Tyr is very wise indeed. Heheheh. To further add, I'd suggest learning terminology as well. It definitely helps with discussions at times. How "good" are you? Have you been playing awhile? Do you have the basics down? I mean would you consider yourself intermediate or advanced yet? If you are, I'd also suggest looking a little bit into theory. Not so much, as I think if you look too much into it, you'll likely just confuse the shit out of yourself.. hahah. All in all, the statement I live most by.. is make sure you like your playing.
What I mean by that is, you have to enjoy playing what it is you play, musically. I've got a drummer friend who struggles at times because he tries to do too much fusion shit at once... and he began to consider himself a "shitty" drummer, for not having the ability to corner polyrhythms and such in the way Danny Carey could do. Basically, he was upset that his progression had seemed to gotten hindered... so I asked him what was wrong, and he asked me: "Dude, am I a good drummer?", and I told him:
"What? Yeah man, you're a pretty bad motherfucker... I'd say, your only problem is that when you get into something too much, you tend to speed up a little bit.. and you just have to keep your tempo controlled a bit better on those 120+ bpm double-bass rudiments."
This dude is a bad son of a bitch at just playing purely aggressive, straight-forward, steamrolling double-bass heavy shit. So, he felt better after that, and calmed down... and was then surprised to find out that once he stopped mentally kicking his ass, he started to progress again, and pick up more of the little fusion touches... like polyrhythms, synchopation.. those jazzy hi-hat touches...
So, just be in touch with your OWN STYLE of playing, before trying to tackle other people's shit too much. I Think individuality is what makes the player, anyways... I mean, if you can play everyone else's shit.. that's all well and good, but if you cant groove on your own... then man... I Dunno what to say about that.
Anyways, sorry for the long post, Im just tryin' to help out as best I can,
Anyone else care to chime in?
J
