Guitar tips you wish you knew when you started playing

[sunvalleylaw]

My tip - if you want good looking babes to show up for your gigs - don't play jazz!!!

Man, I can't believe that answer. It can't be true!

[Tig***]

1) Proper and efficient ergonomic techniques in fretting, ie, how to efficiently place and hold hand depending on what is going on, where to place thumb (not up the neck), how to hold the guitar , etc. Some additional feedback from my first instructor, who is basically a folk style acoustic strummer and finger picker, would have been nice.

Pebber Brown has an excellent lesson on this, which is good to refresh our technique with even years into playing:

[sunvalleylaw]

Mark Wein also has some good free vids on this point, including ways to increase your reach, etc.

[msteeln]

Importance of practicing rhythm skills, and subdivisions of beat. I really wish I did not develop, and have to overcome, the habit of starting and stopping my right hand while strumming in order to match time as my sense of time told me. Instead, I it would have been better to learn (and practice) how to move my hand constantly in time, subdivide time and strike the strings in accordance with the subdivisions, with the right hand moving in time the entire time.

Great input, thanx!

What are some forum thots about anchoring the picking hand vs keeping it completely free?

[Zip]

That's right. Running a discussion board is hard grunt work, but I am not your foe. I do want you to sound terrific.

Haha Ummm, the 'front of house engineer'.

[sunvalleylaw]

Great input, thanx!

What are some forum thots about anchoring the picking hand vs keeping it completely free?

I will leave that to the instructors. There are different opinions.

[msteeln]

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

[Radioboy950]

Some good stuff here already.
*Learn the fretboard*
Even if you play by ear, everything you do will make so much more sense to you, and open up your playing like you never imagined.
Jeff Kollman (Glenn Hughes, UFO, Cosmosquad, Bombastic Meatbats) passed along something that really helps. When he was learning, he drew the fretboard on a piece of cardboard and put it in front of him to better visualize different positions for chords and lead runs, etc.

*Don't be afraid to try new things*
Maybe it's learning slide technique, or learning to funk it up with a Wah-Wah...or experimenting with a different music genre or style. Have fun.

[Ch0jin]

Some good stuff here already.
*Learn the fretboard*
Even if you play by ear, everything you do will make so much more sense to you, and open up your playing like you never imagined.
Jeff Kollman (Glenn Hughes, UFO, Cosmosquad, Bombastic Meatbats) passed along something that really helps. When he was learning, he drew the fretboard on a piece of cardboard and put it in front of him to better visualize different positions for chords and....

This. I made one like 20 years ago and I STILL regularly drop it on the floor or on my amp when I'm practising just to remind myself where all the notes are.

[sunvalleylaw]

Some good stuff here already.
*Learn the fretboard*

That is the other thing I have worked on. I am not sure I needed that straight off, but it is sure a good pursuit now. Learning pentatonic patterns, learning minor and major patterns, and from there, learning the chord tones and triads to focus on in all of the above.

msteeln, I love that Ira Glass quote!

[Monkus]

excellent thoughts here guys...here's what I wish i'd known...

1. The act of creating doesn't guarantee awesome.
2. Use forearm strength rather than thumb strength to fret chords.
3. Get to know overplaying, then don't do it.
4. Everyone needs a 'talent' pedal.
5. Have fun, always.

That Ira Glass quote is boss...

[Spudman***]

Put space between the notes.

[R_of_G]

"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." - Miles Davis

[Tig***]

Put your feelings, your heart, and your soul into it. When you play something... anything... it should always sound like you. Otherwise, you may sound as if a cardboard cutout is playing instead of you.

Regardless what we might think of Slash, here is a performance without much feeling or soul. It isn't bad, just lifeless:

[Tig***]

"Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself." - Miles Davis

Now there's a truth that really hits the target!

[R_of_G]

Now there's a truth that really hits the target!

I take it to mean pretty much the same thing as your previous post. Whatever you do, try to do it authentically. It's great to learn how to play songs the way they're recorded to learn different techniques, but it's that much more fun when you have enough skill to play it your way. Deconstruction and reconstruction is something I learned a lot of from Miles and his cadre of musicians.

[omegadot]

One I've recently thought of is that I always paused when going up or down a scale when I hit the "end". This definitely impacted my progression and playing in a negative way. Now that I smoothly go up and down my fingers get a much better workout.

[bhatnagar.ashish001]

oh great... thread... i love to plya guitar.. but i am not expert in playing guitar... any one here who is expert in guitar from india??? because i want nods of a india song... ??













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[Glacies]

I have been thinking long and hard about this. I have 2:

1. Learn to play what you like - I started with lessons and played music I wasn't interested in. 2 months in when I couldn't play anything that sounded like music, I quit and didn't pick up guitar for almost 2 years until...

2. This one might be debateable and I'm wondering if anybody will roll their eyes about this. Learn Powerchords first! - I wish I learned power chords right off the bat. They sound awesome, you can make so many songs off of 2 string power chords, they teach you all of the E and A string roots, they set you up for soloing in the right key, and the E shape barre chords fall in right easily because you're almost already there...

I had so much fun with powerchords when I first learned them, I couldn't put the guitar down. I was making up riffs, trying to figure out classic riffs by ear... It really opened up the world of guitar for me. To this day, if I'm having trouble with a chord progression, I will sometimes work it out in power chords if I can.