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how long does it take to become a really tight player?


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Posted

i just started recording by myself like 2 months ago and some of the things i come up with i have to really practice for days before i can get it really tight.... is this natural?

i have no problem getting chord strumming in time stuff

 

 

its exact lead lines/breaks (not solos)

really trip me up a lot

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Posted

About as long as it takes to familiarize yourself with all the latency issues and correct them. I mean you can turn on the metronome and go like, "yeah that's real good time" till doomsday (hurry offer ends soon) but unless you take the steps to insure your instrument sounds where the notes go, you'll always have flammy ungellled tracks.

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Posted

Your awareness of the issue(s) is the first step to making them go away. Timing is often the last bastion for many players. You need to REALLY listen to everything you play and make it a habit to be in time. There are 2 parts to playing well: The RIGHT note. Played at eh RIGHT time. You practice scale shapes likely... most guys do a lot.... but do you as frequently practice your timing? You should ask yourself why not - then adjust that accordingly. Most guitar players only really focus on 50% of the equation.

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Posted

Your awareness of the issue(s) is the first step to making them go away. Timing is often the last bastion for many players. You need to REALLY listen to everything you play and make it a habit to be in time. There are 2 parts to playing well: The RIGHT note. Played at eh RIGHT time. You practice scale shapes likely... most guys do a lot.... but do you as frequently practice your timing? You should ask yourself why not - then adjust that accordingly. Most guitar players only really focus on 50% of the equation.

 

+1

 

The nervous system is funny. It is task specific. So even when you are killer shredder godly guitarist with all songs within that genre, you could start learning a John McLaughlin tune or a Hellacaster or Holdsworth tune and not only find yourself lost on new style and technique ,but struggle with the timing to execute. IF your even more human, you might even experience this from song to song within your comfortable style of music since everyone plays different.

 

Recording yourself on one dedicated side and the cover tune your playing along to on the side (put it noticably quieter than your playing) and just LISTEN. Is it perfectly doubled or far from it? I did just this for purposes of comparing the tone and sound I was striving to get with my computer program -guitar plugged into my interface then computer, no guitar amp. I spent probably an hour tweaking the sound for the particular song or more. Then realized I never knew the song as well as I thought I did so I spent 20-40min relearning the problem areas and then hit record! http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=516588&songID=9641558

 

Best thing you can do daily is spend the beginning and end your sessions playing what you want to get better on, but at a speed that would make anyone yawn and then do it again. ;) That's advice right from the very honest and virtuosic Stanley Jordan. ;)

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Posted

Recording yourself really does throw this kind of problem into sharp relief - which is why it's a good exercise.
Thanks to some decades of hearing pro recordings using drum machines or click tracks, we're also a lot more sensitive to "human" timing fluctuations.

The problem is our inner sense of time is flexible and varies with our emotional state, and nerves when recording (or playing live) can play havoc with it.
Which is all the more reason to practice with a metronome: that fascist dictator of time!:cop:

Drum machines are a lot more fun, of course, but give too much information - we end up relying on them, when we should be exercising our internal clocks. The much more minimal metronome helps us do that, esp if we set it slow. It forces us to create the missing beat divisions ourselves, and to get them right.

At the same time, it's possible - with cheap and easy home recording software - to get very anal about putting every note on the exact correct millisecond. I myself am guilty of editing overdubs to bring stuff into line, rather than record it yet again. I have to keep telling myself to resist yet another level of tweaking...:rolleyes:

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Posted

The best players in the world still practice about five (5) hours each day. It depends how good you want to be. Most of us can't devote that much time to practicing.

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Posted

 

The much more minimal metronome helps us do that, esp if we set it slow. It forces us to create the missing beat divisions ourselves, and to get them right

 

 

A very good point, not often mentioned. There are so many variations of exercises you can do here ... either with a simple metronome, or using a drum machine as a metronome that can be told to leave beats out...

 

Gaj

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Posted

my little brother was shaky for about a week when he started. i've never heard him muff a note or play a song wrong or badly or out of rhythm since. i have, however, seen him fall asleep and keep playing. i wish i could say the same for myself. it's a tightrope in a high wind a lot of the time for me.

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