I came to the conclusion that I suck on guitar!

[BenoA]

Perhaps you should listen to these inspirational words from John Petrucci:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evTTH...x=0&playnext=1

Good one!!! :ROTF::ROTF::ROTF:

[RacerX]

I like this YTer comment: "HILARIOUS!!!!
I shat my pants... and my girlfriend's pants too!"

[Spivonious]

Perhaps you should listen to these inspirational words from John Petrucci:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evTTH...x=0&playnext=1

The really funny part is that except for the beginning, that video isn't sped up at all.

[horns666]

Don't try to be better than others, but always try to be better than yourself. Even if it takes a decade..fuggit.

Some people are just natural fuckers born to play..others have to bust ass just to suck less.

[GinSonic]

Awesome! A thread full of kindred spirits!

I must admit, when I compare myself to the likes of my axe wielding heros? Yes. I do pale in comparison. That being said, there are times when I amaze myself. Not so much in the technique aspect. More so that I can play and create music!

I keep in mind this;



Always been words of wisdom, if you ask me. It bares repeating;
"Go For What You Know!"

My Non-musician friends, and even some musician friends, think that I'm pretty damn good. My best buddy, goin' on 40 years now, (He's a hobby musician. Keyboard player.) has watched and listened to me play since I picked up the guitar in 1970.

He's told me that, of all the guitar players he's known personally, I'm his favourite. I think he's biased, but God love him!

Somedays I think of this;




After 52+ years of life and 40 of it fuckin' around on a guitar, the focus to pull off lightning fast riffs has turned more into what Clapton and what PT say on their album covers.

[warlok]

I've been buying more and more equipment for many years, looking for that one thing that'll inspire me to find the inner guitar god inside me. Buy, sell, trade, over and over.. I even went on a search. Took me to the R&R hall of fame looking for this "pick of destiny" I heard abo.... Oh, wait, that wasn't me..

I think my biggest problem is focus. Like was said by a few before, I play the same things over and over and nothing I try to write myself sounds very good. So I get bored, take a long hiatus (until recently, hadn't played for about 8 years), buy something new, and start all over. I never really "learned" how to play and developed some bad habits that definitely hinder my progress. I'm thinking about taking some lessons to try to get on the right track and feel better about having thousands of dollars in equipment that amounts to boat anchors.

[Marc Snow]

Well there's a lot of songs that I gave up to try, too. I think there are some techniques that really weren't made to fit in my way to play. A lot of kids have just one thing in mind: speed.... I don't think that way

[Blazphemer]

this thread should be stickied!

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

I picked up the guitar in about 1981. An acoustic, for my 12th birthday. I wanted an electric, but you know, parents.

I took lessons for about 6 months, got bored with the acoustic, and saved my lawn-mowing $$ to buy a $60 plywood POS which I plugged into the mic in on a casette deck and played through an old stereo. Then I bought a Lotus Les Paul copy, and somewhere along there I got a "real" amplifier, then a Squier Strat, my first "decent" guitar.

I sucked. But I kept practicing. The more I practiced, the better I got. This continued for several years, until today, where I still suck, but I'm a lot better than I was when I started.

Every time I make up something new, or learn a little piece of a song, I learn something new, and I suck a little bit less. But thinking I suck pushes me to learn new things and then I don't get tired of hearing myself play the same old shit over and over again.

So, I think that I'm echoing that advice in this thread, who gives a shit if you learn the whole song, don't play it exactly right, or fast enough. Just try something new, anyway, and you'll take something away from it that will keep you on the right track.

[Marc Snow]

I guess I've heard this story before

[Anatar]

I recently began playing again after a fifteen year hiatus. When I gave it up at twenty, I was pretty much stuck in the kinda rut you all are talking about. It seemed like I only knew bits and pieces of songs, and kept playing them over and over. Never got any better, but got plenty frustrated and bored!

Fast forward more than a decade.

I love playing again, and have probably seen more progress in the last 9 months than I ever had back when I was younger- and I attribute this solely to my current approach. Instead of trying to learn a bunch of songs (never the entire song, nor very well played, btw), I focus instead on exercises and technique.

With a metronome and any scale I might know, I play the scale up and down the fretboard over and over and over, at varying speeds but with a general lean toward being faster and using proper alternate picking form. I'll also take a 10-15 note lick with some hammer-ons, pull-offs and a bend with alternate picking, and do the same lick up and down the fretboard over and over just like the scales.

By the time you're comfortable with several scales at speed, and your form with the various fret hand techniques is decent, throwing it all together seems to happen quite naturally. Additionally, learning new songs AFTER periods of these exercise sessions tends to be fast and more intuitive.

Just my two cents, hope people reclaim their mojo!
A.

[Cygnus X1]

I'd play much better if I was in a band.
After getting the basics, that is the one thing that forced me to become disciplined in my practice way back in senior high school days.

Since then it has been noodle, noodle, three steps forward, three steps back into the same hole!

At least I know my way around the fretboard, the picking hand is what kills my progress.
Phrasing-YES, mimic the human voice.
Sax playing (Clarence Clemens for example) or trumpet playing-follow the phrasing and your playing will "breathe" with the right pauses.

After all, as has been repeated many times, the music is in the pauses, not always the notes.

As I've said, when someone hears I've been playing for over thirty years..."Wow-you must be good"!
I respond..."It depends on who's listening".

I'm a God after 4 beers.

[VitaminG]

I'm a God after 4 beers.

is that you or your audience drinking?

[toxikdeth]

Well guys we all know that we suck......in comparison to the mighty blazer in his technical scandanavian post grunge band

[Cygnus X1]

is that you or your audience drinking?

:ROTF:

Both!