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more advise from the more experienced players.


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1) I would have spend more time practicing. I was pretty lazy the first few years I played guitar and didn't really get into it until a couple years later. That's a shame because I had so much more free time then. :)

2) I would have spent more time learning the WHOLE song, not just riffs.

3) I would have spent more time learning classic solos.

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I started on keyboards and even at a young age I wanted to improvise and create BUT my teacher discouraged it. He would say .."heres a song learn it exactly " and after that "heres another song"etc. This way he kept the student's parents happy. If I had known better I wouldve asked for a more flexible teacher that taught Why and not just How...but I was just a kid.

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I would have paid much closer attention to the results the person was getting before deciding whether to heed the advice given.

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I'd start younger :rolleyes:.

 

Otherwise, nothing. I was lucky, I did all the right things, mostly by accident:

 

1. learned to read notation in school (otherwise I was crap at music);

2. was passionate about making music with anything, not just guitar (incuding tape recording and home-made instruments);

3. joined a friends' band after playing for 9 months, and gigged with them a month later. They were all just a little better than me, and I learned a hell of a lot that way;

4. learned songs from songbooks, playing vocal melodies on guitar;

5. transcribed from records (anything that I couldn't find sheet music for, which was quite a lot);

6. taught myself every other instrument I came across (piano, banjo, mandolin, violin, double bass, etc) - not well, just enough to understand it.

7. Read theory books, out of curiosity (a bit later).

 

As I say, I did most of these things by accident, it was just the situation I found myself in. But it turned out to be a perfect way to learn. I only wish I'd started younger (I was 16).

 

The other thing that might have helped is to have known there is no such thing as talent: I always felt I was inferior at music because I had no "talent" (compared to my friends of course). Eg, I couldn't sing. But the only advantage they had is that they'd started younger than me, and music had been more of a presence in their childhood (it was almost absent from mine).

That meant I lacked confidence, for quite a long time. I felt I was struggling along behind. Luckily I had the enthusiasm to stick with it (thanks mainly to the bands I was playing in, the camaraderie and the live experiences). I carried on because I loved it, more than anything.

 

So - start young and have confidence! :)

 

(BTW, it is, of course, a big (endless) debate about whether there IS such a thing as talent. But whether there is or isn't doesn't really matter. The point is to act as if there isn't. IOW, if you feel you have none, don't let it inhibit you. Stick with it, because it's persistence - and passion - that pays off.)

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Posted

1. Spent more time with a metronome and working on staying solidly musical.

2. Listened much harder and scrutinized every note I played more.

3. Learned MORE songs and solos all by ear

4. Analyzed those songs every time until I felt I understood the "why" behind how it works

5. learned more chords

6. Sight reading

7. Got into jazz earlier even if the sound didn't grab me at first.

8. Worked on more original recordings and bands

9. Played with others as much as I could.

10. Recorded myself practicing and listened back to it daily.

 

There's my top 10

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Posted

1. Spent more time with a metronome and working on staying solidly musical.

2. Listened much harder and scrutinized every note I played more.

3. Learned MORE songs and solos all by ear

4. Analyzed those songs every time until I felt I understood the "why" behind how it works

5. learned more chords

6. Sight reading

7. Got into jazz earlier even if the sound didn't grab me at first.

8. Worked on more original recordings and bands

9. Played with others as much as I could.

10. Recorded myself practicing and listened back to it daily.


There's my top 10

 

Yeah, most of these ring a bell with me. Thing is, I was in a band within literally a couple of weeks of playing..of course we were awful :lol: I was constantly in a band for the next 25 years or so. If I went a week or two without being in a band, it felt really disturbing to me. The upside is that I learned a ton from all those people I played with, some really, really good and some not so good...did loads of gigs in all kinds of situations where I just had to adapt to different gear, people, temperaments, setlists,whatever. The downside was that I did ZERO work with a metronome. Why would I?

 

Well, having failed to play a major scale at 60bpm (yes, really!....160bpm is FAR easier)..now I know why. :facepalm:

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Posted

I would have believed more strongly from the outset that I would eventually be able to play at a reasonable level. I didn't, so the early stages were riddled with a half-heartedness.

 

I fell into that "talent trap", thinking my mates had something special which I lacked. They hadn't, for the most part.

 

I'm wiser now. Patience and determination can flourish into talent, with perseverance.

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Posted

On those occasions when you feel you really can't be bothered to practice, and you totally hate the stupid plank of wood with strings, force yourself to pick the bloody thing up and do something for ten minutes.

 

This will often turn into a few hours of practice. I wish I'd forced myself more on these occasions.

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Posted

 

I would have paid much closer attention to the results the person was getting before deciding whether to heed the advice given.

 

 

Definitely should have paid more attention to my first guitar teacher's ability to play jazz, before signing up for lessons with him. It turns out he couldn't play it very well. He could hit the right notes over the changes, but was basically running scales over them (like a rock guitarist trying to play jazz would) instead of playing lines with good rhythmic and melodic phrasing like a real jazz guitarist would.

 

Other things I would have changed:

 

- Tried harder to stay in classical guitar class at the community college. I forgot why I quit the course after one class - work schedule, lack of interest, schedule conflict with other community college classes. Either way, it's a shame I didn't stick it out.

 

- Less time practicing scale patterns, more time learning tunes (the whole thing - melody and chords), transcribing solos, writing solos and jazz etudes

 

- Signed up for private lessons with my jazz guitar teacher, after the university canceled his jazz guitar class. After a few years of not making up my mind, I finally tried contacting him and he said he was no longer taking private students. Opportunity lost.

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Posted

To do it all over I would leave a band the second its members become complacent. It's almost impossible to learn when surrounded with people who know everything. I change band members about every 5 years and it should be every 2, soooo much time lost.

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