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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
1. Getting a new wife.
Wife #1 was not very guitar-friendly. Or fun-friendly. Or me-friendly (apart from the money, naturally) after a while. Did the trade-in deal (which cost me plenty but worth every penny), and wife #2 is far more guitar/fun/me friendly. And that's 12 years later ...
2. Getting something I could use to play-along to stuff with.
Currently that's an iRig device into my iPad, some comfortable headphones and a variety of apps. So, I can pick up a guitar and play for my amusement, or listen/play stuff to learn, all without annoying the rest of the room/house/street. Seems to work for all.
3. Guitar Pro.
After a long time of not playing (see point #1), I found it hard to listen to something and work it out sufficiently well to learn it. Luckily, the Internet happened during my exile period, and apps like Guitar Pro now make it so easy to get the basics.
4. Playing with others.
As others here have said, there's no substitute for playing with a drummist and bassist. We only play for our own amusement (so far), but it's far more fun than playing along to backing tracks or whatever ...
Sorry, not quite "the one thing"!
It was a shock the first time because it was immediately obvious that I wasn't as good as I'd foolishly imagined I was but having got over that it's been an enormous benefit.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Also, using a decent sounding amp and distortion helped me a lot. Especially with muting unplayed strings, and pick hand control (ie not hitting unplayed strings).
Also I like to practice things with stupid amounts of gain (Boss Mega Distortion) once I've got my fingers around what I'm trying to learn. This gives (almost, not exactly) a "live" situation of having to control things, Ie when volume goes up, gain goes down, so when volume goes down (Ie at home) the gain goes up for a more "live situation" setting (ok badly explained). Keeping things sounding cleanly played with that amount of distortion is hard, and does help (at least helps me)with controlling the guitar/amp.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
:-\"
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
modest as ever Bertie......... ;-)
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
I was definately a more rounded player when I was gigging (knowing how to play some bloody songs for one) so would definately agree with this.
Other than that, in the last three years; going up a string gauge, lowering the gain, rasing the action a little, has given me a far greater appreciation of use of dynamics and touch than I ever gave credit for.
@Blueingreen, when I was taking lessons I was surprised at how low the RGT grade 8 standard was. Admittedly this was a few years ago, but it wasn't anything passed the 5th fret, and only seemed to be either C major or G major. It might have just been what was put in front of me, but that was what it looked like to me.
I wish I'd learned this skill to a higher level than I have.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
An extra 45 mins of playing per day and no fannying about with pedals etc, just pure practice.
I've improved more in the past 4 years than I did in the previous 20.
Gigging is good but in a different way