Need help how to progress with my guitar skills?

Question

Hey all.

Im a guitarist and have been for about a year now.

But the strange thing is that ive never really played others bands songs, i just play my own. I learnt House of the Rising Sun by the Animals and thats about it.

I think its because i dislike the whole practicing a song over and over. I feel its quite Mundane.

Now i personally think im not to bad at playing guitar, but i only ever write my own songs and just have a jam with myself if you know what i mean. I seem to just pick up a guitar a play with sounds if you get me

Now what i wanted to know is would this be a good thing or a bad thing. Bad becasue i dont have a massive library of songs i can play and its made learning a little slower.

But it must be good that im picking up my style of music and how i want to play guitar so early.

Im not quite sure. All opinions are greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Answer 1

Hee hee. "I think it's quite mundane".

So are many things in life... but there is no substitute for practice. There is no magic bullet, no magic spell to instantly get better. It takes a certain amount of dedication, a certain amount of motivation, a certain amount of discipline, and a healthy respect for those who have gone before you.

Every song that I have learned, every scale that I sat down and ran over and over, ever riff that I copped and learned how to play in a few different keys all added to my musical repertoire, and gave me the option of saying "gee, I'm going to do this here cuz that's the sound I want" when I play.

Learning new material and new styles of playing has *challenged* me to become a better musician. My concern is that if you think ... "oh, it's so *mundane*" then you'll get complacent and never challenge yourself. Ten years go by, and you won't be half the guitarist you could've been.

I have this motto/saying thing. "A good musician isn't defined by how well he plays, but how well he plays with others".

Let me offer a case in point. A really good friend of mine plays some mean guitar. He specializes in 7-string metallica-style thrash metal, and man does he got it down! The problem is that that is all he really wants to play... and all he really knows how to play. He has done his own thing for so long that it's hard for him to play in different styles, even different styles of metal. He never really sat down and learned the discipline to play a riff the same way over and over (too mundane?) and as a result we have a really hard time practicing (I play bass with him for that stuff), much less getting a song written and keeping it the same way for more than a week or two.

What I'm trying to say is that if you want to get a band going, or want to join a band, you'll need to be able to play well with others, meaning playing cleanly, consistently, and being able to learn new material that you may not have written.

If you want to get serious, practice the fundamentals. Learn your scales, learn your chords, maybe even learn some theory, and then learn some songs so you know how to use them. If you get bored, only do something for a few minutes a day, then move on to something else. You don't have to sit there practicing a scale for three hours - run it a few times, improv with it for a few minutes, then do something else.

I think it was Steve Vai who said something like "Of course you've gotta learn theory. You've gotta know what the rules are before you can break them, right?" That kinda thing.

I offer one final word of advice. Chicks (ummm, or love interests, or whatever) dig it when you pull out a guitar and play them a sweet, heartfelt song. They don't dig it (at least none I've ever been with) quite nearly as much when you just sit there and noodle for five minutes.... unless you are daaaaammn good. And how are you going to get that good?


... Practice. =)


Saul

Answer 2

Depending on what you want to do with your guitar playing - you might want to avoid trying to play too many covers.

Covers are great for when you are jamming with other people, and just want to be able to jump in and start rocking out. They can also be horribly annoying, as some people want to continuously play the same stupid songs over and over.

A few well chosen covers can add some material to your set when you are playing out somewhere (a lot of people aren't into hearing original stuff, and they like it when they recognize a song). It's also fun to take a cover song, and make it your own by changing it to fit the sound of your band. A few that we do are almost unrecognizable as the originals (of course we also chose songs that weren't exactly mainstream).

Writing your own stuff is considerably more rewarding, and I've found that the more songs I learn, the harder it is to write something original without accidentally stealing a riff from another song (sometimes without even realizing it until later).

You can focus on music theory to progress - learn more chords, scales, modes, etc., and try to apply them. That will build your skill without having to waste time learning a bunch of songs - and can help with writing original stuff.

Answer 3

I suppose if you are into writing and singing your own song, the only technique you'll need is to be able to play your compositions well.

You probably have this tune and some influences that would fit your song, so you'd need to learn how you can execute and inject those influences in your songs. Some great musicians, like Joni Mitchell, even "invent" her own chords, or she'd lower the tune of the guitar strings out of the standard tuning, to fit her own song. But that's Joni Mitchell.

If you want to play your instrument very well and continue composing, may I suggest that you take a basic course on classical guitar to help you build a more formal understanding of music as a discipline. It will also help you improve your techniques and grasp of your instrument.

Answer 4

If you want to play your own music fine and well, but if you do this for a living people want to hear songs that are familiar to them....if you just do your own music your going to be very limited...and suppose people don't like your style....then your in trouble, do people like your music ??? Why not go on youtube and see what kind of feed back that you get ???? You have only been playing a year.... are you learning to play correctly with a teacher, are you learning to read music, if not your going to be very limited. I've had a lot of kids who have come to me for lessons that have been playing a year and they think that they know how to play guitar...and they don't, all they know are a few chords, most don't even know what key that their playing in.....a year on guitar is not a long time, and I've yet to see someone who has been playing a year that knows what their doing....theirs a lot more to learning guitar then learning a few chords, I'm sorry if I sound like I'm putting you down, I'm not, it's just that I've been teaching guitar for over thirty five years and I have seen it all.....some of these kids think that they are great guitarist and after a couple of lessons they see that they really have no idea what makes a good guitarist....it took Slash years to learn what he knows....it's almost impossiable to know all that their is to guitar playing in a year.....So just keep working on your music, and like I said put it on youtube and see how it's received !!! Believe me the people will let you know what they think....

Answer 5

Writing your own stuff is great, but, if you want to play along with other musicians, it's a good idea to learn some well-known songs. Be guided by your personal taste in this, but the more songs you know, the easier it is to steer people away from the same old stuff (unless that's al they know!) Personally, I see nothing wrong in a good, old-fasiones, 12 -bar blues - everyone knows them and audiences like them, but I know there is a lot of feeling against them. Hope this helps. I write my own stuff and play other people's and traditional material.

Answer 6

well you can always try to practice parts of the song until you get them right then put them together ,slowly play the song and when your comfortable you can gradually speed up the song until you can play the full song at full speed ps sorry if this dosen't help :p good luck btw