Learning Riffs, how long?

roberty

tone1 said:

I only know how to play Riffs….

Riffs out for the lads weyyy

hollywoodrox

spev11 said:

Given how haphazard my day to day life is my guitar practice is weirdly organised, I have structures for chords, progressions, scale learning, songs (And singing badly) technique learning etc, that's roughly an hour and a half or so, then I have a noodle and a mess around with the looper/drum machine or garage band. I'm quite determined to learn to play to the best of my ability, I'm 53 now and started in earnest 3 years ago, its slow going at times but I'm getting there.
 I've just started to organise a couple of mates into a rough jam session as well.

If you’re 53 now you’ve got 7 years til your 60 , which these days is the new 40
nikki Sixx is 64 & still playing  then look at the stones etc . 

With 2 to 4 years of focused practice you could probably be playing in a band . 

Hope this gives you a positive attitude & spurs you on. 

Best regards Paul 

hollywoodrox

I sometimes think the Riffs & Rhythm is a lot harder than the soloing ( obviously discounting superhuman stuff like vai,satriani , Yngwie etc 

LastMantra

How long is a piece of string? 


I think it also depends a bit on what you want to achieve from playing guitar. 
If it's just for fun/hobby then getting stressed about it is kind of defeating the purpose. 

spev11

Luckily for me its the one thing that doesn't stress me, it frustrates me sometimes but not in a stressful way (if that makes sense). As i'm learning using online resources I was intrigued by others experience really. 
And oddly (in reference to the pinky weakness) I did a lot of exercises early on to strengthen the pinky independence  and now I almost use the bugger too much 

  Whether I'll ever end up in a band I have no idea , I'd like to get as far as being able to get some mates together for a bit of practice/jam kind of thing. 

Yorkie

I'm a slow learner. Everything I do takes ages. I can be very determined, though. 

I too used to get frustrated when trying to learn riffs. Probably nothing to do with what is happening to you, but it turns out my problem was trying to learn with 'free guitar lessons' on YouTube. I got fixated with sounding like this and that, skipping the basics. I could hit all the notes in a difficult riff, but it would still sound like shit.

One day, I played one of these difficult riffs for its creator and he said 'oh wow, you must be hearing a different drummer'. As a matter of fact, I do hear a different drummer, in general (sensory processing disorder, part of my autistic curse/super power). But it doesn't mean I can't do better. After that, I spent a year doing things like clapping to a metronome and playing slow. Back to basics, or in my case, forget everything and start again. I am now developing my own vocabulary, my own technique and my own sound. Slowly, but I am not sure I can/want to do it any other way.

Jon

spev11

I avoid the free on YouTube ones to be honest, I use JustinGuitar and the Fender app for some structure (the fender lessons are a bit odd in places but not bad whilst Justin covers a huge amount of stuff) plus some paid for Theory and Ear training (not great at the ear thing as I have tinitus and some hearing loss, can barely hear anything around 2.5k to 5k but i'm battling on with that, and recent hearing aids are helping). I watch a lot of youtubers reviewing stuff and watch their playing , some are better than others. I found deciding on a particular style helps (metal and punk mostly with a dose of White Stripes) i'll circle back to other styles in the future.

RelayDuzzy

My own experience of this is just to do pure simple repetition, slowly and regularly, and approach it like a form of meditation.
In this age of instant gratification, I think you have to just set aside all expectations of how long it will take, and just focus on the notes and techniques, and just work on it repetitively until you are reasonably satisfied.

As an example, I learnt the intro to Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing several years ago.  If memory serves me right, I think it took me 4 to 6 weeks to learn, bar by bar. Take 1 (or 2) bar at a time per night, practice continuously for about an hour.  So practice the bar until i get it right, then join it with the bar from the night(s) before.  Basically it took me over a month to play something that lasts less than 30 seconds.

When I could finally string it all together, and play it at a pace good enough for me (which is nowhere at the same speed or character that Hendrix plays it with) then I moved on.  But at least I felt a sense of satisfaction and achievement.
From time to time, I just test myself by trying to replay it on my own, to make sure I don't forget it, and also to then revisit and analyse what's going on.  It's amazing when I hear the original compared to my version (nowhere near the same), but you then start to hear all the nuances and dynamics that Hendrix puts in, and opens up a whole new dimension of appreciation of his genius, and hopefully understand and improve on your own playing.

GuyBoden

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

stickyfiddle

GuyBoden said:

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

Riffs are the main motifs that happen usually in the intro of a song and sometimes/often throughout it as well. 

Licks are just phrases, often within solos. "Licks" is a stupid word and I don't think I've ever used it outside of this post. 

GuyBoden

stickyfiddle said:

GuyBoden said:

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

Riffs are the main motifs that happen usually in the intro of a song and sometimes/often throughout it as well. 

Licks are just phrases, often within solos. "Licks" is a stupid word and I don't think I've ever used it outside of this post. 

But. I play Jazz.

Yorkie

stickyfiddle said:

GuyBoden said:

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

Riffs are the main motifs that happen usually in the intro of a song and sometimes/often throughout it as well. 

That’s a turnaround in my language  

digitalkettle

Yorkie said:

stickyfiddle said:

GuyBoden said:

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

Riffs are the main motifs that happen usually in the intro of a song and sometimes/often throughout it as well. 

That’s a turnaround in my language  

I get confused about what is a Turnaround and what is a Reacharound. They sound the same. 

guitarjack66

digitalkettle said:

Yorkie said:

stickyfiddle said:

GuyBoden said:

I get confused about what is a Riff and what is a Lick. They sound the same.

Riffs are the main motifs that happen usually in the intro of a song and sometimes/often throughout it as well. 

That’s a turnaround in my language  

I get confused about what is a Turnaround and what is a Reacharound. They sound the same. 

One is hard,the other is...hang on...

Tp200023

digitalkettle said:

Don't want to sound patronising but make sure you understand what you are playing...something deeper than a sequence of numbers in tab...then it has more chance of getting ingrained, e.g. key, underlying chords, time sig, tempo, etc.

+1 for this

I had a similar issue to the OP and went and (finally!) got some lessons. They helped embed the concept of pentatonic scales, arpeggios etc and now I find riff learning significantly easier as I can recognise shapes and patterns quicker.

Clearly my own lack of talent is the issue now - it turns out it's more frustrating knowing what you're supposed to play (but can't!) rather than not being able to learn it in the first place!