Members RacheRach Posted June 9, 2020 Members Share Posted June 9, 2020 How can I be the best guitarist I can be? Do I need expensive gear? Would love to hear all your tips! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted June 10, 2020 Members Share Posted June 10, 2020 You need quality gear, which is not necessarily the same as expensive. A modestly priced instrument that has been "set up" properly and receives reasonable care can be enough. Lessons will help a great deal, although that might be iffy under the present circumstances. There are online lessons available on YouTube. Find at least one other guitarist and play together when possible (see the disclaimer for the previous tip). Practice/play often but take breaks. It should be enjoyable, not a chore. Set aside a specific practice time and have specific goals for practice, such as, "I want to get better at barre chords." Learn scales. A little music theory goes a long way. Keep learning. Try to learn something new every day. Just my 2¢. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members garthman Posted June 11, 2020 Members Share Posted June 11, 2020 On 6/9/2020 at 9:21 PM, RacheRach said: How can I be the best guitarist I can be? Do I need expensive gear? Would love to hear all your tips! You don't need expensive gear but, like Deepend says, it is important that your instrument is well set up. After that it is really up to you. The most important thing is to practise, practise, practise. I believe that the best way to do that is to learn songs - it stops you becoming bored - and that is a real risk if you spend a lot of time (as is often recommended) by endlessly practising scales. And the other factors are what sort of guitarist you want to be and how much time you are able to commit. If you want to be say, a great jazz guitarist, you will need to practise for hours and hours (two people I know well are good jazz guitarists and when they were learning they practised for 3 to 4 hours per day minimum). I've never done anywhere near that much practising but I'm just a singer who accompanies himself on the guitar. Whatever routine you decide upon it is so important that it is an enjoyable experience not a chore. PS. If you haven't started to learn finger-picking yet, start now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Voltan Posted June 11, 2020 Members Share Posted June 11, 2020 play your guitar every day... develop a close, personal friendship with your instrument... start now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Voltan Posted June 11, 2020 Members Share Posted June 11, 2020 pardon my lack of manners... welcome to teh boards... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mikeo Posted June 11, 2020 Members Share Posted June 11, 2020 On 6/9/2020 at 4:21 PM, RacheRach said: How can I be the best guitarist I can be? Do I need expensive gear? Would love to hear all your tips! You don't need an expensive guitar, but you'll want quality one for the music you play. Then you want to play it for about 10 hours a day, Love it like it's you own children. Play it till you have welts in you belly and callouses on your fingers that will not go away. Learn every thing you can about the instrument. Take lesson for people better than you, play with people better than you. Never stop learning They say Andre Segovia practiced 5-6 hours a day, but not in one setting. He did that for about 50-60 years, I'll tell, even after all that you may not be the so called best, but you'll be day good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Gibson29 Posted June 14, 2020 Members Share Posted June 14, 2020 Learn slow. Oftentimes excruciatingly slow. Learn about muscle memory. This is just addendum to the advice above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted June 14, 2020 Moderators Share Posted June 14, 2020 Expensive gear is not needed to become a good guitarist. You will find, as your skills increase, that there are limitations to instruments, some of which are overcome on other instruments, and then that means it is time to upgrade. You do not need to buy a $3000 instrument to learn on. Find a guitar that is comfortable to play...forget what it looks like for now, just get one you can spend hours with ... and not suffer undue pain. DeepEnd mentioned theory...and I'm a firm believer that in order to be a good musician on any instrument, you need to understand why music works the way it does....why a major chord sounds different from a minor, a diminished, a major 7th, etc. Learn why the scales of the modes are different, learn what the addenda to chord names denote [aug, diminshed, maj7, b5etc] and how to do it in any key. Learn the chords of the keys. I am very 'anti' playing scales endlessly, btw; that is only going to lead to to think you can solo...and you shouldn't. once you have a handle on the basics, learn everything about the instrument itself, what all the parts are called...how they are made, why they are made certain ways for different instruments. Garthman said 'learn songs' and I totally agree...maybe even write a few of your own along the way. You are fortunate that the internet exists...there are so many tutorials available just for guitar it boggles the mind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DeepEnd Posted June 15, 2020 Members Share Posted June 15, 2020 14 hours ago, Gibson29 said: Learn about muscle memory. Absolutely agree with this. Learning how a chord "feels" will allow you to play without constantly looking at the neck and your left hand. If you're like me, it'll take you a while to get to that point but it will feel good when you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fredrik21 Posted August 12, 2020 Members Share Posted August 12, 2020 Hi there. I hope you all are doing okay in this pandemic; Here you can read the essential things you need to know about being a good guitarist: https://www.guitarhabits.com/how-to-become-the-best-guitar-player-you-can-be/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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