How to get better at guitar
jakeworth.com
jakeworth.com
> Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
I think listening and transcribing is great advice. Careful listening will help to improve your own listening ability and taste. It also helps to demystify why something is great.
But it's also going to be a struggle - especially at first. You have to be prepared to struggle, a LOT. Most people won't be able to keep at it, and that's one of the things that separates the greats from everyone else.
Not that there's anything wrong with loving and playing classical music, which is a factor too.
This may be why it's different when you start very young. You're not conscious of your own sucking, you just play, usually in a setting where everybody's congratulating you. For sucking. ;-)
I started on classical, and got into jazz by accident, as a bassist. It turns out that you can function in a band as a bassist without having to improvise very much, so I was able to learn at my own pace and eventually did. In fact a lot of good jazz players started out in school jazz bands or large ensembles where you didn't have to be a good improviser right up front.
In a career, seeming competent can be valuable, but for learning something new and creative, it often just creates a barrier to getting started.
I picked up singing 4 years ago (I’m 42 now), starting from nothing, and I’ve been taking regular lessons. I still suck. But I suck slightly less than I did when I was starting, and what motivates me is the sheer joy that it brings. I just hope it lasts.
If you really want to play a David Gilmour guitar solo or sing some Led Zeppelin, it better not suck because it won't hit the mark at all.
For me, the reason to pick up the guitar as a kid was to play stuff I liked, stuff that turned out not to be that easy, and every time I play, I feel that gap of where I feel I should be to respect the music I'm trying to play.
I wish I had more your attitude.
(Although they're also tones that a lot of players still try to chase for their entire lives and never really reach. There's some magic to them beyond the more obvious steps.)
It's also obvious to me that at this point I'm never going to reach the virtuoso level even if I really wanted to, but so what? I suck, but whenever I manage to play something that I couldn't before it brings me joy.
My sister is in a whole different league than me in terms of singing but she also performs live, which I don't plan to do unless it's a karakoe evening.
As mentioned in the top comment, or somewhere near that, the first step ... listening to your first botched song, going on camera ... was the hard step. I made a monologue about this, a mix of english and hindi, on my tiktok profile.
PS: I have an alt, or a main. Not sure if that is an issue or not. I opened this account a long time back and then decided I did not want my name to be public so I opened an alt. This discussion made me reverse that decision just for one comment.
I updated my profile to add my social links, and happy to answer any questions from mods/dang about dupe accounts, but in general do not want to comment on AI, politics, corporations or anything controversial where it can be linked to my identity. And this is not trying to get followers or viewers - I have my hands full anyways.
The reality is, you're probably better than at least half of their followers. If that actually matters in the grand scheme anyway.
It's the result of a lifetime of ballet dancing. Probably 10,000 hours, at least.
I was just in awe.
“Are we human or are we dancer”
I am an ex-professional ballet dancer, and one of the things I always find interesting is that any experienced ballet dancer can instantly tell who trained as a child and who didn't solely by how they stand (literally not even moving) at the barre. But the thing is, children with only a few years of training under their belt will often show this good form, while I have literally never seen someone who started as an adult, even dedicated adults who take class 4-5 times a week, get rid of that "I started as an adult" posture.
As an example, I was actually quite impressed at how Natalie Portman really managed to "look the part" in her role as a ballerina in Black Swan. Still, she wasn't fooling anyone with training - even with just a simple port de bras (raising of an arm), you could easily tell she wasn't a dancer.
I've tried emulating those movements, and just look like Bullwinkle.
(also: ex-pro ballet to HN? Can't imagine there's much crossover in that Venn!)
It's perhaps not super common, but not as rare as you might think. Only a teeny tiny minority of ballet dancers have full careers, meaning they make it to the level of principal (the highest rank in a ballet company) and then retire in their 40s, usually to go on to another career in dance like teaching. Many more are like me, where we trained intensively as children, then made it into a company but saw that there'd be a ceiling on our advancement (meaning we'd only make it to corps de ballet or soloist level based on our ability), so left after a few years to do something else.
Then there are the fascinating outliers like Robert Wallace, who was a dancer with ABT and a principal at Boston Ballet (so the pinnacle of the career), then went to Yale at 32, graduated summa cum laude in economics, and now is CEO of Stanford Management Company where he runs Stanford's $50 billion endowment.
Which is interesting, because from what I can tell she studied ballet from a young age, which potentially puts a hole in your theory. Unless you're only taking about professional dancers who started young versus professional dancers who started late, rather than any (i.e. non-professional) dancer.
The ballet world even has a name for small neighborhood dance schools, a "Dolly Dinkle" school (it's a little bit of a knock, but not much, as most professional dancers started at one of these places before moving on to professional training).
But for contrast, take a look at the 12 year olds at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. At that point they've only been at the academy 2 or 3 years, and while they have some "child mannerisms" in their dancing, they all hold and carry themselves like professional dancers.
4-5 times / week is not a lot on its own.
You need like 20-25 hours / week. That’s how many actual hours a lot of us kids were spending, at least skateboarding.
If we take the 10,000 hour figure literally, at 20 hours/week, you get good in 9 years, which kind of fits when kids get good.
Almost zero adults I know can (or are willing to) spend 20 hours/wk on a physical hobby.
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn something new, but you gotta be a little strategic.
I will speak in my ugly, broken, American accent and do it til I improve. I didn't read about this technique in a book or anything, I simply mirrored what I saw kids do and IMO a big reason kids do well with picking up language (aside from all the physiological stuff) is that they actual speak it - they aren't concerned about whether it sounds like baby talk or not
A lot of advice feels trite and cliche, like keep trying, etc - but often times it takes repetition and hearing the message in many different ways before it sinks. As a tangent - this is the value i found in therapy too - a great therapist that was patient and consistent in their messaging day in and day out eventually led to some of what they said sinking in.
P.S. My mother tongue is Spanish and it's many accents are anything but standardized.
People being annoyed at bad French is stereotypically Parisian to me.
I like to call it interest. What makes something interesting to some that I'm not sure.
I kinda think it applies to all artistic hobbies. On one hand you learn a practical hands-applying skill, on another hand you learn how to express yourself and/or listen to expression of others in chosen medium. And, well, the more you look at something, the more you see. The more you see, the more you know your own preferences.
What's even more funny, the "detail perception" skill doesn't always sync to your guitar skill. So (for me at least) there are times when I'm thinking I'm the hottest stuff around (because I just mastered something I deemed important), and there are times when I'm down because my detail perception suddenly got better and turns out I would prefer to play with more nuance (but didn't learn how to yet)
Actually I can say the same thing for programming, I can build most software I would think of building when I started 20 years ago, but there is still a large gap between what I can build but what I discovered later and now would like to be able to build (I'd need to learn lots of maths in addition to other things).
I guess that's why a lot of people grow old wondering what life would have been if they would have followed through on whatever talent they appeared to possess in youth.
I always tell people the secret to learning guitar fast is to practice for a minimum of 5 minutes a every day for 20 years. It's simultaneously a gross oversimplification while also literally being the only way to do it.
Still have to post filter hundreds of my kids though but it's worth it for some of the shots I get. Too bad they can't sit still.
The struggle is real for all people but in particular I feel robbed of resilience to even do anything. I can't speed up my therapy so the thought of years of practice being lost to time always hits me like a truck
The fact that some players learn by transcribing, while others learn by jamming, and yet others learn by rote theoretical study, or 10-hour practice sessions, etc, is a big part of the variety which results in the wonderfully varied tapestry of music styles and approaches that humanity creates and enjoys.
Not to take away from the age-old, valid advice in the link about the value of ear-to-fretboard work.
I used to stop all the time, when I made a mistake, between repetitions, when I finished the piece.
I agree about ear to fretboard.
The individual who has a breakthrough often feels compelled to call it a “system” and start telling others about it.
The great advice someone has is just what worked for them. It will probably work for others, especially if it repeats common advice, but it won’t work for everyone.
If I practice guitar for 6 hours a day (like John Petrucci in his teenage years) while always wearing an orange hat, I’ll get pretty damn good at the guitar in a few years. I can then spread the word to everyone that the best way to learn the guitar is to always wear an orange hat.
As with the dangers of ‘productivity porn’, ultimately what matters most is putting in the hours.
But one thing I like to stress is: You get to decide how to spend that time. Sure it is occasionally good to spend the time on "no fun" practise, especially if you feel your playing is lacking. But you don't get magically better results if you suffer while practising.
I'd argue the opposite: The person who has fun while practising will also learn and they will be inclined to put more hours in.
It combines audio playback directly with a tab editor, so that you can immediately write down what you’ve figured out and your transcription stays in sync with the original audio. This makes transcribing incredibly fast and (importantly) accurate.
It’s got audio slowdown, precise looping, “synth overlay” (playback of the transcription and original audio at the same time, to spot errors), auto stem separation and a full-featured tab/notation editor with support for hundreds of notations.
When you’re done, you get a very useful artifact: a synced transcription, effectively a bespoke practice environment for that piece of music.
Over the years, Soundslice has expanded into a lot more than a pure transcription tool, but lots of people still use it for its original intended purpose. (It supports any instrument that uses western music notation, not just guitar.) If you’re at all interested in transcribing music, give it a shot.
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude or unhelpful, but that's not a question I can provide a meaningful answer to. There have been dozens, probably hundreds, of difficult technical challenges in building Soundslice.
Been plucking at the guitar (literally and figuratively - trying to learn) for a couple of years now and Justin's (free) course was the best I've found. His videos are compassionate, funny, explain things really well and easy to follow. He also dog-fed the instructions by learning to play left-handed (and posted those videos as well, hilarious to watch).
Compared to that, some time earlier I subscribed to a Berklee free course on Coursera (iirc) - Beginner guitar. Felt like a fumbling idiot, almost never touched guitar afterwards.
Really recommended: https://www.justinguitar.com/
Piano is very different than the guitar, it is much more technique and repertoire focused (as opposed to improvisation and interpretation of guitar).
In comparison to guitar, there is much more and much higher quality material available for piano as it is being taught for hundreds of years, but most of it is accessible through classical teachers.
There is definitely opportunity for someone to create the justin guitar of piano though, I do not think it has been done yet.
Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.
If you mess up, redo the part you messed up correctly 5 times in a row.
And, don't just practice the easy stuff. You have to challenge yourself to grow.
why am I posting here instead of practicing?
Everything takes twice as long to learn because I first have to unlearn the old habits.
And as my music professor once said: "If you sound good while practicing, then you're not practicing."
There's another, similar saying used in fighting-related disciplines: train how you fight.
Same idea. You're building muscle memory and technique, so make sure your training/practicing matches how you'd do it in a performance (or fight). It's one less thing to have to think about when you're under stress.
I think it may be important to note _when_ to redo this. I started off this way, but after working with a guitar teacher (a Berklee graduate), he recommended that I continue on with the song and return to the problematic parts afterwards. If you constantly stop at the problematic parts to replay them and get it right, you'll have no idea what other parts you'll have trouble with further into the song until much later. In addition to that, being able to move on and continue playing the song after making a mistake is an important skill itself. If you build that skill, it's usually only other musicians that will notice -- a regular audience won't.
What's your take on it?
Practice makes perfect is a thing, but that's not exactly rehearsal.
With practice you expect to improve, broaden, or maintain instrumental or musical ability for the long term. There should be no deadlines or need for actual listenability.
OTOH rehearsal is the run-up to a smooth listenable performance with a decidedly short-term objective by comparison. Unless you are rehearsing to absolute perfection, you do not halt for anything, the show must go on and that in itself requires you to practice covering up and compensating for your mistakes or shortcomings as you go along.
With practice you are actually trying to become a better player overall, but rehearsal is more about making the next performance as good as it can be and that's it.
If you're not actually as good as you would like in either regard, having a bit of commitment to simulating what you need most can give some direction itself to add to the mix.
Playing through the whole song from the beginning over and over again is not an efficient way to learn a new piece of music.
That transitions into a more rhythmic chord progression with a few embellishments, which also isn't terribly difficult at first, but then a few verses later that ramps up a good amount and becomes moderately difficult.
If you stumble on that transition / passage, then that is where you would stop and then practice until you do it correctly 5 times.
The next day, once you've rested and let your brain absorb the info, try it again and you'll find it much easier to get right on the first try.
Stopping and working slow is the only way you'll find and improve hard things. If you just blunder past them each time, you're only learning to blunder. Able to play the easy things but never improving the hard.
But if all you do is stop at every mistake, all you're learning is how to stop at every mistake. Live music doesn't stop, you need to know how to pick up and keep up, no matter what. (This was my mistake for decades.)
There's a lot more to learning a piece of music, but I think both kinds of passes are necessary. Well, unless you're good enough to fly through that piece prima vista with results that you're happy with. Then you get to hone the expression or interpretation or just cash in, I guess.
There are a few pedagogical points here to keep in mind:
first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them.
Also, different ways of learning have different values in terms of what goals you're aiming towards and very importantly what kind of practice will keep you motivated in a sustainable way. Sometimes, taking shortcuts in some ways means you might slow down your growth rate but you'll have better overall growth because you'll keep at it for longer
I'm not convinced for guitar. Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique.
As long as you're not injuring yourself, practice and determination pretty much overcomes everything.
The universe didn't offer a manual on how to play guitar, so how are you determining that their technique was bad? Given what you say about them, maybe they actually had the perfect technique?
Given a certain set of quantifiable measures that is no doubt true, but then that only pushes the question to how are the measures determined to be objectively relevant? If the aforementioned fast/famous guitar players had started with a different technique there is a chance they wouldn't have become fast/famous. In that case, given the criteria of reaching notable speed/fame, it is possible their "bad" methods were actually best of all.
But also, even where everyone agrees there is a better way, that doesn't equate to an alternative being bad. So the original question still stands: How do we determine "shockingly bad" as opposed to "different"?
Piano is also a lot harder to have very bad technique than other instruments since it is mostly a discrete, one-to-one mapping. If you want a chord with some particular notes, a lot of the time there is only a single fingering that will do. If you push the key hard enough, you will get the correct note, and it won't be wrong if you push harder.
By contrast, in guitar, if you push too hard, your note will be off even though you fretted in the correct place. Or, for example, everybody in guitar teaches barre chords up near the nut, when that's extremely difficult and likely to injure a beginner who has neither the strength nor control to get that right, instead of teaching barre chords near the body on fewer strings. etc.
And at least for me, frequency beats duration. I make more progress when I play consistently for even 10 minutes every day than when I play for 90 minutes on Sunday afternoon.
(1) the songs were already in my head,
(2) Sting would have two or three cool hooks per song, and this is the important part,
(3) the hooks would played over and over during the song. That meant I could play the song all the way through and get to practice each riff 10 times or more with just a single needle lift.
A prime example: Demolition Man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7To6vdg7A)
One of the nice things about music is you can’t get good at ALL of it. You have to pick where to focus. I’ll also say, you might need to ask yourself if you want to get better. I love relaxing by reading through the chords on a new song and playing it. I already have a job, and the time I truly have for intentional practice is like once a month. Most people are not studying to become guitar pros but to enjoy their time with the instrument. If that is your goal let joy be your guide. Perhaps some short term pain is part of that journey but really weigh out what you want out of the experience.
Tabs are, in large part, paint-by-number. Lots of guitarists out there are only interested in learning a song. Regardless of key, mode, or what the notes actually are. And, tabs satisfy that group by saying: "Play this fret on this string".
To write tabs, you'll need to be able to make an educated guess at what's being played. ex. "Is that a minor pentatonic scale? Or are they arpeggiating a minor 7th chord?". If terms like that aren't in your musical vocabulary, and you haven't played enough to recognize the difference, I don't see how a guitarist would even begin writing their own tabs. Maybe the author is assuming this skill set.
I think that starting off with easy songs, and with enough brute force as you scale up, you can become organically familiar with these concepts to make the educated guesses you're talking about.
Many renowned musicians were able to effectively create music utilising these concepts despite never formally learning music theory, and by just learning by ear.
Knowing the theory certainly makes the process faster because you'll recognize patterns, but you can definitely work through most songs without knowing anything about music theory. Just pick up your guitar, slow the track down and try to reproduce the tones.
Back when I first started playing guitar, my teacher had me transcribe the melody to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (from memory). I didn't even know the major scale at that point, but by trial and error I improved my intuition for translating melodies in my head to the fretboard, which is remarkably useful as a guitarist, not only for improvisation, but for composition as well.
That's not to say that knowing music theory isn't helpful in transcribing and in general, but I wouldn't say it's a prerequisite. A lot of my foundation in music theory came from transcribing first and putting things together afterwards.
That is not productive. Sure, you can do that once or twice. But it gets painful quickly.
> but I wouldn't say it's a prerequisite.
I firmly believe it is a prerequisite. Just by knowing what an interval is and playing that repeatedly, trains your brain to recognize it. Specifically 1-3-5 interval range.
I know very little theory, but I've been playing jazz for almost 50 years, and I know hundreds of melodies along with enough of their harmonies to improvise and accompany other players. Many people pick up tunes from the radio or hymns at church, even if they don't play an instrument.
I think a helpful tip for ear training is that you can do it without an instrument, just by hearing stuff (tunes, rhythms, accompanying parts) and trying to sing along. For beginners, this avoids the awkwardness of the instrument and its technique getting in the way.
If you develop your ear and learn your way around your instrument, then you can learn to play along by ear and then just write down what you're doing.
Well, unless, you are studying here in Hungary, for example, where it starts pretty much right away... (though it is a separate class).
But over the years I realized that there were gaps in the Western classical theory I studied.
A relatively small one is that I never systematically studied jazz harmony, and I still don’t have a good sense for it. I can’t make my improvisations sound like jazz even if I try.
Another, bigger gap is rhythm: I have listened over the years to music from all over the world with interesting and complex rhythms, but I cannot explain those rhythms or reproduce them. The classical notation and theory I learned is not up to that task, either.
The biggest gap, in my mind, is my lack of exposure to any formal theory of melody. I like good melodies, I think I have a sense of some features that separate good melodies from drab ones, I think I am able to create pretty good melodies, but that all came from listening and experimentation and playing. I once (again, more than fifty years ago) looked through some music theory books in my college library that covered melody, but I didn’t get anything useful out of them.
The videos on music theory that crop up on my YouTube feed all seem to be about chords and scales. Maybe some music influencers should start producing in-depth content on rhythm and melody, too.
As I write this, I think when a melody sounds good it's likely related to the implied harmony in the notes being used, and obviously the expectations the listener gets and how they're handled. But I don't think there is a system of constructing good melodies in Western classical music theory.
I think the key bit here is that this is aimed at someone who is proficient, but not "good" ie can play tab, but not much else.
I think its perfectly possible to transcribe if you don't "know" musical theory, but for guitar, you should need to know chord shapes.
The key or mode is probably not actually that important, because you are transcribing rather then improvising. Obviously it will reduce the search space considerably if you do know what key/mode its in.
But you'd be surprised at how much musical theory is innate, or at lease learnt through listening.
1. Lessons for 6 months, didn't learn much.
2. Started playing cover tunes, did that extensively for years. Practiced by butt off. Played with a lot of different people.
3. Went back to learning theory.
For me my main motivation to learn guitar was to play in a band, not to become good at the guitar itself. But it turned out that I was talented enough to learn a lot by just screwing around. When I went back to learn theory, I already knew the sounds and patterns - I just didn't a name for them.
With that said, If I could go back, I'd just start with learning all the notes on the fretboard, all the basic chord and scale shapes. It's actually not that hard, but you need motivation.
I've played with hundreds of other guitarists since then, given lessons, played session etc. and one of my early surprises was how many different reasons people had to learn the guitar. I just assumed everyone were like me - wanted to jam and play cool tunes. But then I met some really good players that had zero interest in playing with others, play cover songs in general, or even write songs. They were perfectly happy with exploring theory, for the sake of theory - the complete opposite of myself at the time.
I agree, but if the guitar is someone's first instrument it may also be their only creative outlet or seen as a means to an end. They're almost guaranteed to do what you did and probably even skip the lessons.
I think the physical act of playing an instrument is very overrated, and music education is underrated. Even just a few years of putting kids in the school band goes a long way. Being familiar with sightreading and basic music theory sounds boring, but it makes everything else a breeze when they want to learn something on their own.
Of course, there are also tons of people who were in a bad program and it was worse than nothing for their motivation. That's another topic though.
This is not as simple as it sounds. It seems, from my experience of learning a guitar and observing others, that there is something inherently illogical how tonality changes between strings. There are two main ways to do it, either you remember by memory, or you simply hear what happens. Both are hard for average beginner, because it just doesn't make sense.
After I have been practicing a guitar for quite some time I started learning a piano for some reason, and seeing the keys in front of me it all made sense instantly
It is painstaking and tedious, but it works. I look back on that time, the first few years I played, and I am genuinely surprised at some of the difficult songs I worked through in this way.
But now, over 30 years later and still playing regularly, I almost never do a note-for-note transcription of other peoples playing. I tend to either just get the gist of the harmony and melody by listening and get into the general ballpark. I often use ultimate guitar or other tab sites just for an outline of the chords (or download sheets from real books for jazz).
But my aim is always to fully memorize a piece, from beginning to end, so I can play it without any reference. That, for me, is the goal. Any way I get there (tabs, sheets, ear, demonstration, etc.) works fine in my books.
I forget where I heard this story -- it's probably either rather famous, or buried in an interview somewhere.
A good interview on his background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py4T1qv9bnQ
Also, I would argue that if you really want the benefit of transcribing, don't write it down until you have memorized whatever chunk you are transcribing - the act of memorizing it and learning it solely by ear is where the real value is.
On the other hand, this is not a good way to learn technique or the fretboard, as the easy keys will be vastly overrepresented, and you don't need to know where you are. That's a challenge that's almost unique to guitar and bass, and getting over that hump requires learning material by note name (whether from scores, tabs, or just chord symbols).
(my bonafides: 35 years playing, gig on sax, bass, piano, and percussion, currently doing an interdisciplinary PhD in music and CS, and running a jazz club night where I perform weekly)
mah man . . . too much of that loosey goosey stuff.
Relaxing on that thing is hard! :)
apologies.
That is a false statement and stated boldly.
While it is possible to not know the note names, it is such a simple thing that takes very low effort (5 minutes a day for like 3 weeks) and it helps simplify, find and simply understand the instrument better. I would advise any player to just do it.
Thanks
UVic has some great profs in the combination. My supervisor George Tzanetakis is internationally respected in music information retrieval, and Sarah Belle Reid just got my retired music supervisor's job too (Andy Schloss). Feel free to email my user name @ gmail.com if you want to know more.
Recently, I've been lazy and learn new songs by watching players on YouTube.
My advice to people, which seems to work OK, is just to have the guitar out and ready to play wherever you're likely to be - maybe even in the way so it has to be moved sometimes - and just pick it up and play it as often as possible.
Waiting for the kettle to boil? Play the guitar. TV is showing ads? Mute it and play the guitar. Your partner needs to go to the bathroom before you both go out? Play the guitar.
It doesn't matter what you play, it doesn't have to be good, it can be a random improvisation, it can be scales. Your fingers are learning.
I think there are quite a lot of people who are only interested in playing and never deliberately practising. They do not get that far (they do not have to!).
And then the vast majority of aspring guitar players who frequent learning online material (including me) spend all of their time practising and learning, and too little of it playing for fun and performing. Most are constantly frustrated about their progress.
Then there is a small group of people, who spend a lot of time playing for fun and performing, but also a good amount of time deliberately practising. In my experience, those tend to be the ones people think are great players.
Anyway here is my app of shame:
https://kelvie.github.io/chord-finder/
I also came to the realization after making this that my time was better spent transcribing, but I wanted to learn egui (and this was before coding agents, so it actually took some time).
In a similar vein I think that's why there are so many devs making game engines instead of games.
https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-...
Guitar I've always found to be a super approachable instrument, particularly because online you can get a video demonstration for most songs. Compare to Piano which is pretty bias online towards sheet music and the ability to read that..
I studied exclusively with an app (Yousician) for the first 13 months, then got a local teacher I see once a week. I practice 45-60 minutes a day and have only missed a few days in the last 16 months.
In my experience, it all comes down to practice. There is no magic forumula or shortcut. The 2000 hours to passable playing is very much accurate. I track that chart nearly perfectly.
It's very much a sprint-plateau experience. This week I was trying to learn the chords in Clapton's "Old Love" and for 6 days I could not switch between them, then on the 7th day I was able to make the leap. There's a bunch of brain science about consolidating memories and such but...it all comes down to practice.
I agree with the sentiment that you have to practice correctly, but even if you learn bad habits, more practice and challenging yourself will weed them out. It's really crucial to always challenge yourself. Practice is doing hard things, not playing things you already know. You have to separate practice from playing, because they're two different things. Yes, there's a value in picking up the guitar and fooling around, but to really get better, you have to challenge yourself constantly.
Guitar is a game of millimeters, to an extent I never appreciated. This is where a local teacher can be hugely helpful. How you position your hand, where your thumb is, the arch in different knuckles, how much you're pressing down, how you are positioning that barring finger, where your right hand is, etc. - it's all extreme fine-tuning.
It's massively rewarding. But the learning curve is brutal. I practice for an hour at mid-day and would never have imagined the incredible health benefits in terms of stress relief. It's an hour (to borrow a Steely Dan quote, albeit not in its original drug context) "time out of mind" where I'm doing something completely orthogonal to the rest of my life, for no reason except to hone a skill and enjoy.
I HIGHLY recommend keeping a journal and noting every day what you did. Day by day you'll think "I'm not improving at all, I suck, maybe I'm getting worse"...then you look and realize how much progress you've made compared to two months ago, etc.
BTW, my daughter, 16, practices half as much as I do or less, yet learns 2-3x as fast because she has a long younger brain.
It’s in the way that you use it, boy don’t you know.
The greats who became so good doing this had massive amounts of time to do it and put in massive amounts of effort.
But there are lots of ways to get better, and to a degree it depends on what your goals are. I enjoyed the article.
"I Practiced Wrong for 40 Years?"
I mostly play classical guitar and now force myself to get better at sight reading standard music notation. I find it extremely hard but very rewarding because I'm now able to simply pick up a sheet of music and with a couple of tries figure out the basics of a piece. It opens up a whole library of beautiful pieces.
I've been advised to use a keyboard to record my playing without being able to hear it and playing straight from the sheet music. I haven't tried it yet though.
I have played only a few times, many decades ago..
Bless my poorest neighbors...
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>Just listening and playing along feels MUCH better.
This is how I strumbanjo, intoxicated within the noises (often more).
As you learn more about the instrument you will learn more about what you like and it will eventually shift. There are people where this is not the case, but they are rare and they don't make better or worse music than others.
You may also start to notice more and more that the guitar playing was the simpler part in most music you like,the harder part was how it all came together as a band, how it was composed and recorded and mixed. Guitar players the world over try to compete with sounds that have run through microphones, mixing consoles, channel strips, mixed with other instruments and mastered. And some of them can't even hear where the guitar ends and where the bass guitar starts. So you have generations of guitar players chasing dragons and spending a ton of money on gear that gets them nowhere.
Gear isn't nearly as important as anybody makes it out to be, especially if you go your own way. And that is my recommendation: Go your own way. Sure copy others for learning, but develope your own sound, style of playing, your own music.
Upon hearing Eruption for the first time, the story goes that Tony MacAlpine learned to play the finger tapping section by PICKING IT because he didn't know finger tapping was a thing. Only after seeing Van Halen in concert did he realize what Eddie was doing.
If memory serves me right, I read this in either Guitar Player or Guitar World magazine back in the late 80s or early 90s. Whether Tony was embellishing or not is unknown.
<3
OP, you should have mentionned the prerequisite of absolute pitch...
Kinda, but on Guitar, most pop songs are major/minor, possible sevenths. I think this post is aimed at someone who can read tab, but isn't "good" (what ever that means) so they should have an understanding of basic chord shapes.
The post does imply that this only really works if you can comfortably read tab, which is probably 6month-2 years of work (part time)
The point is not a perfect outcome. The point is the effort.
That said, common chords are A, B, C, D, E, F, G (and their sharps and flats), combined with either major or minor mode. Hence "C, G, F, Am, Em" is an example of what someone could play. Now, of course, if it doesn't sound exactly like a G, perhaps it's a G7? After some practice, you can even hear, by the sound of the strings, exactly which chord it is. Em, G, and D are particularly simple to recognize.
Each interval has a unique "flavor" and once you can hear them you should be able to hear multiple intervals at the same time, which effectively identifies the chord. (Admittedly for complex jazz chords it can get very difficult and you probably need more powerful tools, I can't say.)
Even if they're not exactly what was played, you'll be able to get to a working version with the right idea.
In any case, theory and experience will narrow the field down a great deal so you're not just stabbing at things in the dark.
https://cdn.shrm.org/image/upload/c_crop%2ch_883%2cw_1401%2c...
In hindsight, once I had learned a song, I had actually learned MUCH more than just that song. It is that "extra" that adds up over time and makes one a guitarist and not just someone who can play some songs on the guitar.
Rock on!
I lived near a music school and took proper guitar lessons. After getting down the basics from the Alfred Method book, this was the homework my guitar teacher gave me.
Coincidentally enough, I was also transcribing RATM back then too...
I believe some MP3 players also had this.
As far as I know none of the top streaming music services support it in their official interfaces. I believe it can be added via third party tools, but it would be nice if the services would build it in.
Second was Tomorrow by Silverchair (excluding the Daniel Johns solo which is way beyond my skills). Rant: Silverchair is super underrated of the grunge area bands, Daniel Johns is a fantastic musician.
I'll often have a video game open. Play about 10-15 minutes, and then spend 1-2 hours practicing the knowledge gained.
It's inspiring
However, this creates a higher barrier to entry that only the truly dedicated will overcome.
I’m a banjo player. Starting with tab ( and playing for myself ) quickly got me to a certain level and then ingrained some bad habits. Playing by ear is much better.
One way that seems to work really well:
1. Listen to the song, tap the rhythm to learn it.
2. Figure the chord progression.
3. Using standard rolls ( sequence of notes, one measure ) find how to fit in melody notes
dissect Volume 1, 2 and 3 of A Modern Method for Guitar, no excuses, no cries
Angine de Poitrine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfDtfz7vXkY
I will be a beginner forever. That's okay.
There really is no need to try to discover "how to get good at guitar" any more than you need to discover how to get good at mathematics.
Music is a language, you practice reading, writing, listening and playing (speaking).
How to get the time for the study, is the challenge, of which there's no "secret solution". Only people who are relatively well off can afford these schools, and/or take the risk of studying something so frivolous with such a low chance of paying off.
If you practice something diligently for 30min every day, it will still take you something like 25 years to rack up the hours of a 4 year masters degree.
I wish this was a joke. :D :(
First, figure out the bass line. That typically suggests the chord progression. If you know your chords, then, for simple songs, you have the rhythm figured out.
For solos, it's more tricky. If you aren't familiar with common soloing patterns (licks) and/or scales then start with simple solos and work your way up.
I don't think this is a general requirement for learning the guitar. It's just one aspect. For most people whether you can hear that something is a 3rd or a 5th shouldn't impact their ability to play songs and have fun on the guitar. A sense of rhythm is maybe more important. If you can whistle a tune or sing along anywhere close to a song you're probably ok.
This applies to most skills. How hard it's going to be or how far you'll go with sane effort may vary.
I play every day, I do my solos, I play blues, I don't need chords. But it's hard.
Just don't underestimate how hard it is - to be able to play any solo by ear. I guess I just don't have any freaking talent. Pretty obvious at this point, since some people do a better progress in 3-5 years of work.
But for me it's not. I realized that for me something isn't just clicking. There was no breakthrough moment I expected all these years.
I invested a lot into playing guitar, but... meh. Honestly, I wish I spent all that time learning AI math or just math in general. Or spend my time on something that would have a better ROI.
Looking back I see how much effort it took, and how low my ROI is. I wish I gave up earlier.
Don't get me wrong, I produced a couple of songs, some people say they're pretty good. But honestly, it's a crap.
I suspect it's actually impossible to get reasonably good at something without some amount of passion for it, to some degree or another. Most musicians are in it for the thrill of learning something that most people find hard to do, or because they love music, or because they want to be part of a community that values music. Occasionally because they think they can make money at it.
I play an instrument or two, but only for fun. I love music, but I'm at a point in my life where I will never be good enough to be in a band. I have enough other hobbies anyway. I take a random 15 minutes out of my day to play a few songs, maybe practice a new song I'm learning, watch a short Youtube video about it here and there, and that's enough for me.
Loving musing doesn't mean you can play it.
Not everyone can do everything, nor is everything a good return on investment. If you tell people they can do whatever they want, you are effectively wasting their time. Better to give them some useful advice, e.g. your fingers are better for the guitar, rather than insisting everyone can do everything.
My daughter's violin teacher refused to teach any adult because according to him if you're too old you're a lost cause ;) I agree an adult is likely not going to be the world's top violinist but I'm also sure that with enough work you can make vast improvements.
On both the guitar and on the violin you are not magically going to get to your max potential. It requires a lot of work. On the guitar you can get to a point where you can play simple songs relatively quickly. On the violin you do sound awful for much longer so it does require a lot more work to get to a reasonable level. Whether that's worth your time or not depends on you.
I can hear a tune and immediately sing it or whistle it. But I can't immediately play it on the guitar. It's much easier for children than adults.
It's also hard to force yourself to practice the relevant skills. You can play scales all day but that won't necessarily help your ear. What you need is to force your brain to make the connection.
How do you do that with chords? I know everyone who isn't completely tone deaf can do that with one single note. But when it comes to chords, unless you already know some music theory, aren't there huge number of combinations you have to try before you find the correct one?
1. Start by transcribing the root note that you hear
2. Go back and see if each chord sounds major or minor - most of the time that will give you a major/minor third
3. Go back and play the 5th, and see if it sounds right - most of the time it'll be there
4. Don't worry about 7ths/9ths yet, they'll come, but give them a go
5. Once you've got a few chords, try and figure out the key, and that will help figure out others
So he was basically suggesting to transcribe by each note's function in a chord, starting with most -> least important. It still needs some music theory of course, but doesn't need you to listen to an entire complex chord at once.
Everybody that plays guitar have tried to transcribe a riff or a song. But not all have become great guitar players.
The way to go is to have an objective. Is it playing a difficult song like Cliffs of Dover? Playing blues? Rock? What is it? Focus on that style or song. COPY. Become a copy machine.
One example is doing bends. There are many ways of doing a bend. Most if not all blue players do it by holding the neck of the guitar in a very specific manner, so if you want to play blues, you need to copy them. It must be a perfect copy.
Playing the guitar is mostly a physical activity where motions and understanding of the body, and how this is wired into your nerves and brain matters.
If you just transcribe and play riffs, you won't be able to play in a high BPM, because in order to do that, you need to be extremely efficient with your movements, understand speed picking... and people have studied and developed those techniques for many years -- you don't invent this over, you watch videos, practice and copy it!
By just playing and transcribing you'll develop terrible habits which at some point will limit your playing, and will feel like it will take an eternity to correct. That's when most of the people stop playing.
And of course, play songs that are at your level, so typically lower speed songs with simpler chords and then from there understand what music style you want to focus on.
A guitar teacher can help you with that because they can easily come up with exercises and songs that would match your skill, but if you want, you can do that yourself.
Once you become advanced in guitar, then you'll for sure know it, and then you can experiment to do bends in a different way, or do something that would make you stand out, but at first, it's mostly about copying. Later you can innovate.
TLDR: best way of learning guitar is focusing on copying everything, the motions of a player being the #1.
- Don't tense up and play the most relaxed you possibly can. it's very hard to unlearn if you start off that way like I did
- Be kind to yourself since playing guitar is an unnatural thing to do (wrist position, hand strength required, calluses, etc.), so it takes time.
- Play along with songs as much as possible. Slow it down if you need to or just do a simplified version at first, and just focus on improving/learning one thing each time you play. This is also a great way to get comfortable with improv.
- If you're struggling with something, break things down to the smallest possible parts you can, play it really slow and repeat, until your muscle memory takes over, then slowly speed it up and put it back in context.
- If you're playing an electric, turn the volume up enough and let that do the work instead of your picking
- If you catch yourself noodling instead of playing consciously, stop playing. It's OK to noodle sometimes but if you do it a lot you'll get used to going on autopilot and your skills can plateau
- Don't be afraid of the upper fretboard. You can play super slowly up here and as long as you can at least fake being confident/intentional it'll sound nice. If you have smaller hands and have trouble with stretching your hands on lower frets, this can work to your advantage.
- You can get a solid guitar for $400-500. Spending more money up to about $2-3k will get you a nicer guitar, chasing that extra 1% of tone and have a nicer feel in your hands, but it's diminishing returns the more you spend.
- Same with pedals. Yes you can spend lots of money on fancy/unique pedals, but there's nothing wrong with sticking to cheap ones, especially Boss. A lot of great 80s/90s music was recorded with them, and bands frequently use the cheaper/commodity ones while touring instead of fancy boutique ones.
- Per Nile Rogers: "It's not about the shit you play, it's about the shit you don't play" (especially for funk stuff)
- Also for funk (and post-punk and experimental) stuff, a guitar is also a percussion instrument if you want it to be.
- Once guitar playing gets to a certain level of virtuosity (Steve Vai, IMO), it paradoxically can become extremely boring. Playing simply but with the right emotion channeled into your picking hand is much more interesting than super technical stuff.
- Related, remember that Bill Withers was in his 30s when he started making music and chose a very simple way of composing things, but was still able to do amazing things
I think the problem for me is I’m so tone deaf I can’t tell which note is the right note.
The fact that this was highly upvoted is a stark reminder of just how dumb the average user of this forum is.