time I've been playing I've made awesome progress (but then again, I don't have many metalhead friends in real life so they may not know what kind of things are capable on a guitar). Anyway, my motto is, don't make it easy on yourself, try to do the hard things, even if you fail miserably at first. I started tremolo picking after I had been playing the guitar for 2 months, and it just sounded like a joke for about a week straight, but after that week I finally nailed it. The same for sweep picking, which I started to learn half a year ago. At first I thought it was gonna take me weeks to learn, but then that day came again when the feeling entered and bam I could do it. Learning guitar is in those moments where suddenly you found that feeling and you gain a new dimension to your playing. I've found that learning to play guitar, for me, is not a steady progress at all, it goes with flatlines and then suddenly great peaks. So when something fails at first, don't give up, keep trying, in different ways, and try to keep an open mind as to how you can accomplish things. Often great progress comes with small experiments.

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

I can never bring myself to set aside time everyday for real practicing. I'd like to do it but I'm just too lazy or something. I'll do it sometimes, but I don't have a set schedule. A good exercise is to play through scales with a metronome. Once you get comfortable at a particular speed, make it faster and when you get totally comfortable with that speed, make it a little faster. There is also a really good chromatic exercise that you can do this with, and here it is:

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[Opethian666]

My parents also bought me an account at http://guitarleads.com.au/ recently, which has some nice exercises with video examples and stuff like that. If you want I'll PM you my account and username, and you can use the special download feature to download the complete site to your PC, and the thing allows for multiple logins anyway, so just PM me if you want it.

 

[Opethian666]

Oh and another obvious but very important tip: Start off slow with the hard things, and gradually build up speed while you ensure you are doing the technique right. Don't try heightening speed before you got the technique down. Doing something fast but sloppy isn't something anyone should strive to achieve.

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

^true, unless you play grind

 

[NFU]

usually i have a set of 5 songs i jam along to. however these are songs with long empty instrumental sections where i can improvise any sort of leads or solos i want. and my goal is to stay within those margins, but always play it differently, using different notes and phrasings and techniques. its a good and interesting way to warm up without your playing getting stagnant or boring.

 

[An Absent Friend]

Anyway in maximum 1-2 year people learn the main I think. Sweep Picking etc. the later steps are harder blues-jazz stuff. Thats the main thing after. and don't push your self to play hard things. Just play however you like , the time will come that those things will not satisfy you.

And listen various kind of musics and play them , maybe this way you can create you own licks etc. Not ripping of , experiencing.

 

[Ten SiSi]

Also, you should always work on different time signatures. playing in 5/4s, 6/8s, 7/8s. it helps broaden your songwriting.

 

[An Absent Friend]

Fuck what are they? Drums?

 

[Ten SiSi]

lol

 

[An Absent Friend]

I think they don't exist in language Turkish.

Seriously what are they?

 

[soundave]

Use a metronome and start slowly with any exercise. Pay attention to the details, make sure you are playing cleanly before speeding up.

 

[westknife]

usually i have a set of 5 songs i jam along to. however these are songs with long empty instrumental sections where i can improvise any sort of leads or solos i want. and my goal is to stay within those margins, but always play it differently, using different notes and phrasings and techniques. its a good and interesting way to warm up without your playing getting stagnant or boring.

.

Also, you should always work on different time signatures. playing in 5/4s, 6/8s, 7/8s. it helps broaden your songwriting.

.

here are some looped backing tracks that i have made that i use to practice improvising:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kq67iz

they are taken from: black sabbath, herbie hancock, frank zappa, return to forever, and the mahavishnu orchestra. #6 is in 11/8 time, subdivided 2-2-2-2-3, so be careful

 

[Scourge of Malice]

Usually I fuck around for a little bit, get the fingers warmed up a little. Then I usually jam to a few songs. Pretty frequently I try to learn new songs that are somewhat difficult for me to play and keep practicing till I get them down, and I feel accomplished. I really need to start getting into some theory though.

 

[Heckelgruber]

Some of this stuff I'm doing, hopefully I'm on the right track. It usually works out like either:

a) Horrible busy day, barely get to lay my fingers on it. Do a few exercises to a metronome, up the speed if I've got itdown.

b) Play for around an hour. Do some exercises then spend half an hour playing along to a reasonably simple song or playing randomly in some key or other.

c) Get a nice long session, do lots of the above plus do a bit of ear training/theory bits too.

I definitely believe in playing along to a drum machine as some of you have mentioned. I've also discovered the wealth of Opeth Powertabs, which made me feel like a child in an old-fashioned sweetshop.

Big thanks for general advice and things posted/downloads, very helpful!

 

[Lietuvis]

When I began playing, it was always difficult for me to really progress... I never really did any exercises or "real" learning.

Playing classical music has helped a lot with being more serious about practicing, because it is much more demanding than rock, etc...

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

.


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here are some looped backing tracks that i have made that i use to practice improvising:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kq67iz

they are taken from: black sabbath, herbie hancock, frank zappa, return to forever, and the mahavishnu orchestra. #6 is in 11/8 time, subdivided 2-2-2-2-3, so be careful

Thanks for those backing tracks.

 

[Ermz]

I've never done any regular excercises per-se. The crux of my development happened as I gradually picked songs to learn that were ever slightly beyond my ability level at the time.

I picked guitar up during a pretty hardcore academic year at school, and I didn't want it to give me that same sickening feeling of being mechanical, monotonous... well, you get the picture.

I learned most of what I know via songs.