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Going to start again..

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(@chlozo)
Estimable Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 94
Topic starter  

I haven't practiced my guitar for months, I seem to get bored after about 10 minutes, as I'm a very impatient person it doesn't help that I can't do something :P I've got the G chord mastered! So whoop hehe.

I was watching The Rise and Rise Of Green Day last night on MTV2, and I don't know why, but it's just inspired me and made me want to really make a go of playing my guitar. Seeing how they all started off. Yes, Billie-Joe was younger than me when he started, but I just really want to do well with it all now. Yes, it will take me a while to master everything, my patience will be tested, thats life! I'm a not very optimistic person, but since seeing that I've been really optimistic. This is sounding a bit werid I bet hehe. I can see myself next Christmas, playing an Xmas tune to family on my guitar. When I can do it, they will be gobsmacked, none of them think that I will actually persue it, I'm gonna prove them wrong and I can't wait. ;D 365 days to kick arse! :D

Now all I've got to do is learn chords without muting strings, change chords quickly, learn to stand up and sing at the same time.. Oh the joys of it all, but I know it will be very rewarding in the end.

Anyone got any tips for anything?

Just thought I'd share it all with you, god knows why! hehe.

Happy Christmas All xxx <3


Billie-Joe Armstrong is HOT! He's my future husband. Ha ;)


   
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(@rparker)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 5480
 

Find a way to make practice fun. As only an example, for me it was finding some easy songs to learn.

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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(@alangreen)
Member
Joined: 22 years ago
Posts: 5342
 

You have to play something you like, otherwise it's not enjoyable.

So, pick your three favourite somgs and go for it

Best,

A :-)

"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
Wedding music and guitar lessons in Essex. Listen at: http://www.rollmopmusic.co.uk


   
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(@mikey)
Reputable Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 329
 

You're not the first person to pick it up, put it down, and then pick it up again.

Probably a good number of us here have done it. Most of those for a good time longer than a few months. There are those that find playing a lot easier than others. I find it parts of it very difficult. But I also find that you improve with practice. Quickly or slowly you improve.

You have to be passionate about it. Dedicate yourself to it. Ten minutes a day will make you progess at rate of someone that practices only 10 minutes a day. I don't mean shut yourself in and close of the rest of your world, practicing 12 hours a day. But be realistic, you will only get out what you personally put in.

Set yourself short term goals. You mention quite a few things. Playing clean chords, changing quickly, playing standing, playing and singing. That's a lot on one plate. I suggest you work on the clean chords and faster changes first.

Best of luck. And take it from someone who took too much time off that it is definately worth sticking with. Sure wish I had.

Michael

Playing an instrument is good for your soul


   
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(@dagwood)
Noble Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 1024
 

For me I keep telling myself this:

I'm trying to be an "ARTIST" here. Music is ART. It takes a LONG, very Long time to "Master" anything within any of the arts.

Take drawing..... Pen and ink for example. I'm sure you have something, somewhere that you draw all the time? Something you scribble when on the phone or on a Napkin, or stuck in Church bored to death, something someplace? I know I did.. I used to draw waves with a Surfer in the tube or it'd be a certain flower.

Most of us start this as young children, coloring in Books, we often times put it down, but sometimes there's that one or two things we draw and draw and draw. I remember being in High School and a friend commented on how good one of my wave drawings had been. Thinking back.. I had drawn those for 5 or 6 years when that comment was made.

I mastered that wave part with the spray and the foam and shadow, but it wasn't a completed picture. I needed to add a sky maybe with a cloud or two, or a bird flying by, or draw a part of a palm tree in the foreground, or part of a shoreline behind the wave in the distance or whatever I felt the Picture needed to be more complete.

Its like Music. I've been playing guitar for almost 18 months now. I've learned many pieces of many Songs but haven't yet mastered just one Song. (too boring just one?) Take AC/DC's Back in Black. I can play the part right up to the first solo almost perfectly against the CD. But that damn solo.. <sigh> its HARD Man!! But I don't stop playing it.

Or Wish You Were Here. LOVE THAT SONG! I started with the intro to it. (one Piece of the picture) Then built on it. And I still build on it, where today when I play it around my Non Music Friends... its really just MY VERSION of the song. Its still the same song but its MINE and most of them don't know the difference, they don't hear the subtle nuance of what the "REAL" version of it is compared to mine. That's ALL OK. (to me it is).

My Point is.... Take 10 kids, ask them to draw, sketch or paint a Flower.. a DAISY for example. You'll get 10 different versions of the same flower. Are any of them wrong? No, they're all Daisy's eh? The kid(s) with the "Better" looking daisy's have probably drawn them many, many times before, they're practiced at it.

Remember, the songs we try to emulate, copy, sound like or whatever; ask yourself, How many times have you played it? Then ask yourself, how many times has the Artist played it when it was recorded? Thousands of times I bet. Then more and more when they tour and perform.

And yes I've read as I'm sure you have in the Guitar Mags about the guys that "Compose" in the studio and that punches a hole in my statement, but they're MASTERS at their craft. I'm also sure most of those Riffs have been ratteling around in their arsenal for a long time waiting to come out for the right song.

So what're we to do? Keep Practicing, Keep Getting Better, Keep adding to your skills, Dont' GIVE UP!!! Rather Keep having FUN!! :)

Darren

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. - Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)


   
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(@Anonymous)
New Member
Joined: 1 second ago
Posts: 0
 

Chlozo,

read my threads and you'll see even those of us much older than you are going through the same thing. I tried 15 years ago and couldn't do it. I waited 15 years to start again. You only waited a few months. Believe me I understand EXACTLY how you feel. However you seem MUCH more mature than I am :oops: 8) so I am sure you will find a way to succeed much sooner than I will!!


   
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(@deanobeano)
Reputable Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 127
 

It takes a long time on guitar to learn anything on guitar. But one day you will be playing something and realise that can do something you couldn't do that's just they way it is. My advice is if watching live preformances inspires you the get some live dvd's or go to gigs.


   
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