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  #1  
Old 05-31-2017, 12:18 PM
Audix Audix is offline
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Default The age old question...what to practice??

I've been playing guitar quite a while now but in all honesty I probably haven't progressed much in years, sure I progressed a little in certain ways early on in my playing but my knowledge of theory, especially in a practical sense is pretty poor and literally anything outside a little finger picking and basic open and barr chords is quite foreign to me. My only goal is to play paid gigs in local venues playing old and modern popular rock/pop/country songs......that's it really! I have done a few gigs in the past and have been recently presented with opportunities to play some more regular gigs and although I have enough basic songs learned to navigate my way through a gig, I always feel extremely nervous about giging because I don't feel as though I'm as rounded or advanced as I need to be to feel comfortable and confident on stage so I'm seeking advice from the more advanced players here that gig regularly about what I need to practice and what knowledge I need to acquire relative to my goals? Any songs that I've learned to date have been through youtube song tutorials from the likes of Justin Sandercoe and various others so I'm not really sure if the versions that I'm doing are even accurate or at least as good as they can be, are there any resources/online tutorials or teachers for learning songs that are 100% accurate? If so, should I just concentrate on learning songs that I want to learn safe in the knowledge that when I gig them, they are at least accurate? or should I go back to the drawing board and get practicing scales and whatever else is required???? As usual, any help from you guys is much appreciated!!!!
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Old 05-31-2017, 01:46 PM
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" . . . .My only goal is to play paid gigs in local venues playing old and modern popular rock/pop/country songs......"


To play songs, practice songs. In all the years I've been doing this, I never did it nor was I asked to, have my diploma or certificate of completion hanging on the wall behind me. Understanding music theory is great, but it only serves to get you to the point of being able to play the songs you want to play.

Accuracy? Does it sound good to you? That, given your stated goal, is what counts the most.

Know the songs and present them as if you own them. Because at that point, you do.
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Old 06-25-2017, 08:08 AM
Audix Audix is offline
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Great advice, I appreciate the reply 👍

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Old 06-25-2017, 12:24 PM
JonPR JonPR is offline
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Originally Posted by A-Mac View Post
To play songs, practice songs.
This.
I fail to see why anyone would want to do anything else.

I heard a couple of classical pianists on radio some years ago, asked what they practiced. They both said (separately) "the next piece I'll be playing in concert". Neither practiced any kind of technical exercises.

Any piece of music you want to play contains all the technical exercise you need.

But - as someone else once said - you do have to practice it until you get it right; and then practice it more until you can't get it wrong. That's when you own it.
IOW, once you have all its details nailed, when you can play it with no mistakes - that's when you actually start playing it, in the sense of adding feel and expression, making it your own.
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Old 06-25-2017, 05:19 PM
s0cks s0cks is offline
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I'm going to have to agree. There is nothing like learning songs that forces you into learning new fingerings or techniques. It's something I've really slacked off on and now it's starting to hit home that I should really have been learning more songs. You simply can't navigate the fretboard in fun, exciting, new and precise ways until you've developed that muscle memory and dexterity.

I guess one could create their own songs making sure to include difficult phrases and force oneself to go beyond their comfort zone. But you're drawing from your own limited experience in that sense.

I also will suggest working on rhythm, outside of guitar too. Strong sense of rhythm will build confidence in everything you play.
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Old 06-26-2017, 05:34 AM
Mandobart Mandobart is offline
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First, there are many people in my area that get regular paid gigs playing just first position cowboy chords while belting out the same dozen well-known songs every night. Neither technical proficiency, versatility nor any understanding of theory are a requirement. I've found though, that my enjoyment, confidence and positive audience interaction have gone up the more I learn.

I recommend learning multiple chords inversions up the neck - not just barre chords - to add more interesting progressions. If you can find a copy of Jay Friedman's "Guitar Tricks" books those will help.

Practice how you play - we all do this anyway. Do you play through an amp or PA, standing, or on a barstool? Is it well lit? Dim? Some of your practice time should be spent matching the gig conditions as well as you can. If you only practice unplugged, on your couch, lots of natural light, with all the reference material around (books, Justin on YouTube) but this isn't how your gig space is set up you're not as well prepared as you could be. The conditions we practice under are the conditions we prepare ourselves for.

This is the most important thing from my experience of 44 years as a musician, including classical training: you have to work on getting better. You have set and reach goals - and these should be more skills based (improve ear training, improve sight reading, improve improvisation skills, etc.) than "learn this song next" (though you should also always be learning new songs too). This is the most important part of the most important thing: play music with other people regularly. If you're good enough to land gigs you're good enough to participate in regular jams/song circles. There are so many benefits to this. Your timing and singing will improve. You'll pick up new techniques and skills. You'll learn from as well as teach others. You'll gain more confidence.
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Old 06-26-2017, 06:36 AM
Audix Audix is offline
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Great advice once again, I've been on the look out for a jam group for some time now so I'll have to double my efforts! ! Thanks again

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Old 06-26-2017, 07:51 AM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Maybe you shouldn't practice technical exercises unless you have a clear idea of WHY you're doing it, but that being said..... there's a lot of value in SOME PERCENTAGE of practice being dedicated to purely technical. I ignored this to the detriment of my own development for many years. Honestly, the fact that many get sucked into spending a proportionally out-of-balance percentage of their time working technical things and NOT playing TUNES is a very real problem, but it's kind of a separate conversation too much of this.

As far as learning TUNES, work on the skill of being able to really learn entire forms in a better way. I've seen students, who have spent WEEKS trying to learn a single tune, who can basically memorize the whole thing in a few minutes.... simply by having their chart rewritten in a "less nonsensical" way. It just requires learning to make a chart in a more professional way and understanding some basics of form etc. Very often, by the time you're through making a decent chart which accounts for rhythm and basic form/phrases, you have it memorized. You pretty quickly get to where you don't really need a chart.

If learning tunes is important , how valuable is it to be able to learn exponentially more tunes in a given amount of time? Learning to make a basic chart which clearly lays out form AND rhythmic elements of a tune is a crucial part of taking things to another level musician. Life is short.

More holistic approaches to things like rhythm are helpful as well. Individual strumming patterns suit specific songs mostly, whereas broader patterns cover all of music.
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Old 06-26-2017, 10:35 AM
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If you want to learn a new playing technique, like banjo rolls then you'd probably need drills just practicing them. Otherwise just practice songs. Any tricky parts you encounter in a song just isolate it and practice that more.
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Old 07-09-2017, 05:32 PM
Johan Madsen Johan Madsen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Audix View Post
I've been playing guitar quite a while now but in all honesty I probably haven't progressed much in years, sure I progressed a little in certain ways early on in my playing but my knowledge of theory, especially in a practical sense is pretty poor and literally anything outside a little finger picking and basic open and barr chords is quite foreign to me. My only goal is to play paid gigs in local venues playing old and modern popular rock/pop/country songs......that's it really! I have done a few gigs in the past and have been recently presented with opportunities to play some more regular gigs and although I have enough basic songs learned to navigate my way through a gig, I always feel extremely nervous about giging because I don't feel as though I'm as rounded or advanced as I need to be to feel comfortable and confident on stage so I'm seeking advice from the more advanced players here that gig regularly about what I need to practice and what knowledge I need to acquire relative to my goals? Any songs that I've learned to date have been through youtube song tutorials from the likes of Justin Sandercoe and various others so I'm not really sure if the versions that I'm doing are even accurate or at least as good as they can be, are there any resources/online tutorials or teachers for learning songs that are 100% accurate? If so, should I just concentrate on learning songs that I want to learn safe in the knowledge that when I gig them, they are at least accurate? or should I go back to the drawing board and get practicing scales and whatever else is required???? As usual, any help from you guys is much appreciated!!!!
In my opinion the thing that will be the most helpful for your progression besides technique and all those stuffs is musical theory, and especially scale harmonization. The program could be something like :

1. Learning major scales and understand how those works
2. Learn how to harmonize them with 3 notes chords (major and minor chords)
3. Same with 4 notes chords (7, Maj 7, min7 etc )
4. You could learn the 5 notes chords later (9th, 11th 13th etc)
5. But what you have to understand is that chords are nothing more than notes from the scale played together , so when you know your scales , and he harmonization process you will be able to :

- compose as you know which chords works together or not
-improvise, as you know which scale to use for any chord progression
- enlight your chords very easily as you can add any note from the scale to any of the chords related to it, it doesn't matter in a first time if you don't have a clue what you're adding , all that matters is to use the notes from the scale, and avoid the others (those will be useful later as "out" notes)

This is enough to get confident and then to keep learning at your own rhythm.
Of course pentatonics are very important too as they are very frequently used in American music , but that's easy to manage as they are just simplificated major and minor scales .

When you'll be done with that, you can dig into triads, chord reversement , minor scales , exotic scales , degrees theory stuffs etc ... but there's no hurry start with the beginning and the most useful thing ever for any musician : SCALE HARMONIZATION
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Old 07-10-2017, 06:05 AM
SunnyDee SunnyDee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mattbn73 View Post
As far as learning TUNES, work on the skill of being able to really learn entire forms in a better way. I've seen students, who have spent WEEKS trying to learn a single tune, who can basically memorize the whole thing in a few minutes.... simply by having their chart rewritten in a "less nonsensical" way. It just requires learning to make a chart in a more professional way and understanding some basics of form etc. Very often, by the time you're through making a decent chart which accounts for rhythm and basic form/phrases, you have it memorized. You pretty quickly get to where you don't really need a chart.

...Learning to make a basic chart which clearly lays out form AND rhythmic elements of a tune is a crucial part of taking things to another level musician. Life is short.

...
Can you point us toward the specifics on this? I'm not having an easy time memorizing songs.
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Old 07-10-2017, 07:31 AM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Can you point us toward the specifics on this? I'm not having an easy time memorizing songs.
Sure. Most chord charts have lyrics, with chords above the word/syllable on which chords change. That's cool for very basic, at the beginning, but you're somewhat a slave to individual words, syllables and chords, because nothing is really communicated about the overall structure.

When you combine lyrics and chords as your fundamental organizational framework, each song is completely unique and highly complex, but usually the changes themselves and the overall structure are very simple. There are patterns repeated in hundreds of tunes.

it's very helpful to learn to write a chart or at least supplement an existing one to reflect rhythmic structures and form in a way which SIMPLIFIES understanding instead of ADDING TO complexity.

I'm kind of stuck at the hospital with family right now. I have lots of time , but it's sporadic and random. I'll try to post an example later.
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Old 07-10-2017, 09:45 AM
Wyllys Wyllys is offline
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The very act of commiting the words to paper is a memory aid. The same applies to writing melody and chords. That makes learning notation worthwhile in itself.
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Old 07-10-2017, 06:49 PM
mattbn73 mattbn73 is offline
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Originally Posted by SunnyDee View Post
Can you point us toward the specifics on this? I'm not having an easy time memorizing songs.
What type of song are you talking about BTW? Might be cool to look at a specific one you'd like to memorize. Random examples work too I guess. Something with an existing chord-over-words chart for comparison?
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Old 07-10-2017, 07:33 PM
SunnyDee SunnyDee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mattbn73 View Post
What type of song are you talking about BTW? Might be cool to look at a specific one you'd like to memorize. Random examples work too I guess. Something with an existing chord-over-words chart for comparison?
Well, I'm a little embarrassed to mention this song, but it's a good example, because someone wanted me to play it and the chord progression isn't all that easy to remember, in my view. I'm doing it fingerstyle, modifying a pattern here and there to suit the changes and lyrics better. Sometimes When We Touch, Dan Hill

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/d/d..._touch_crd.htm

Maybe you should start a new thread, because I'm sure that many people would be interested to read your posts on this.
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