What do you do when you play by yourself?

[Minotaur]

Originally Posted by rattletrap

I've been doing something different lately. I got Tabledit and play along with the computer. With TablEdit I can select sections and play them over and over. I can slow it down as needed and inch my way up.

Craig

Ooh, a new toy!

Note to self: Look into.

[ted in eburg]

I went out and got an inexpensive microphone/amp/speakers and i sing better and can hear myself over the guitar w/o straining my voice or trying to soften my strumming.. And its great fun

[Minotaur]

I did that too. I got a little mic that plugs into my external SoundBlaster, used my webcam and recorded a video of me playing and singing Sundown on my 12 string. I was able to sing and play with the original recording in the background (I needed the bass and lead guitar). I even posted it on YT and on some forums I frequented. You won't find it anymore.

[Steely Glen]

I was recently given a Boss Micro BR digital recorder as a gift.

This has revolutionized the way I practice. I can apply tons of effects to my guitar (acoustic or electric) to achieve a specific tone. Also, instead of practicing scales, modes, and improv with a metronome (kind of boring, IMO), it has tons of drum tracks which can be sped up/slowed down to my liking, making the exercise "feel" more musical. Plus, it has an SD card which can hold mp3s that you can speed up/slow down and loop like the popular software programs (I've used Amazing SlowDowner in the past...a solid option). And on top of all this, I can record my sessions for review.

Granted, it is a bit pricey and not something I would have purchased on my own, but in hindsight, perhaps I should've long ago.

[BULLSPRIG]

I go through phases. I usually start playing random things until I come across something that interests me. That could be flatpicking some D chord to C chord to G chord transitions. I will play in that area for several minutes. Messing around with variations of the D chord. There seems to be billions of ideas to be had within the D chord. All up and down the neck.

The next day I might try to improve my fingerpicking skills. I'm still at the real early stages of development. Most of what I do is just random noodling with no real direction. I've always been geared to write or try to compose guitar songs. Not sing. Zero motivation to sing. Fairly little motivation to learn others' songs. A lot of the time, I will be trying to create something and stumble onto a portion of a song someone else wrote. I may try to (by ear) figure out as much as I can.

I should practice more with scales.

As you can see, I don't have much focus or direction with guitar. I just love playing and listening to the thing.

[TBman]

In the interest of public safety, I don't sing. I just play fingerstyle solo acoustic stuff.

[opencee]

When I was in Junior High School, in the 60's, I played in a folk music group. We strummed and sang. It became very obvious that I could strum, but NOT sing. I quit that group, but kept strumming on my own with no direction or particular interest.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I traded an Arlo Guthrie songbook to an older friend of mine for a Baxter's Fingerpicking Manual. I know I got the better deal. I worked my way through a few of the songs and it changed everything for me. Wow, melody and accompaniment on the guitar at the same time! NO SINGING! I even developed my own open tunings (I didn't even know people used those at the time.) to assist me in my quest to play melodies and rhythms without singing.

I barely played through college. After college I built a 5-string banjo for clawhammer style playing. I basically gave up guitar. Clawhammer is rhythmic, and uses lots of different tunings to play melodies with bare fingers. I loved it, but it lost out to raising kids and having jobs.

At about 40, I picked up guitar again. I didn't have time for lessons or learning conventionally. I always enjoyed Jorma Kaukonen, Taj Mahal, Mississippi John Hurt, John Fahey, and a host of other fingerpickers, so with their inspiration, I sort of put together what I knew about alternate tunings, Baxter's Fingerpicking, and clawhammer banjo rhythm and melody, to play songs for myself on guitar, without singing.

I am completely unrepentant about taking the easiest way I can find to be musical. Hey, I'm 55 now, with no aspirations to play for anyone outside of family and friends. I don't have all the time in the world, so I'd rather figure out a quick way to make music for myself rather than practice scales or try to cover something exactly.

I still don't sing, not even in the shower, but even though I usually just play alone in my own house, I do get a kick out of my wife surprising me by singing along with my playing from another room, especially when I don't even know she's paying attention. It reinforces the idea that I have successfully accomplished something that I enjoy, and it's recognizable enough for SOMEBODY ELSE to sing along with.

I know the world is a safer place with my mouth shut, and I'm still having fun.

opencee

.

[Auralis]

I can play and sing if I am strumming. I haven't mastered singing while picking because I still have to concentrate hard on the picking. I have a couple of songs I have picked enough that I can at least sing during parts of the song so it's getting there.

I keep my guitar next to my computer, I do quite a bit of surfing for songs to learn, tonight I found out about "Romanza" and started to learn it, and am enjoying it very much.

The problem I have is tabs..I hate them..lol. I like my chords and although I will look up tabs, I find it irritating when the chords are not listed on the tabulature, I find I learn to pick better when I know what chord that tab is describing.

For a few months last year I went to weekly jam sessions with a local blue grass group but gave it up, just wasn't for me. I was into working with my chord progressions and playing up and down the fretboard, but this group seemed to know only 3 chords and just capo'd like crazy. I liked the interaction but I wanted to learn something from the group and didn't feel like I was. Bluegrass is great, but just not my genre either.

I have an electric guitar that was my husband's. I don't play it, just haven't gotten into learning it because I like my acoustic guitars so well.

[Minotaur]

Originally Posted by opencee

Hey, I'm 55 now, with no aspirations to play for anyone outside of family and friends. I don't have all the time in the world, so I'd rather figure out a quick way to make music for myself rather than practice scales or try to cover something exactly.

I'll be 53 in July, and as I mentioned somewhere up above, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started taking lessons and playing 2 years ago. Well, maybe I did think I'd be playing and singing maybe just for myself and for anyone who'd listen. Problem is I don't have all the time in the world either to practice and get as far along as I think I should, or I think a 16 year old might.

I still don't sing, not even in the shower, but even though I usually just play alone in my own house, I do get a kick out of my wife surprising me by singing along with my playing from another room, especially when I don't even know she's paying attention. It reinforces the idea that I have successfully accomplished something that I enjoy, and it's recognizable enough for SOMEBODY ELSE to sing along with.

I do sing in the truck along with my iPod through the stereo. I think I sound good. I've gotten the same reaction from the family... I didn't know anyone was listening and when I was done, I'd hear "was that you or the recording?" No, it was me.

I guess I have to be a lot less shy about just doing what I need to do to get to where I want to be, which is a lot better than I am!

[markIvan]

I have looked at all the replys in the thread and some stages i look at i can say i have achieved a little .Some i can say i am on the verge of .Still yet i see some i am quite far off .
But one thing i have come to know about myself and music is that if someone said " here you go miss all that learning out, click your fingers you will be there "

I would say no thankyou .I am not saying that i do not sometimes get tied up in knots by not being able to achieve .But i will say that the small succesive steps i have achieved ,when you achieve them ( and you know when you have because its like walking around with a woolie hat on for a few days ,the chemicals in your head just flow every time you are there at that moment of creation when listening back to it ).
Its a very strange thing with me music .It is like a descending scale where you never think the finnal notes are ever going to come ( i can be there for days weeks or even think of giving up ) .Then it happens .....and you think bl*** hell wasnt that good ( its like you enjoy the pain ) .You also think what was all that giving up stuff about ........what else would you do i ask myself ,its who i am and i like myself today is what i mostly think .

Then i do it all again .....i'm sure there will be a medical name for it but like i say i wouldnt have it any other way .( and dont forget i am talking small sucesses ) I can imagine counciling for bigger ocasions :-)

[rcadian]

I learn songs that I can play when I have my sister-in-laws around to sing...

I can't sing worth a ****, but I can hear my own ear getting better and now I can tell if I look at chords on ultimate-guitar.com whether they are right or wrong.

So I learn songs - the latest being American Honey by Lady Antebellum - and then, when we have a family get-together, I can play it while someone who can sing, sings... I also look on YouTube at all the covers of a song I'm learning to see what hammer-ons or passing chords or different keys other people are using or throwing in to jazz things up a bit, all in preparation for a singalong...

If I could sing, I'd learn different songs, but as I can't I stick to songs that either I know someone else I know loves to sing or that a lot of people will know the words to and want to join in...