Share your real world experience on adding complexity early in your learning curve

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Gs33

can... What is,are the actual timeline, potholes, breakthrough strategies when you begin to add chord, triad, doublestop enhancements to single note melody lines?

You mean all you have been playing is single note melody lines?

Listen to a bunch of pieces that do involve those added things (they are 99% plus of what solo guitar pieces have).
Start working on a few of those you like (easier of course if there is tab available).

No real secret, just learn by doing and practicing on them over and over.

[Mandobart]

"How Long" is so subjective; a specific timeline IMO is pointless. What I learned in a few months others might take a week or a year.

All of us have different backgrounds, natural ability, perseverance, available free time, resources, etc.

I started guitar when I was 13, after several years of classical violin training. I went into it with more background than someone starting guitar with no musical background. At 13 I had lots more free time and far fewer other time demands than an adult learner with a job, family, etc. I learned with chords and progressions first, strumming songs out of Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Eagles songbooks. It was a few years before I started learning melody runs, leads, partial chords and chord inversions.

A lot of it is driven by the genres and songs I'm interested in.

The best single thing I've found to progress as a musician is regularly playing with others. I can't stress this enough after 50 years as a musician which included private and group lessons, classical and traditional music formal instruction, orchestra and band performance, method books, videos, etc.

[Robin, Wales]

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

Timing IS everything. Haha

And it donÂ’t mean a thing if it ainÂ’t got that swingÂ….

Get busy with a metronome part of your daily practice

Have FUN and if it sounds good it IS GOOD

Paul

Yep - it is all about timing and phrasing.

Originally Posted by Gs33

Sounds like my wall of sound is going to be a picket fence for a while. Back to it.

Well I certainly don't "wall of sound" my instrumental breaks during songs. I Carter style the melody around the open chord shapes using hammer-ons and pull-offs for augmentation. Very basic stuff - but realistically I sort of don't need anything more on guitar to accompany songs. I have no idea what notes I'm playing, no idea what scale or triad or mode or other intricacies. I just find what works for me.....and steal a lot of licks that I hear on records!

I did a dobro residential course a good few years ago and I can remember Mike Witcher saying that you'll know when you are a good musician, not when you can play fast rolls and fancy licks but when you can play the melody of Amazing Grace up and down just one string and silence a Friday night bar room crowd by carrying them with you.

[Mbroady]

The more you play the better you get. The more you play with others who are more advanced than you (and are willing to share) the faster you will Improve.

Also, record and jam with your self. When I first started I used 2 boombox tape recorders. We’ve come a long way. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t like what you hear.

One day you will wake up and notice an improvement

[k_russell]

For me, the solution comes mainly from practice. I use a few music theory books to get an idea of what melody enhancements will work best. Sometimes I'll work from a recording (Caution, this makes it really easy to imitate).
Next comes practice. Then, practice more. I use a metronome and recording software. Play. Listen. Evaluate. Modify/Correct. Repeat. I'll work a phrase at a time until I have my song, break or solo.

[Charlie Bernstein]

Originally Posted by Guitars44me

Write some songs. Steal from the ones you are learning.
Visit open tunings.
“Honey, I need another guitar for different tunings!”
Take up harmonica in the rack.
Slide guitar.
Are you singing?

These all add complexity without needing to learn single note leads! Which rarely sound good by yourself, anyway

Have fun

Paul

Yep. Mix it up!

I'll add: Learn a song you like in a style that's not yours. That is, if you don't know a country song, learn one. If you don't know a reggae song, learn one. If you don't know a torch song, learn one. If you don't know a Disney song, learn one.

[catt]

Originally Posted by Gs33

...a huge leap to them actually sounding ok...

Are you talking about improvisation?

Or are you talking about taking the elements of music and executing them in musical fashion?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Gs33

This is a difficult question to explain... as short as I can... What is,are the actual timeline, potholes, breakthrough strategies when you begin to add chord, triad, doublestop enhancements to single note melody lines?

I've never thought like this at all. No timelines, no plans. Not even for single practice sessions, let alone any long term goals.

I remember one long term goal I did have, back in the first few months of playing: be able to play the F chord! This was back in the 1960s, and I didn't want to be Clapton or Hendrix. Just getting on top of that F would be enough for me!

Of course, I did master the F (before too long), but any goals I had were always similar ones: master this new song, complete this original song. Always short term goals, often as short as 5 minutes.

It was a constant process of just enjoying myself - playing what I could, and working on any new song I wanted to learn. When I encountered something too difficult to play, I'd work on it till I got it, or (if it wasn't interesting enough) just give up. Who needs it? Plenty more other great stuff out there.

It did help that I was in a band playing gigs, right from 10 months after I first picked up a guitar (and a whole variety of different bands after that). So I always had real practical scenarios to measure myself against. Gigging showed me you only had to be good enough, for whatever it was. Most people are entertained by quite simple stuff, technically speaking, and I was always at least as good as I needed to be, at any point. (In those early gigs, just strumming G, C and D in time was "good enough.)
Outside of gigs, I was attracted to more challenging material of course, but it was still stuff that was fun to learn and play. I never wanted to be a "good guitarist" for the sake of it. I wanted to be "good enough to play this song", whatever it was at the time.

But I can mention a couple of what you might call "breakthrough strategies", which improved my technique and my sound noticeably. All three came from tips from others, two of them from the only personal lessons I've ever had (which were nearly 40 years after I started).

1. Metronome practice. Metronomes are for practising time-keeping. Not for practising getting faster. As such, you need to steadily slow a metronome down, not speed it up. Get used to staying in time at a comfortable speed. Then halve the click rate but still play at the same speed. Put the click on different beats in the bar, or even between the beats. So you have to make the time yourself.

2. Play like you mean it. Don't be half-hearted! Don't ever think "this will do". Play every note or chord as if it might be your last. At every moment, what you are playing is the most important thing you could be doing. Even if it's a rubbish gig and nobody much is listening ... maybe that's actually because you are being half-hearted?

3. Practice scales, riffs and melodies with fret hand only. The idea here is that we get used to the idea that the fret hand just has to choose the right notes, while the pick hand is in charge of timing, rhythm, articulation and so on. Wrong. The left hand has to be just a positive and precise as the right, otherwise your playing can sound woolly or imprecise. Doing everything with the left hand is a good test.
Use the metronome and play each note on the click, using hammer-ons or pull-offs only - no picking at all. It doesn't matter if you can't actually hear each note clearly; it's the positive action of the fretting fingers that matters.

[Pickcity]

Originally Posted by Mandobart

I started guitar when I was 13, after several years of classical violin training. I went into it with more background than someone starting guitar with no musical background. At 13 I had lots more free time and far fewer other time demands than an adult learner with a job, family, etc.

The best single thing I've found to progress as a musician is regularly playing with others.

I started out the exact same way. Classical violin at 8, then guitar at 11. I was so fortunate to have a masterful violinist as my teacher.

1,000% agree about playing with others! Nothing I ever did was as beneficial.

Originally Posted by Gs33

Sounds like my wall of sound is going to be a picket fence for a while. Back to it.

I’m in my late 40’s and started playing guitar at 11. I still feel this way at times. It isn’t work. It’s music. Enjoy the ride. I do understand the being anxious side of it. You will improve if you stick with it. Simply, you must make up your mind that you are going to do this no matter how long it takes. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

[Guitars44me]

This from JonPR


“ 2. Play like you mean it. Don't be half-hearted! Don't ever think "this will do". Play every note or chord as if it might be your last. At every moment, what you are playing is the most important thing you could be doing. Even if it's a rubbish gig and nobody much is listening ... maybe that's actually because you are being half-hearted?”

This!!! MEAN IT!

Paul

[Gs33]

Thanks everyone, not sure I even asked a good question but the answers rock. To answer some of your asks... Started on a mando, so playing fiddle tunes has come easy enough. Playing around with movie themes and classic rock favorites, but it feels to me there is always more chordal enhancement that could be part of it. Watched some Eric Skye, David Grier to try to figure out strategies where to build it in, but very little has clicked. It's a puzzle, always a fun one.

[Mr. Jelly]

I go about the whole process though experimentation with open ears. I play chord inversions and pick out the strings and notes that make sense to my ears. Then experiment with adding notes from scales or just what makes sense. When I use chord shapes others suggest they don't always work for me or sound right. I'm basically using the parts of the technic that works for me. And don't forget to use open strings. They are your friend.

[hubcapsc]

In college I wished I could learn songs just by listening to
the album like I saw others do. I decided to learn a lead
part in Let It Be. I got the notes, but of course me plunking
away on my $100 guitar didn't sound like the Beatles album ...

Anywho... that led to me seeing a pattern in what was going
on that I mapped out across the guitar. And I could move the
pattern around and it would fit with other songs too. Now I
know this was me learning about keys and the pentatonic
scale...

-Mike

[DCCougar]

Originally Posted by Gs33

....What is,are the actual timeline, potholes, breakthrough strategies when you begin to add chord, triad, doublestop enhancements to single note melody lines?

I start with chord structure, not melody lines.

[Aspiring]

It may be something you are already aware of, but for me even with years of conservatory piano lessons etc I never had a teacher that introduced the concepts of phrasing and dynamics to provide musicality in the playing.

The other one was the concept of rhythm as a groove vs mechanically playing like a robot.

It wasn't until I had those concepts introduced to me and I started applying them consciously that my music starting sounding like music.