After playing 20 years now i feel i should be a much better musician than i am now. Mainly how i have practiced and what i have practiced are the main topics in question.
I wish i didn't spend years just trying developing technique and practice and spent more time on working things out by ear, ear training, playing more styes, building up repertoire.
Whats your experience and knowledge, if you could turn back the clock what would you do and tell younger musicians on the forum? There can be a lot of time spent on things "the internet tells or a book tells"
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Spot on.
I never set out to achieve anything, or sound like anyone, and can confirm I've been 100% successful.
I'm the only player in our house, and still not the best....
Boom Boom....
If I could have those years again I would definitely go beyond the pentatonic earlier on, and would also concentrate much more on my phrasing and timing (which I feel are still quite weak). Also, simpler but more effective licks.
The three most important words.
I wasted years learning a few intermediate classical pieces. Instead I should have wasted those years learning a larger number of pieces to a lower standard.
Fortunately I probably have a few decades left to do the "lower standard" bit...
Musically nothing really, I can sit in my basement and play along to some mp3s so I'm happy.
Oh well, guess I did it right after all.
But for the poster who said 'learn to sing' - if I could have, that would have been incredibly useful.
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I played 2 riffs for about 6 months......Caroline by Quo and Rock bottom UFO...didn't think I'd need anything else !
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Ohh man.. Yes I think I would totally change the way I learned if I could....
I started when I was 11 but at that time didn't want to actually play.. I was forced to by my mum who wanted me to learn an instrument.. I learned to read at that time and was playing stuff like Greensleeves (I can still play that ).. Then I stopped for a few years and then I started getting into music and started playing again a few years after that..
Now having that early start really helped me learn how to play (even though id forgotten most of what I had learned by then) and I found that I was better that most people around me who were just starting out.. But I think that made me a bit lazy when it came to learning technique.
I am a by ear player which means I can work almost anything out BUT I am like the least technical player ever....
Then it was only about 6 years ago (im over 40 years old now )when I joined the Gibson forum when I started learning all of the technical details about guitar playing from the set up to technique... So ive only been practicing stuff like pentatonic scales for this last period of my playing. And what I have found is that while I am a pretty good rhythm player, my lead sucks balls... and it just doesn't seem to be getting better because im so stuck in the way I have been playing most of my life. I even tried lessons a few years back and hated it.. He started to break my playing down and I just felt like I was getting worse so I gave that up.
So yeah, I really wish I had not been so lazy and had bothered to find out more.. Even though I guess in my defence finding out about all this stuff is easier than ever today cos of the internet.. its all up there and I wish I could have had that much info in my teens.
But hey ho.. it is what it is and I have accepted that I just wont ever be that great as a lead player..
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playing by ear. I can kinda sight read (well, upto the 5th fret area) and can generally pick out rhythms OKish, but really suck at picking out melodies by ear.
And my rhythm playing really sucks, so I wish I had spent more time (and should spend more time in the furture) on my timing etc.
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
I could have learned more - but until I drop, I'll probably continue get slightly better with the passing of time.
Also, when people say they want to get involved in a project, don't be surprised when they actually aren't that interested, Spend your time on people who are actually interested.