What's Your Skill Level

[warren0728]

Yep, would love to find a way to dedicate serious time to playing guitar and being involved in music - probably one of my few regrets in life - I wish I would have started my pursuit at a young age.

i started playing in middle school but never took it seriously...played a little in high school then when i finally decided to take it up again (after several years of marriage...now divorced)...a few years ago i had a couple of kids and of course....put the music aside....now my 11 year old son is interested in playing but i don't know enough to teach him properly....wish i would have stuck with it during the early years! Maybe we can learn together!

ww

[snarph]

If no one is listening I'm great specially if the don't know what they are listening to I can fake it really well

[marnold***]

I'm the best crappy guitarist I know in my house that I'm aware of.

[ted s]

You too Marnold ?!

[Spudman***]

....i'm ready to move somewhere out in the middle of nowhere (spud, there must be some land near you you) and living OFF the grid and growing my own food!!

the rat race can not be won!

ww

Might be a good idea to get here soon before the rush. I can also help you with your playing and you can teach me how to mix drinks.

[sunvalleylaw]

Maybe the middle of the upper 1%.:

Hmm, commented on his, but no thoughts on yours? Nah, can't let you get away with that. Come on, out with it!

I am beginner plus. Been playing regularly a year and 5 months, and electric not quite a year. I can play along on simple strummed rhythms on simple rock oriented songs, keeping decent time and anticipating chord changes pretty well, but would be considered sloppy by anyone more professional than the local guys in a garage. I know the pentatonic scale and its mirror decently, and the blues scale, and can noodle out a solo, though again it is sloppy. I am adding chords as we speak beyond the normal open shapes, can barre ok with simple barre shapes (E shape, A minor shape), and have an ok ear, and can sound out simple melodies on a fret board. learning some about theory, but it seems harder to me on a fretboard than on a piano keyboard where the it is all laid out in linear fashion in black and white. Probably just a mental shift needed there.

I also don't get enough quality practice time, but am working on that. I also am determined, and also can tend to expect a lot sooner rather than later. But I am having a lot of fun!

[warren0728]

Might be a good idea to get here soon before the rush. I can also help you with your playing and you can teach me how to mix drinks.

my job would be easier...get a good single malt scotch...pour how much you want and don't do anything to it but sip it!!

ww

[t_ross33]

I've been playing since I was 11 or 12, so that makes it... aaahhhhrgh! almost 30 freakin' years! How can someone who's been playing for 30 freakin' years still suck so bad!

I consider myself beginner to entry-level intermediate. Completely self taught, so I really have no idea why I do what I do, I just noodle until I find something that sounds somewhat "right". I know all the major and minor open chord shapes and can barre major and minor chords up and down the neck. I can hold my own as a rhythm player I think, on electric or acoustic (comes from my bass-player roots I guess). I'd be pretty comfortable sitting in and jammin' in just about any situation.

I can wheedle out a few riffs, but not much that you'd call a "lead" or a "solo". The first song I taught myself was "Wildwood Flower", followed by "Tennessee Flat Top Box". Can read some tab, but can only follow along if I slow the song down to about 1/4 speed or slower Don't really know any scales. Theory - yeah, right

One song that we do, and I think we do it quite well, is Jerry Doucette's "Mamma Let Him Play". A cousin taught me a couple of riffs from this song years ago. We were foolin' around at a practice a few months ago and started jammin' it and the song just came back and flowed from my fingers ude: Sorta Anyway, it rocks and the audience usually can't tell if I'm running it through the blender or not.

BUT...

I'm taking my first lesson Saturday! Should be interesting. Wish me luck :

Trev

[jasongins]

I'm 34, I have been playing for just under a year, and have been taking bi-weekly lessons for about nine months. I would classify myself as beginner. I can play all five minor pentatonic patterns and am able to connect them vertically up and down the neck to some degree, though I am having problems transitioning from playing scales into something that sounds like a solo and not just a series of notes. On one of the patterns, I can add the flat 5 (blues), maj 6 (dorian), maj 3, and 9th. I can also play a major scale (ionian). I am also working on being able to change key at a particular location on the neck by changing the pattern rather than moving up or down the neck to a different location. Doing ok with chords - plenty of open chords, barre cords (major, minor, seventh , minor seventh), some 9th chords, I even know A13. I am currently working on triads on the G B and E strings, four part chord voicings (G7, C7, and D7 using strings 2 3 4 and 6 in several positions up and down the neck). I can play some arpeggios as well. I can see that my teacher wants me to understand the instrument rather than just learn to play songs, so I have been focusing on doing what he tells me. I am hopeful that learning songs will come easier as my understanding of the instrument increases. As for songs, I can play White Room, but I am lousy and unoriginal when it comes to the solo part. I can muddle my way through Purple Haze, but it gets too crazy at the end. My rhythm playing and right hand technique need a lot of work, but it isn't something my teacher and I have really focused on just yet. In addition to taking lessons, I grab bits and pieces from Robert's videos, from other videos on YouTube, and from the online lessons from my Line6 Toneport GX.

I am hoping to achieve a level where I could sit in with the band at a wedding, or play ridiculous 80's covers with a band at a bar, party, or reunion.

[Adrian30]

Well here’s where I am:

Completely self-taught, and know very little theory. Just like T_ross, I can play major, minor and barre chords, but that’s not what I usually like to do. I like to solo / improvise along various tunes and I do it exclusively by ear. By “various tunes” I mean from every guitarists favorite (Hendrix, SRV etc) to traditional music from Balkans (South-Eastern Europe), often playing along, or trying to imitate violin and clarinet pieces. I guess it would be appropriate to say that I am more attracted to the melodic aspect rather than rhythmic.

For the last 6 years, I played only electric guitars (started out on an Ibanez Jumpstart pack in 2001), in my teen years I “messed around” with an acoustic. Hanging around here (The Fret) has taught me a lot. Like Henderson’s phrasing lesson, and I’m not talking about Ed having sex with his girlfriend.

Though I still consider myself a beginner, often somewhat sloppy in playing, I can jam along, probably more contributing with single-line melodic passages than actually leading.
I don’t know does this make any sense…

All in all, I still suck, and I need to practice much more, just like this guy.

[R_of_G]

I'd label myself an "intermediate" player. I have been playing for 7.5 years, electric for 5. I can read tablature but cannot read or write musical notation. The first few years I was strictly rhythm, mostly 12 bar blues and simple 2 or 3 chord songs [a lot of Dylan, Neil Young, CCR, etc] with friends, one of whom is a great player who would solo over what we were playing. Eventually, I started to be able to solo myself. Our friend who did most of the soloing moved to California a few years ago, so now it is just my friend Steve and myself. He plays rhythm and I do the soloing.

For the past year or so, when we play together we haven't really been concentrating on playing "songs" as we used to, but have focused more on developing our improv skills. Our playing now is more along the lines of "pick a key and a style and go" [for example, a slow funk groove in A, or a rambling blues in E, etc]. It really helps develop the ability to listen to what someone else is playing and figuring out your place in the whole piece. I am trying to develop into the kind of player who can be thrown into any improv situation and come up with something relevant to play.

When I practice alone I do often still play actual songs, usually as a way to warm up my hands for an hour or so before I start working on my own stuff. some of the songs I think I play particularly well [ie. chords, riffs, solos and all] are "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits, "She Said, She Said" by the Beatles, "Train in Vain" by the Clash, and the one that used to be my signature tune, "Having an Average Weekend" [aka Theme to The Kids in the Hall] by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. I know a ton of other songs [incl most of the Ramones' catalog], but these are the ones I seem to drift back to time and time again.

As far as development of original material, I have yet to write a complete piece, but I have fleshed out a handful of ideas [chord progressions, melodies, etc] that I would like to get around to completing over the next year. ude:

[Spudman***]

I like to think that I'm skilled enough to play what I play with conviction and feel, but I'm not skilled enough to play what other players with more knowledge of theory than I have can play. I don't let that bother me.

[just strum]

By reading the posts in the other sections I would have thought the skill level to be much higher. Either I misjudged you guys or you are two hard on determining your ability, I'm leaning toward the later.

Anyway, it's somewhat comforting to know I am not alone when it comes to my skill level, but I hope there are enough experienced people around to learn from.

Overall, some interesting responses.

[aeolian]

I played guitar for 30 of the last 40 years, so you would think I should be better.

I can read music if I do it slowly. I know what chords belong to which key and I can generally find them on the fretboard. I can emulate many songs if I set my mind to it (except for shredding). I am reasonably proficient at figuring out chord progressions to songs armed with the above knowledge. I don't hardly get any time to play; about once or twice a week for a total of a couple of hours is it, so my playing remains mediocre. Here a sample of me playing over a backing track posted here some time ago, and you be the judge:

http://home.comcast.net/~kitn13/music/improv.mp3

I do make up music from scratch. I can give examples of that but I should leave that for another day.

[ted s]

Either I misjudged you guys or you are two hard on determining your ability, I'm leaning toward the later.

Yes, there are some ringers here that are a tad modest.

[Ro3b]

I started out playing classical guitar, then drifted into several rock/punk/garage bands before getting into Irish music. I just started playing electric again about a year and a half ago. So I've got a really good knowledge of music theory, and I'm an excellent comper, but my lead chops are kind of down there in Ace Frehley land. Not that that's a bad thing -- a one note guitar solo can really rock if it's a really good note -- but I'd love to get back to the level I was at in my 20s.

[duhvoodooman***]

By reading the posts in the other sections I would have thought the skill level to be much higher. Either I misjudged you guys or you are two hard on determining your ability, I'm leaning toward the later.

Yeah, I think you're right. We have some pretty good players here, but nobody seems to want to admit to it. We're pretty leery of "totem-polling" here at TheFret, I think.

If you've been to Robert's website, you know of his very considerable skills! But you might get a better idea of what some of the other guys can do by poking around in the Member Clips forum and listening to some of the posted clip links there. Listen & judge for yourself.

[R_of_G]

If you've been to Robert's website, you know of his very considerable skills!

And since Robert labeled himself an "intermediate" I certainly wasn't rating my skills higher than that. You're VERY modest Robert.

[SuperSwede]

I can play "twinkle twinkle little star" in pretty much any key!