I've noticed that most times I tend to play the songs I know exactly the same way. Once I know it I get a lot of pleasure just strumming away, and by extension I don't tend to look at the finer details. I know I improve all the time but mainly when I take on new material, or actually sit down and try and bring some dynamics into a song I can play.
However when I'm in the zone I tend to play old progressions with new rythmns, completely new styles, or I use the progression and go arpeggiating around the chords. I'll really lose track of time and be playing a lot more from the heart too, but then I'll try and throw in a solo around what I've been playing and often kill it dead lol.
What I thought I'd ask is if anyone else has a similar routine, and whether you've also just played around on the guitar neck with progressions and such and really got into a groove. I often look up at my girlfriend and expect her to say "WoW!" when I've finished some improv or other simply because the whole thing worked, but most the time she's not listening and wouldn't know if I was improv'ing or not lol.
I think I've learned a lot more about the barre chords up and down the neck, a lot of the open chords I can play in 3 different places using the A and E shaped barres, sometimes 4 using a D shape triad.
Am I actually learning by playing this way? It feels very natural and like I'm in the groove when I do it, much more so than the tension from playing from memory.
kroikey,
wow dude I had just made a post yesterday about the exact same feeling. I don't routinely just go off and work on different chrod progressions but I do notice when I improv a solo (or try to) my fingers seem much more relaxed and free, but when i play the note for note solo's I tend to tense up always thinking about the next note and trying to make sure I play it right with the right dynamics etc.
No the key for me is to be able to rip through the note for note solo's with no tension. As for the improved solo's there is no tension there but musically they are usually crap. So it's basically two different things that I need to work.
First is to be comfortable with the memorized solo's and I think that comes down to really having them ingrained in my fingers.
Secondly would be to try and get to the point wher my improved solo's are musically interesting.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
I read your post but I don't think I conveyed myself accurately enough. I guess I'm just practising rhythm techniques and different arpeggios, although it feels a lot more in the groove and free flowing. It comes with no effort for a short time when I pick-up the guitar and realise I'm good for the night :)
Just picking a simple bassline before strumming with my hand and backpicking etc. All while trying to take a simple song in another direction for a kind of interlude. I'll just guess at the direction to make it different, maybe make it a minor key or something. It goes wrong often when I deviate the progressions, and almost certainly when I go try to go off on a 'solo', but it still feels like some moves, intervals and harmonies I guess, are missing out the 'thinking' part and coming straight out. :D Its cool and pushes me on.
I've started to be able to start picking a tune by ear on one string, skip a string and play a note then back over to the middle string. Thats a Holy Grail for me for sure, and probably most guitar players. If you can sing it then you can play it in one shot. A moment of clarity or naturalness I guess. I'm wondering if just playing an improv over a progression is allowing me to grow more naturally, or if its the practice and theory slowly sinking in, and others tales of similar growth.
I've been playing 2 years in march for avg 1hr a night, but often this is 3hrs then skip two or three days.
It comes with no effort for a short time when I pick-up the guitar and realise I'm good for the night :)
Heh. Yes. "Liquid lessons." Not necessarily a bad thing IMO. The key I think is to stay grounded enough to remember what you're doing, and why, and how, so you can build on it next morning.
Just picking a simple bassline before strumming with my hand and backpicking etc. All while trying to take a simple song in another direction for a kind of interlude. I'll just guess at the direction to make it different, maybe make it a minor key or something.
I will endorse this practise heartily, if no one else will. (Playing "Under the Boardwalk" in a minor key made my girlfriend say "Wow." She's my wife now.) While it may not do anything specific for your guitar chops, it's great musical exercise. (My own goal always has been to become a complete musician, not specifically a badass instrumentalist. This shows in my playing, of course, on any of the several instruments I play -- but it can be a worthwhile goal in itself. Can you be a complete musician and a badass instrumentalist? Of course. It takes more work, more than I've been able to bring to the challenge.)
By all means, try simple songs in different keys. Change tuning -- try the thing in drop-D, or in DADGAD. Play with your capo ( :mrgreen: ). Take the tune to the fifth and sixth strings only. Mess with it! And while your musical mind is expanding, your fingers will get to know the fretboard -- slowly, but effortlessly.
I've started to be able to start picking a tune by ear on one string, skip a string and play a note then back over to the middle string. Thats a Holy Grail for me for sure, and probably most guitar players.
Superb ear-training, and great for overall neck-knowledge. Try skipping more than one string. Try naming the notes as you play them.
I'm wondering if just playing an improv over a progression is allowing me to grow more naturally, or if its the practice and theory slowly sinking in, and others tales of similar growth.
There are lots of guitar teachers on these boards, and lots of trained guitarists. I'm self-taught, determinedly and obstinately so. Much of my learning has come from playing along with the radio -- improvising, just feeling my way along -- or "dropping the needle" on guitar parts that interested me. You can really learn a lot that way, in the immortal words of Neil Young. You get out of any study regimen exactly what you put into it. Formal training will get you there. Individual study will get you there. A mix of the two is probably ideal, if you have the time and energy and money to take both paths to the maximum.
It's a platitude, but I have to repeat the advice of Ted Nugent: "Practice until you get a guitar welt on your chest." If you miss a day, no problem. Keep coming at it, regardless of which path/s you choose, and you will find your own way.
I hope that's helpful somehow. You sound like the kind of person I'd like to be in a practice room with. Go for it, stay loose, and keep in touch.
<C
[EDITED to fix some bad coding. <C]
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
Crow,
Interesting post and it makes a lot of snese. I guess I didn't really understand what Kroikey meant the first time around but I see what he is talking about now.
I have done this at times but to me it always seemed that it was to vague and that I was wasting my time not working on a specific song or technique rather than just letting it flow and just going with it and I think in some ways it has limited my growth.
But you made an interesting comment about being a total musician vs a badass instrumentalist. I guess with me starting at a late age (45) I really never thought I'd be a "real" musician but always thought with enough work I could be a pretty decent player.
I still don't think I will or need to be a complete musician (not that I wouldn't like to be) I just don't have the time to practice all the necessary elements.
But my goal this year is to improve my ability to just solo on the fly etc.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Thanks for the advice Crow. I've not picked up the guitar since I posted this as I had to bury a close friend, but I've still been mulling things over and wanting to continue with some of the songs I'm learning. I'd like play some beautiful instrumental piece in memory of my friend, but unfortunately I don't feel I have enough theory to do this in the way I want. I'm sure I'll get there though!
My goal for this year is to increase my repetoire with some difficult pieces, increase my strumming ability and dynamics, and keep hammering away at the playing and singing.
I find a LOT of satisfaction in playing Jack Johnson tunes as they're as bare as a song can be yet have some much going on in them that they always push me to my limit. I tend to try and get the singing in with my practice too, as the goal is to be able to play and sing all at once.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=903342&content=songinfo&songID=8479471
Cnev ("Chris," right? I'm Will. Pleasure to meet you),
I guess with me starting at a late age (45) I really never thought I'd be a "real" musician but always thought with enough work I could be a pretty decent player.
I started when I was about seven, picking out the chords to "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." But the more I learned about music, the more I knew I wanted to know it all. Certainly by the time I was 10 years old I knew I wanted to play all the instruments, and conduct & compose as well. (And then I got hung up on music theory -- just fell in love with it.) Looking back it seems I followed that all-instruments path pretty faithfully -- and now, while I "sort of" play a lot of instruments, I don't play anything really well, except certain styles of electric bass guitar.
So everything is a tradeoff, as my wife likes to say.
I think that five years of intense, focused training on one instrument will produce a much better player than will 45 years of flitting from instrument to instrument.
This past week I have been studying "God Only Knows," by the Beach Boys, and wondering how much music theory Brian Wilson knew. All I know for certain is that I never, in a thousand lifetimes, could have written that song -- because so much of what makes it work is wrong, in terms of conventional theory. I know the rules too well. Wilson, if he knew the rules, knew how to break them effectively. I never learned that skill. But I know (I think) why the song works, in theoretical terms. Which skill would I rather have? Today I would do just about anything to have written that song, at least to be capable of writing it. But I traded in that possibility pretty early on.
I still don't think I will or need to be a complete musician (not that I wouldn't like to be) I just don't have the time to practice all the necessary elements.
Nor will I, in spite of the fact that I've been working toward it all my life. Everything's a tradeoff, and we all do what we can with what we have.
Soloing on the fly can be a wonderfully satisfying experience if one can free oneself up a bit. Enjoy it!
Kroikey,
I'd like play some beautiful instrumental piece in memory of my friend, but unfortunately I don't feel I have enough theory to do this in the way I want. I'm sure I'll get there though!
While I was reading your post, a piece came on the radio: the "Cavatina" for guitar by Stanley Myers -- the "Deer Hunter" theme, sad & beautiful. It seemed appropriate, somehow....
The tribute piece is a terrific goal to set for yourself, because it provides motivation beyond just making your fingers do interesting tricks on the guitar. And I think that's what we're talking about when we talk about improvisation -- playing in which the primary concern is self-expression, not plodding through a practised lick or a just-like-the-record part. This also can be a factor in playing and singing at the same time. If the original tune is in a bad key for you, change the key & work out a cool original guitar part that complements your voice and does justice to the song.
I feel pretty uneasy about my posts in this thread, because I am absolutely the last person on these boards who should tell anyone "how to play guitar." I only know that rearranging songs and improvising have enriched my life enormously. Combine those with an organized course of "legitimate" study & keep it all in perspective, and you just might have something special.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
