I've been learning to play the electric guitar for around a year and a half. I practise for around two hours a day - sometimes more if I have the time.

One think I'm very conscious of is whether or not I'm progressing as fast as I could be. I know from playing the piano from a young age that it's not all about how much you practise so much as how you spend your practise time.

I was wondering, do any of you experienced players have any advice about how to make the most of your practise time? Also, could any of you recommend some good learning material (TAB) for an intermediate level player?

Record your playing. Get a multi-track recorder, or software for your computer, and start recording songs - your own or do covers, whatever. The more you record, the more you'll play, and then listen to yourself (because come on, ego - who doesn't love to hear how awesome they are. OH WHAT, I'm the only one?) so you'll listen, hear where you mess up and make mental notes to go back and fix that or do it better/differently.

I STILL listen to crap I recorded 20 years ago. It's mostly painful, but there's some interesting stuff in there that I've expanded on, years later.

Audacity is a free multi-track recording software. If you play piano, then you wont have a problem putting together tracks for you to play along to, but there's also tons of backing jam-tracks out there... or play along with records.

MY PERSONAL TAKE on tabs/note-by-note learning: Only learn it if you're trying to understand how they did that one part. Other than that, develop your own style by picking up the guitar parts that you like. In an interview long long ago, Eric Clapton said that he didn't want people to copy HIS licks - if they wanted to sound like him, they should go back and listen to his influences... in other words, learning guitar licks, note for note, will get you that person's solos, but you won't develop your own style because you're so bogged down in the note for note crap instead of the reasoning BEHIND those licks...

I hope it makes sense. When I first started out, my playing didn't seem to improve for about 2 years - everything was difficult and I couldn't understand WHY I was playing the notes I was playing. I mean, I was learning WHAT to play, but didn't know why that artist picked those particular notes - and in the end, theory is so much more important than just the notes.

As soon as I started recording my playing - at first jamming with a drummer, and then playing with a multi-track recorder, I improved in leaps and bounds, to the point that I rapidly became the worlds greatest guitarist in no time. And now, no one can play as awesomely as me... ask anybody, as long as that anybody is me!!

^^^best advice

im in the same boat,
ive been playing guitar for about a good year and 3 monthes now,
but im self taught so i learned alot of stuff i maybe shouldn't have learned
my soloing skills are starting to shine because my accuracy is increasing
and i have at least 50 guitar chords under my belt
from what people have told me i have advanced alot faster then normal...
how did i do that?

made my own songs...
ironically the songs i created where extremely difficult to play so i'd just practice until i got it right. I did rediculous chords like C#minor diminished
with a whole bunch add, basically stuff (i made up(what was in my head)
Basically what i do now is alot improv.
I make a four bar arrangement, drums bass the whole nine, loop it
and just play the guitar finding the notes i like and don't like.
after a minute i get the feel of it and i just start whaling on it...
great practice tool,

As Beau mentioned, you'll notice once you start recording yourself
now when i listen to songs i made a year ago, i cringe cause the playing by my standards nowis so awful...
But this in essence, shows how much i've improved!

Also from experience its also, what your focusing on...
for a year i focused on rock and grown efficient at it,
and lately i've been focusing on Delay ALA U2,
now im entering the Funk realm and its a whole new world...

but everytime you pick up that guitar you improve a little bit, fingers get stronging, picking speed gets quicker....
its just a matter of time...

You've gotta be better than me i've only been playing a year and 3 monthes
self taught

Practice is a matter of the idvidual...
i really have no set time how much i practice...
sometimes a few minutes
but most times when it really gets good, it just lasts hours....
i cans tart playing in the early afternoon and before you know it its dark already!

but thats me

this is great advice.

i'm here because my fingertips are about to fall off. have all these ideas that my fingers can't quite handle yet (i'm on mandolin y'all).

want to get good enough to play live in a few months! accompanying myself is the essential, but then i see other people doing fancy things, pickin & the like, and i say "hey, that looks fun!"

Some thoughts:

my playing improved 100% when the importance of discipline in practice, and the idea that training your hands to play guitar is no different to, say, training your body to perform gymnastics or martial arts. I used to noodle aimlessly when I practiced, learning certain licks off by heart, but it never really amounts to anything when you approach learning the instrument in a fragmented and unfocused way. I played like that for 5 years. Year 6, I had a few priceless lessons with a neo-classical/shred kinda player which really altered the way I percieved the instrument, and by year 7 I'd accumulated more knowledge and flexibility than I had in the first 5.

So look for exercises that will have your fretting fingers working in unfamiliar patterns, and that use repetition to build strength, flexibility and muscle memory. Then factor in variations in picking, working at downstroke picking, upstroke, alternate, and if you're feeling saucy, hybrid and fingerpicking.

If speed is something you want to focus on, it's also worth training your fretting hand to assume the fastest playing position - that is with all four fingers strong enough to fret individually, and well positioned on the neck. A lot of players don't use their little (pinky) finger - even legends like Hendrix. Ignoring this finger removes potentially 25% of your fretting ability, speed and reach.

In this regard, if you can find any of Steve Vai's exercises out there, that would be of great value to you. Many of these are tuneless, but with relentless application, your hands will be far better equipped, in terms of strength, co-ordination and intuition, to replicate the sounds you have in your head, and sounds you want to emulate from records.

_____

Buy a metronome and always use it in practice

_____

Practice your scales, using repetition. By knowing your scales, not only will good improvisation become possible, but it will imprint into your mind the sounds and feel of the various scales, which is enormously useful in figuring out other songs.

My rule of thumb (or fingers) is to run a scale in its various positions (say the A Minor Pentatonic) up and down the neck between open and the 12th Fret 20 times. If you make a mistake, start again, and repeat until you can do it 20 times. This hurts. A lot. But it works. After a few weeks of this, you will find that you can find your way around scales without giving them too much thought.

_____

Doing this boring donkey-work is pretty galling when you're in the middle of it, but it really opens the doors to expressing and expanding your creativity in the long run. I tend to play rock/metal styles, but I think a lot of what I've been lucky/dumb enough to learn is applicable across genres.

^^^ Very excellent advice as well. It's quite the opposite of my own advice, but my advice takes into consideration that you've got 20 years to blow just developing as you live your life. But if you want to actually accomplish something before you're 40, you might want to follow his (her) advice instead. I always forget to mention that I had no hurry in my development. lazy underachiever, that's me.

beauhall said:

i think what rowdy is talking about, is to master the instrument... IE the comparison to martial arts...
its great advice , but doesn't suit me very well...
i like to play too many instruments to focus completely on one,
i guess im like prince when it comes to that...
so i'll probably never reach my potential until i reach 40.... lol
sadness...

ahh well

<---is a he (except on Tuesdays)

All that in the above post is just looking from my own perspective, and at one very particular way of playing. It's just one kind of mastery, which I must add I am very, very far away from achieving . Other guitarists (like Graham Coxon) focus on sounds, for example, which is quite a different way of playing the instrument, one I'm totally unfamiliar with at the current time.

Hendrix and SRV et al found their chops, sound and style in very different ways, and rule the universe. We have very different perspectives here, and I hope this gives you some ideas on spicing up your practice and establishing what you're looking to achieve. If we're looking for a common theme amongst them all though, it seems like the key to keep at it. If you book them, they will come

Great guitarists have developed their skills in very different ways... But I think the one common thing is that they all loved to play, and could sit for hours just playing without getting bored (I can't do this)... Somehow, it's got to stay exciting and fun...

Thanks too Rowdy. Classical training on the piano did worlds of good for me as far as general culture is concerned, as well as fingering positions... would do me good on mandolin as well.

More a matter of expanding the mind & possibilities than being in a "hurry" to go fast, I think.

Heiress said:

perfect example of how different strokes rule the world...

I took classical piano lessons for 4 months and dropped out...
i didn't even get up to triad chords within those four months
i studied piano on my own got to triads in 2 weeks...
long story short ive been playing for two years im at a level 9
i play better than my best friends who've taken classical piano for 5 years...
which means nothing in general, because taken the weekly lessons, Once a week it takes a long while to learn, but if you study yourself (books, software)
you do it almost everyday, you learn extremely faster
all my life ive been autodidactic, Its just over here in new york musical lessons can run you up to 50 bucks a lesson, and i just never had the money
easier to buy a book for 19.99
course thats not everybody... different strokes rule the world..

Back to guitar...
Somebody get frank up here, out of all of us, he probably has great practicing tips
[Edited 6/5/06 5:06am]

I think yeah, find out a way to enjoy playing it, and then you'll stick to it and drive yourself to learn more about the instrument, instead of learn more about the instrument to find a way to enjoy it.

I'm zen and a half.

I could sit for years with a guitar in my hands. But I wasn't like that at first... because I couldn't just poop out interesting stuff. I tell a lot of people to just watch TV with an electric guitar in their hands - don't even listen to the noise you're making, just always play anything on it so your hands get broken in (callouses) and get very comfortable just holding the thing. (sort of a wax-on-wax-off thing). And then when you're trying to learn a new song, your hands will have a better idea of what you're trying to get them to do.

It's all about doing what you love, and loving what you do.

EmbattledWarrior said:

hey well, i've been entirely self-taught on mandolin until now... not that i know a ton, but i can play more or less what's in my head & invent.

good for you! what you say IS encouraging to me.

hello ! I'm Giovanni from Italy . I've been playing for 20 years now,
and I also teach guitar. I think a good way to improve your playing is :
- studying the basics of harmony (scales and chords built on them)
- improvising on everything from blues to good old 80's Metal (like Maidens)
- starting with something nice and easy (for example, get Ladies Nite in Buffalo by David Lee Roth and Steve Vai) , it's a song with a funk-rock rythm in D minor , that last almost all the song ,,,,
- doing some studio work , it helps, especially if you are dealing with some professionals that will shout at you if the timing isn't good (I've worked on some funky-house stuff)
- learning from the Masters
- Having fun
bye bye .... god bless ya all

Here is an interesting quote from Master Segovia...

When one puts up a building one makes an elaborate scaffold to get everything into its proper place. But when one takes the scaffold down, the building must stand by itself with no trace of the means by which it was erected. That is how a musician should work.
Andres Segovia

Stay in the woodshed...

Frank

I've been playing for about 20 years. I've learned -- through seeing my growth hit peaks and valleys -- the best way to improve is to work with other guitarists.

When I'd been playing about 2 years, I bugged my guitarist buddies to show me stuff. And, I went from being slow and clumsy with it to being able to reproduce sounds and songs familiar to other folks.

Get a good teacher. Someone who can watch what you do and tell you when it's good and when it isn't. Don't get a hot dog/show-off kind of teacher. I took about 2 months in lessons last year from someone who just liked to hear himself play. That's a waste of time. Get or stay with someone who demonstrates a real ability in understanding where you are and where you would like to go on your instrument. Egotists generally are too wrapped up in their own dazzle to help others.

Find a balance between reading and jamming in your practice. I'm woefully bad at music reading ... I need work. But I can jam with the best of 'em. Try to develop evenly. Problem is, especially here in Nashville where everyone plays guitar, folks are looking for versatility and completion.

And, have fun.

Check out young Casey Hopkins....then get in the woodshed...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...%20hopkins

FrankAxtell said:

Inspiring...

*takes long walk back to woodshed*

Play with as many other guitarists as you can. Play in front of people as much as you can and never, ever be afraid of failure.

Know where the notes are on the guitar. This one's harder to do; it just takes practice. Listen to any song then try to play the melody right the very first time you try. That'll take a little practice but when your ear and your hands start working together, you'll be able to sit in with anyone, any time.

learn the notes on the fretboard by playing this game: http://www.francoisbrisso...board.html


develop your ear by playing this game: http://www.good-ear.com/



Ear Training and learn the notes on the fretboard.


Rome was not built in a day.


It took Jimi 7 years before he even had a clue on guitar, and boy did he suck before those 7 years.

I thought of a tip earlier this morning, to add onto the info in this thread...
Find a sound you really like, this is extremely important for electric guitar players...
The sound of the guitar usually constitutes of the type of scales a guitarist has in his arsenal and the effects and amp settings...
For Example i was always found of Slash's, Santana's and Prince's Sound
While doing research or reading time, i found out which scales/modes , effects each personally uses,
i mimicked them at first, but then i made my changes...
ex most frequent scales/modes i use are Ionian, Minor Pentatonic and Blues scale
because those scales are extremely melodic which is what i like to play
Those scales are also frequently played by Santana, Slash and Prince..
its just the sound i like...
Mastering scales and modes you personally like rather than the normal mundane basic's
likens your appeal to the instrument
it also sets you in the direction of what style your after...
[Edited 6/9/06 12:38pm]

This thread has some great advice... I thought I'd post this youtube link with some advice from one of the world's greatest guitarists: Tony Macalpine, as a little inspiration.

http://www.youtube.com/wa...0macalpine