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What one thing helped your playing the most?


Minitruth

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I'm 54 years old, the time is now or never. I live in Bergen county, NJ. Perhaps one of you live down the street, who knows? HCEG has always been about helping. I don't need guitars, amps, effects or any material thing. I just need help with my playing.

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Hmm....im not sure I can narrow it to one thing. But since you're asking me to, I will try. I have always taught myself. I did take three lessons, and the dude sucked, mostly taught little kids I think, so I quit. Occasionally, while self teaching, I find myself lacking motivation or not knowing what to practice next. I was in a Major lull in motivation when I bought my little Marshall MG, Kerry King edition. It came with a DVD of Kerry. He spoke to Me in that DVD, and pushed me through that lull. I don't know if I still have it anymore. That and the Tommy Bolan Metal Primer DVD. Oh Dear God! That is an INSANE DVD! Well worth what little I paid.

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Following other players' techniques down the rabbit hole.

 

In high school, I became obsessed with Richard Thompson. I learned how to hybrid pick, studied country and bluegrass licks, took up classical guitar, and spent hours on my acoustic as well as my electric playing each day. I never copped his style, though. I did invigorate my playing.

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Method books is what helped me the most, from Improvising Rock Guitar by Green Note Music Publications (which is still available on Amazon from various sellers. I got my original copy in 1973, but that went MIA in the '80s. I just got another [used] copy from Amazon, and I had forgotten how really good and instructional it is). Also, the Rockschool 1and 2 Method Books (which I also "re-bought" from Amazon after my original copy of Rockschool 1 fell apart). I decided to buy Rockschool 2, and it has some very informative updated guitar lessons in it dealing with playing harmonics and fretboard tapping.

Heavy Metal Rhythm Guitar 1 and 2 and Heavy Metal Lead Guitar 1 and 2 by Troy Stetina are very informative, as is Metal Guitar Tricks by Tony Burton and Troy Stetina. Those books will really unravel the mysteries of the sounds that you hear on heavy rock and metal records.

 

I recently read an interview with Buddy Guy in a Guitar Player or Guitar World ( also great sources of guitar info), and he said he never learned anything from any books about guitar playing. I'm certainly not the performer that Buddy Guy is, but everything I've ever learned about guitar has been from books and magazines, lol.

 

[EDIT] Oh yeah, and the Internet. The Internet is also a great source of Guitar info and has been for the past 16+ years.

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determination...without which you don't practice, don't listen critically, don't seek out new things and don't improve.

I never took a lesson. I borrowed a Mel Bay chord book, and a Bob Dylan songbook, and I was off and running.

I was playing professionally before I could really read music.

I watched other people play, occasionally [rarely] someone would show me a cool riff, but it was really just me, getting it done. One guy showed me a C major chord on the piano...and I figured out the rest on my own. That same determination drove me to study piano, harmony and musicianship in college [they let me skip the introductory courses when I 'challenged' the course work and passed...because I had already figured out all that stuff]. Still the guitar was my instrument...that and my voice.

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I had one great guitar teacher, Dan Mablot, he knew how to get fingers moving scales wise and chord wise. If I played back the lesson perfectly, he would show me a song that I liked. So , I started mastering his lessons before the lesson was over and he would donate more time teaching me my favorite song before he packed up the lesson. He helped me develope a good ear, gave me a great sense of theory and taught me how to improvise.

I was so into Tower, Hendrix, Schenker, Page and EVH.

Then I became a Shred guitarist in the 80's, studied some Classical, listen to everyone and everything.

39 years of guitar playing and the learning never ends .... As it should be 👍

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A Telecaster. It wasn't my first electric or even my first decent guitar.but it's the right guitar. Some people call it a lie detector ,either you can play it or you can't.No hiding. It forced me to play better . It's simplicity is a good thing too.but mostly I found my sound.

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having a goal, where you put all your efforts and dedication in it. and once reached find another one.

 

i started out wanting to learn patience from g'n'r, once i reached this, together with a bunch of other songs, i heard john lee hooker and hendrix for the first time, so i wanted to learn to improvise. then i went to university and my guitar playing goals got lost and my playing stuck.

ten years later i was playing for the first time in a band, new goals arose, new things to learn, new goals reached

 

unfortunately currently i'm in a goalless phase myself, don't know where the band is going, we want to do a lot of things, but time is limited and sometimes dedication is missing (yeah we don't have a common goal with a common timeframe set :)), but i'm dedicated into practicing and improving my playing.

in two weeks we have a again one of our sparse gigs, lets see what is happening :)

 

 

oh and i have a second thing:

play music (from the record, or by yourself) what you like. expand your musical horizont and add more and more to your listening and playing vocabulary.

but never let you force to play something you don't like and can't stand. if you don't enjoy what you are doing, the audience will always notice and they will not enjoy it either...

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Relax the fretting hand and press lightly but consistently right up behind the fret.

When you're learning a piece, NEVER play it faster than you can play it easily without mistakes. Speed it up gradually.

If you're learning a piece take the time to listen with headphones and write down the lyrics. You'll absorb the nuances of the song and remember the sequence of things even if you aren't singing.

Learn whole songs!

Resist the temptation to crank the low end when you're in a band/recording situation so you sit nicely in the mix.

Never play 7th chords in country music. ;)

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A healthy competition playing with other musicians is what gives you a passion to play well. You still have to find music to learn and put in the hours, but you're scramble to learn your parts much more effectively when you know you have a gig coming up. Females in the audience have been known to motivate many male guitarist to play well too.

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One answer, DRIVE. In the early and mid eighties when I learned to play I didn't have the internet with endless chords and tab. I didn't have youtube with a lesson on any well known and even obscure song you can think of. I didn't have access to all kinds of "apps" and programs that breakdown the music, slow it down, pull parts out of it, and dissect it in a way that makes it somewhat easier to learn. I lived in a rural area so lessons weren't an option. All I usually had was a guitar, amp, the song on a stereo, and if I was very lucky the tab in the latest month issue of Guitar For The Practicing Musician.

 

Sometimes I can remember waiting all month for the next issue of GFTPM to arrive, only to find out I didn't like any of the songs that had been tabbed. I still learned to play the hell out of them because that was all I had.

 

 

I know all generation say this about the next one (in all aspects of life) but if I would have had the drive that I did as a kid and access to the resources available today people just might know my name.

 

 

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A good instrument makes a big difference. A guy I grew up with is the son of a working musician (my father also played guitar but was not a professional).

 

My friend's father gave him a '56 Goldtop when he was nine years old. By the time we were in junior high school, I was trying to pick out Hendrix riffs on my fathers old archtop and my friend was gigging with his own band playing Hendrix and Zeppelin etc. as the songs were being released.

 

It's not all about the quality of the instrument - my friend is a naturally gifted musician - but the fact that his guitar never limited his potential and progress is quite significant.

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The one bit of advice I give to folks wanting to learn guitar (which may not apply to all the forumites here with long-term obsessive guitar fetishes) is to keep the guitar handy. Where you sit the most in your house, have a guitar within reach so you'll grab it when the urge hits. It's like the joke that Mitch Hedberg used to tell:

"I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen's too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny."

 

I learned what I learned by learning chords and used strum along books. Eventually took some lessons which helped me develop some lead work. Later took some classical guitar lessons which helped me develop 4-finger picking skills. Plus lots of tab books, etc.

 

The last thing I did was to finally break down and pay the $35 or so for the membership to Tab Pro.

 

I don't think their stuff is as good as the older Power Tab Editor used to be (i.e tabs are not as consistent) but a lot of their stuff is close enough, And I do like being able to hear a run through the tab notation rather than just trying to figure out the cadence on my own.

 

I'm 6 years ahead of you and I know I'll be a student till I croak. When I retire I plan to up my OCD a bit more too.

 

Last two songs I started working on (which are pretty fun and the main parts are fairly easy) are "Slave" and "Heaven" off of the R.S.'s Tattoo You album. As long as I can give myself some good endorphins playing a song, it inspires me to keep going.

 

I do remember being frustrated with my first guitar teacher because I thought (and I think I'm still correct) that he should have been teaching me more "building blocks" instead of riffs. But 20 years or so later I've realized that the more you learn, the easier it gets to learn new stuff. OTOH, my classical guitar teacher was all about proper building blocks to learn the instrument. I hung in there for a while, but frankly it was a bit much for me to keep up with during a trying time in my life back in the late 90s. But, at least I learned to finger pick! :D

 

If only they'd had electronic tuners and tablature back when I first picked up a guitar, I'd be sooooo much further along than I am now. The tools were virtually nonexistent in the late '60s/early '70s. New players have it cush in comparison.

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I have to agree to a point that things like tutorials on youtube and all teh tab/chord sites have completely changed the process for learning guitar now compared to the 50-60-70-80 eras. How many albums did I scratch into unplayability, how many cassettes did I ruin? Countless.

 

I also agree it is a great idea to keep a guitar close by [where practical...I don't have one in the kitchen] I have one here in my home office, the 'mancave', the living room...

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