What has had the biggest positive impact on your playing?

ChristophEar

What is the one thing which has improved your playing the most?

Could be a book, a certain technique, a method of practising, a moment of insight...

Ideally something the rest of us can steal benefit from!

ourmaninthenorth

Perseverance - in practise, and even more so in listening.  

monquixote

Playing with other people. 

Having to go to rehearsal or a gig really focuses the mind that you better know it or you are going to look silly and you learn so much from other people. 

Lexie1

For me, it was the double advent of getting to grips with garageband and getting the Yamaha THR10. I can honestly say that I am playing more now than in years.

wordy

I actually got back into the guitar while taking some singing lessons a while ago, and doing the two things parallel kind of meant that they fed into each other and kept me going during those first couple of years, when you can easily give it away. These days I no longer really sing, but I'm still playing the guitar, with no plans to stop.

OilCityPickups

Gigging ... I wanted to entertain people ... so I soon sussed that the only way to do that was to play okay. Never been comfortable playing with myself ... er ...

thumpingrug

monquixote said:

Playing with other people. 

Having to go to rehearsal or a gig really focuses the mind that you better know it or you are going to look silly and you learn so much from other people. 

This, in spades.

stonevibe

Gigging.

not_the_dj

Certainly playing with other people. I had lessons when I first started (from prog rock legend Kerry Minear of Gentle Giant fame). That got me started, but playing with others really makes you up your game

octatonic

Stubbornness.

DulcetJones

I came across an unusual warm up in a book years ago(can't recall, may have been called "The Guitarists Hands").  Take two full size pages of a newspaper and lay them out flat on the floor in front of you.  Pick each one up in each hand by grabbing them in the center, then using only the fingers and thumb of each hand individually pull each piece into a ball as small as you can make it without using the other hand.  I did this once everyday for a couple of years and it strengthened both hands.  I was in the throes of getting my fingerstyle technique down and my right hand was weak until I started doing this.  

JookyChap

I think the first leap forward was buying a little Seiko tuner from Argos.

The second was  starting a band then writing songs, doing some gigs and recording. Each of those made me concentrate harder and practice more.

WezV

JookyChap said:

I think the first leap forward was buying a little Seiko tuner from Argos.

sounds daft doesn't it, but i would say the same.

I was practising without a proper tuner for the first few months as I was told pitchpipes would be better in the long run.   I was incredibly shit at it, then i got a tuner and realised some of the stuff i had been learning started to sound pretty good once it was actually in tune.   once i got used to playing an in tune guitar i quickly learned how to tune it by ear

ChristophEar

Using a digital tuner for pitch ear training is awesome. Nice tutorial here.

bigjon

Bought Guitar Techniques magazine in 1994 and practiced everything in it, using a metronome on its lowest speed setting then moving it one notch faster each day for two months. One month in, started over with the next issue. . .

RedRabbit

Definitely playing with others. 

I played for myself for the first 15 or so years and my timing was awful.  I've been playing with a drummer, bass player and another guitarist regularly for a couple of years now and I'd say my rhythm playing is pretty tight now.

Still can do a solo worth a damn but I'm working on it.

snakemanStoo

The realisation that techniques that I was doing were similar to what some of my heroes were doing.

After that, doing RGT grades cleaned up a lot of my laziness.

spacecadet

Girls.

Grunfeld

Gigging.  Because getting paid for meant it had to be a lot better.

Not that I'm "good" cos I'm not, but I figure I must be "good enough" to other people to seem like I can play -- if that makes sense.

stickyfiddle

Definitely gigging and being in a band and having proper rehearsals where everyone concentrates on the little things that move a band from "good" to "super tight and really fucking great"- matching diction and timing on harmonies, hitting cues, slow-downs, etc all at once every time. That sort of thing.

But also I'd say getting the Jamup app on my phone. It's a really good modeller full stop, plus it does tempo- and pitch-change and section-looping on mp3s that are already on my phone, which makes it super-powerful for learning new stuff. It's been a genuine game-changer in terms of *how* I practise.

mike_l

Getting lessons I was bumbling through, with no real direction.

 

Now I bumble through, with no real direction, but have a vague idea of what I'm doing.

 

Also having backing tracks to play along with helps. And the "Lick Library" series of DVD's, for learning specific parts. Because of the LL DVD's, I managed (just, with a lot of help from BigJon and Viz) to get through All Along the watchtower, in front of people.

Yes, @Bigjon, and @Viz, All Along was the first time I'd been brave/stupid enough to try that (and Hey Joe) in front of an audience......