#16
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I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of Stefan Grossman’s fingerstyle lessons.
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#17
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How do you check for improvement?
Do you have a video of you playing something 6 months ago to compare now?
What's your baseline? There's no way one cannot improve by practice unless of course you are trying to learn something that takes years in few months. When I feel down, I watch 5 years old video of myself struggling to change from G to D.
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Acoustic-Electric: Yamaha FGX800C, Jim Dandy. Seagull S6. Electric: Schecter C1+, Aria Pro II Fullerton. |
#18
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Excellent point and great advice. I don’t do much scales only to warm up, but I don’t dedicate any significant time in practicing scales. I just try a song that I like and find it challenging if not well over my head and try to learn it. I can’t help it but to compare myself to myself, especially when I recognize the same mistakes from those years ago. But even with all those frustrations, I still enjoy playing my guitar so that’s good. |
#19
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You are a lot more experienced than me, but like you, i practice 1-2 hours a day for the last 4-5 months from being an absolute beginner.
At first it was frustrating but i was picking up concepts quickly and seemed to be improving well enough. However the last few weeks i have been introduced to fingerpicking by my instructor, at first it was magical, as we learnt each segment in isolation, then started string them together to form something that sounds like music. I now had to put them all together, to me it sounded ok but slow, in my follow up lesson, my problem area, was the biggest switch from frets 7 and 8 to a shape on frets 5 and 3, i am very slow on the change and then lose my timing. In 3 weeks it felt like i had improved nothing, spending 1-2 hours a day on almost just that sequence. What I didn’t know was the instructor was secretly timing me and how long it took me to change between that two sections, and i was at around 2.8-3 sec to land my fingers and play that first note, well i have been frustrated to tears, as i can feel its not on pace still. But i had my lady time me, and low and behold i am changing consistently at 1.4 sec to 1.2 sec consistently. It’s still a tad slow for the songs and i am not “there” yet, but if I hadn’t checked that, I wouldn’t of realized that slowly the speed was improving, and with some grit, and repetitiveness, eventually i will be were i need to be. We shall not discuss metronomes however, the one tick tick that scares me more than the Jaws theme song. Good luck, never quit, and i hope to be hearing some great tunes from you in the future. |
#20
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That first year is when you see yourself grow the most. You go from plucking open strings to playing some simple songs. You’re doing it right by hiring an instructor, I wish I did the same. Thanks for the words of encouragement, I might record something this weekend. |
#21
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This is from may 31st. Haven’t played this part much as of lately because I started concentrating on learning a few solos from later in the song. But I think I can play it cleaner now. Sounds simple but it’s tricky with the string skipping and time signature changes.
https://youtu.be/lXz0EWuM6ek |
#22
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I was complaining the same thing. Just wasn’t seeing the results despite legitimate time being put in.
I think it’s important to be persistent always but obsessive only in short bursts, like 30 minutes to an hour at most. Then leave it behind. Do something else. Forget the guitar. Come back a few hours later. The most recent learning research suggests that 8 hours a day is just not efficient for anyone. I obsessively practiced a passage for two weeks. We are talking two measures. And it is better. You have to just record yourself and you will see. But your goal has to be perfection. Then you won’t get there but you will see improvement. And a side note like the karate kid is that movement where I needed bar shapes and stretches that I had never done before resulted in me being able to do the caged system g chord d chord and c chord barres for the first time ever. I didn’t practice them but I tried it again a month later and I was shocked I could do it. Totally shocked. I distinctly remember trying many times and saying it’s not possible. I then remembered that I had tuned a half step down for a song and left it there. So I figured fools gold I still can’t do these Harder caged shapes. So I tuned the guitar back up to standard and I could still do it. Focus on a challenging piece of music that you really want to learn how to play. Determine to be able to play it perfectly very slowly. Along the way you will pick up skills unknowingly. When you go back to easier stuff you will realize that those chord changes, those finger stretches aren’t so tough anymore. |
#23
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I really like how an electric guitar can take stuff that would sound boring on an acoustic and bring it to life.
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Barry Sad Moments {Marianne Vedral cover}: My SoundCloud page Some steel strings, some nylon. |
#24
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A few of my thoughts if it helps:
1) You are better and likely improving more than you think. 2) I find that taking a few days off helps significantly to make progress. Sometimes over-practicing does not allow your brain time to subconsciously solve problems. I've made significant progress by taking a few days off when I reach a frustration point. 3) Learn and play full songs. Songs that you like. Learn to play them from memory. I also like to play along with the recorded song. This keep my interest level high, makes me feel as though I am making progress, and allows me to see and feel incremental improvements. If I spend too much time practicing skills or other exercises I get bored and frustrated. 4) Play with others. Tough to do these days but I have heard it said universally that playing with others is the best and fastest way to improve. I don't do this enough, but am going to seriously look into it when things are safe again (whenever that is). Good luck and go easy on yourself.
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Justin ________________ Gibson J-15 Alvarez MD60BG Yamaha LL16RD Epiphone Les Paul Standard Fender Player Stratocaster |
#25
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Practicing 1-2 hours a day for a few months...
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One of my favorite parts of the song is an acoustic piece. This guy played it just about perfect. I think it will take me a year to learn this. https://youtu.be/AqVLXj_1tjs *edit* Sounds so much better on finger style even though it was originally recorded with a pick. https://youtu.be/AqVLXj_1tjs Last edited by 1neeto; 09-06-2020 at 01:49 PM. |