Members C-Dawg Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 Sorry for the long post, if you don't care about details, please see the last paragraph. I posted this here because I used to post in this forum a lot and would listen to so many amazing guitarists here and would be jealous of the madd skillz contained within so many (just not me). This has been my first post back here after a long lay-off. I put down my guitar probably a year to a year and a half ago and haven't really picked it back up since. I got burnt out and stretched for time. I am currently in grad school for organic chemistry (will be defending my dissertation in February) and feel like spending long days in the lab (10-12 hours or more on the reg) pushed me away from going home, closing myself in a room again and playing guitar by myself. I felt like when I left the lab, I wanted to go home and be outside or be around other people. I got back into other hobbies (lifting weights, mountain biking, road biking, running, etc...) that I placed on the back burner when I started playing guitar extensively 7-8 years prior. It was nice to get back into shape, I am 5'10" and went from 225 pounds down to 155 pounds (now back up to 165 'cus I'm trying to add some more muscle). I have gotten to where I lift weights for an hour and half 5 days a week. On the weekends, I ride my mountain bike for approx. 3 hours a day. On the weekdays I'll either ride my road bike for an hour to an hour and a half 3 days, or I'll run about 45 minutes to an hour 3 days. So it is safe to say that I have definitely gotten back into the workout thing. You can also see that this, combined with work and marriage, doesn't leave a lot of time for playing my guitar. I sold a few guitar related things (2nd amp, 2nd guitar) to fund cycling stuff, but never sold off every thing. I knew that at some point I would come back to playing guitar. While doing all of these activities, my mind never strayed from music. I listen to music ALL the time. It is what keeps me going while spending long hours in the lab, it is also what entertains me while spending hours on the bike or running. While I was playing the guitar extensively, I mainly only listened to hard rock or metal. Since I put down the guitar I started listening to just about everything under the sun and realized that I actually enjoyed lots of other kinds of music. While listening to all this stuff, I realized how little I knew about music and guitar theory. I realized that I didn't KNOW anything about the guitar. I knew how to play it, but not why I was playing what I was playing. I have 2 instructional DVDs (John Petrucci's DVD and Mark Tremonti's DVD) and an instructional book. I would go through those a lot, though I never really seemed to get better. I also have never been in a band, and probably never will be. I began to wonder why I didn't know anything about the guitar and realized it was because these teaching guides weren't teaching me any theory at all, only how to play new things and would not tell me why this or that works. This, I realized, is why I got bored with playing the guitar in the first place. I didn't really know anything about it, just to hit this note or that note because someone told me to. Having a scientific mindset, I like to know what is going on behind the scenes. Just knowing how to play something isn't enough for me to get it, I need to know WHY. So this basically gets me to the root of this post. Within the past few weeks I have really gotten the urge to pick my guitar back up and start playing. I obviously have lots of rust to rub off, that will happen with time. Because of my very limited available time, I don't have time for guitar lessons (and never really have, and cannot afford them at this time). I tried lessons once or twice and honestly didn't get anything out of it because I was never recommended a text to reference for theory type info. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good guitar based theory book that I could read. I would really appreciate any advice anyone could give to me on this. I want to get more creative with the guitar instead of playing the same rehashed guitar runs over and over again. I want to go in a new direction with my playing. Thanks for any help! -Clinton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members NinjaRaf Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 Check out jamplay.com (or something like that). I got a free 2 week trial, and its basically online lessons. Get on and do what you gotta do when you can do it. Its pretty sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Neilrocks25 Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 Just learn some of your favourite songs and have fun then you can get into the technical stuff again when you are ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cougar Hunter Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 get a looper pedal like a Boss RC-2. start playing post-rock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MadKeithV Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 Just learn some of your favourite songs and have fun then you can get into the technical stuff again when you are ready. This. I'd actually say, get a classical guitar (nylon string) because it's easy to play and easy on the fingers, and learn some stuff. Start with simple acoustic songs you like, and gradually up the difficulty - there's some great Bach you can play on a classical! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members C-Dawg Posted June 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 This.I'd actually say, get a classical guitar (nylon string) because it's easy to play and easy on the fingers, and learn some stuff. Start with simple acoustic songs you like, and gradually up the difficulty - there's some great Bach you can play on a classical! I actually have a tab book for some for some classical guitar pieces and I used to play out of it a little bit. What got me into that was how Randy Rhodes seemed to really enjoy it. I figured if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. I'll have to pull that tab book out and use my cheap acoustic. One common theme that people seem to recommend is something that I really need training on and that is learning how to play songs. Everyone recommends, learn to play this song or learn to play that song. Well, this hits on a major flaw in my abilities; I need serious ear training. I cannot, and never have been able to, learn how to play songs without tabs. I need to learn how to train my ear and would love any recommendations on how to do so. Also, no one has a good guitar theory book to recommend? I don't want to get one of those cliche "BUY THIS BOOK AND YOU CAN PLAY LIKE YOUR GUITAR HEROS!!!!!!!" books that once again doesn't give any theory. Thanks for the quick replies! One thing I always liked about this forum is how fast you get responses here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MadKeithV Posted June 22, 2011 Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 You know what helps to train your ear? Tabbing out a song yourself. I did this a long time ago with Death's "Voice of the Soul" - great fun. It's also a real target to reach, so it helps you to stay focused and keep trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members C-Dawg Posted June 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 22, 2011 You know what helps to train your ear? Tabbing out a song yourself. I did this a long time ago with Death's "Voice of the Soul" - great fun. It's also a real target to reach, so it helps you to stay focused and keep trying. Fantastic idea, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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