where do i go from here

It depends on what your goals are. For example, I want to be a songwriter. So I have been writing guitar parts that challenge me technically and compositionally. Practice your guitar parts and as you write more you will be able to make them tougher and better sounding.

Other than that I'd say just keep learning more and more (complete) songs.

bry

The final goal of everything you learn is to play songs. We don't practice to know chords, scales, theory, modes or anything else. We practice to learn how to play songs (of course, you need to know these things to play songs).

So I am not saying these other things aren't important. But it seems many forget what the REAL goal is.

I would start a notebook. Start learning simple songs from beginning to end. Keep them in your notebook and try to practice all the songs as frequently as possible. As you advance, you will be able to play more complicated songs.

This is simply a repertoire.

I met David Hodge last year. He has a huge notebook with hundreds of songs. And he can play them all. Very impressive. I am sure all these songs are for his students, but they are for him too. :wink:

There are other things, but this is my advice.

bry

i totally back wes on this, keep a notebook, if you decide to learn a song, learn the song,
not parts of 10 different songs, davids lessons are the way to go, plus you learn theory, you may not think you do, but you do, trust me. if you can afford lessons, take them :D

Wes, good post. I can play only 1 song completely and correctly from beginning to end, Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison.

I have gotten so used to automatically sitting down to run through my drills an arpeggio's and strumming patterns and my alphabet of chords that I spend little time learning how to play songs and many nights all I have time to do is practice what I know. Seems everytime I try, I have a mental block for it or every song I try has something I physically cannot do (like spread too many frets at the same time) or have something about it that seems to take forever to get down pat (like SRV's-pride and joy 'correctly') and then there are the songs of course that they say you can play 1,000 songs if you can play 3 chords but they are redundant and not where I want to go with guitar (like smoke on the water, which is so redundant and easy that I cannot do it for lack of attention span).

So I am seeking out my 2nd teacher (1st teacher wanted to teach me modes at $35 an hour) to help me play the blues, where I do want to go I finally realized.

I sure have no shortage of gear for playing! No problem solving GAS problems! Basics have been learned, it is time to play songs! 8)

In complete agreement with Wes and Hummerlein.
You have laid down the groundwork, now it's time to build on it.
Pick a song from your fav genre and get started.

Reading Wes's post, I realized why I am different from all of my friends who play guitar...and i think I realize why I haven't progressed as much.

I don't learn guitar to play songs.

When I picked up the guitar, I loed the sounds it made...I've always been a big fan of music; I love listening to it, and I'd love to be able to make it, but I never really had the ability. Like, I'd always know what I'd want to play, but I didn't know how to play it...I've always got tunes or scompositions in my head, and I naturally know where to go when I play a chord, or a note. However, I'm still learning to like, uh, "speak my mind" with guitar, and I can't do it at all on piano - this is why most of my friends can play complete songs, and I can't. It's because I didn't get into guitar to learn other people's songs - I started playing guitar to make my own music. So the whole scales/chord/theory thing is really what I'm aiming for - I want to get to the point where I can pick up a guitar and play it subconsciously. I want to stream the music out of my mind.

Little revelation, just now.

Anyway, I would agree with the song thing...learn, play as many songs as you can. Don't just practice your chords...practice honing your ear (this may or may not be a huge issue with you; you may either be tone deaf, or you may have perfect pitch, but more likely you're somwhere in-between), practice your rhythm and timing. Build your repertoire; it'll give you an ego boost and boost your progress as well. Songs are your trial by fire - they're your true results.

Great idea, keep a note book and learn songs. I joined a group as a singer before I picked up the guitar. Once I got started on the guitar we learned 3 or 4 songs a week until I had 50 songs in my songbook. Now after 2 years of playing my songbook contains about 75 songs. Now I'm working on some fills and solos. Learning songs is what it's all about. You may be able to rip throught every scale there is but what good is it if you can't play a song?

Start out with easier songs then add harder ones. Go back to all the songs as regularly as possible. You would be amazed how easy they are to pickup even after months of not looking at them. I do this with all my lessons (keep a notebook) I get weekly from my teacher...

hi thanks to all of you for giving me some idea`s
i have got a few song under my belt not perfect
but getting better or so i think, until i listen to the
cd`s unfortunately the Eagles, Floyd, Clapton,SRV
never quite sound the same as me. but i live in hope :wink:
bryan

Going by the stuff you listed, you might want to learn the basic 12 bar blues, and learning the Pentatonic scale...Tie your boots and get ready to improvise.

Notebooks:

I keep 3.

1) Practcice journal. What I've been practicing, how long, my thoughts about it, etc.

Very often you'll come to a point where you don't feel like you are getting better. It's very helpfull to be able to go read how hard you used to think something that was easy was to you only a few weeks or months ago. Other times you'll feel like you aren't making progress, and a quick read will show you that you really aren't making progress -- and since you can see what hasn't worked, you can spend more energy figuring out what does work.

2) theory notebook. A place where I organize what I've learned about how to apply what I'm playing. It's tons of information all crammed into one convinient location. I use a loose-leaf binder so I can insert pages where they need to go. You'll be amazed at how many different turn-arounds for 12 bar blues progressions you can amass :)

3) song notebook. This is where I keep a record of everything I know how to play, and the arrangements I prefere. Don't just keep one version of a song. One of the things that will help you progress is to do your own arrangements.

As for what to learn -- song forms! Learn the 12 and 16 bar blues, and figure out how to play around with the form till you're comfortable comping in any key in them. Learn to play "rhythm changes" (I-iv-ii-V). Those two things alone will open up a whole world of possibilities.

What's 12 bar blues? Is that a way to improvise blues songs?

12 bar blues is a form that alot of blues follow. Its really simple which is part of what makes blues so good.

Blues are traditionally built on 3 chords the I IV V chords. So in the key of E it would be E A B. So one form of the tweleve bar blues is
E | E | E | E| A| A| E | E | B | A| E | B. Where each | | is a bar.

Also, this is reallly good for improvising because you know exactly when and where the rythm is going.

That's the basic form, but it can be modified in many different ways. If you really master the 12 bar blues, you'll have gone a long way to figuring out how to make some really good music.