What helped you get a lot better?

Once I really understood what the difference was between practice and repitition I probably improved more in 6 months than I did in 10 years and I'm not exagerating.

I know a lot of guitarists and I would guess that most of them have the same problem and don't even realise.

I'm self taught and not proud of it, a good teacher would have made this obvious a long time ago for me. Even though it's a bit of a cliche line it really is such an important one and hard to know when you suffer from it if you are self taught or have a bad teacher. I'd guess it's also difficult to know when you have a bad teacher until you gain some experience.

Lee

What helped me was playing with others right from the start. My younger brother started about the same time as me, and he had two school friends, one played bass and the other drums. So we started a band. We were all beginners and could only play a few very simple songs to begin with. But we really enjoyed it and practiced 3 or 4 times per week for several hours a day.

The biggest thing I learned from this that truly helped me to play better was to RELAX. At first I was very tight. We used to play Freebird and I'll tell ya, playing that long solo at the end with barre chords almost made my arm fall off. But at first you use too much pressure. It took me awhile to realize to relax and not use so much force. Then you can play for long periods without getting tired. Also, you change chords better, strum better, EVERYTHING. Learning to relax is very important.

Yeah, we were too dumb to know we weren't good enough to play, so we did anyway. And it helped me improve quick. And I learned to learn a WHOLE song and not just bits and pieces.

To this day my best practice is playing with others. Sitting around by myself my practice habits are not that good. I practice scales and exercises, but a lot of times I just noodle around. So I think playing with others is the most productive practice for me. I guess some people are super-disciplined, but I am not.

having the guitar that's right for you, that you're psyched to play every day, will get you practicing and playing better.

..........having a loving, supportive family and an open mind. :D

Having obsession problems and knowing where to direct it. ;)

When they take my guitar away. :lol:

My biggest jump in rate of improvement came when I realized that every little imperfection is a barrier to playing better, so if I want to play well, I have to slow down and focus on doing everything right.

I used to play through a song accepting a little bit of slop here or there as I tried to learn the whole song.

Now, I take it one measure, or even a part of a measure -- sometimes one note -- at a time until it I can play that one thing perfectly, then I move on to the next.

I used to spend a few days "learning" a song. When I started this attitude towards practice that went up to a month or more for a single song. Since then I'm back down to about a week per song.

You will play how you practice, so if you practice accepting slop, you'll play with slop.

The other thing that helped me a lot, aside from simply demanding perfection in my play on songs while I practice, was realizing the value of etudes designed to train specific techniques.

What helped me get lots better? Lots and lots of time playing. Maybe in 10 more years, if I keep at it, I'll finally achieve mediocrity.

What helped me get lots better? Lots and lots of time playing. Maybe in 10 more years, if I keep at it, I'll finally achieve mediocrity.
So far, so soon????? Man, that's impressive

I'll have to get back to you when that time comes.

So far it's been elusive. :D

gotta say guitarnoise has been brill! thanks to everyone :)

the biggest is jamming wth others.
there is nothing comparable.

Ive been jammin for almost ten years solid now.

everything, my chops, my ear, my timing, my knowledge has all gotten better through jamming.

this is serious jammin not noodling.

I started learning on my own, but once i found a good teacher my playing really improved, unfortunately about a year later it basically came to the point where he felt like there wasn't much more we could do, so i stopped going to him. Maybe sometime this summer i'll find a new teacher.

"Having obsession problems and knowing where to direct it. "

Here, here! :D

I agree with Wes- relaxing is a big big key. Everything is better and more efficient if you train yourself to relax while playing. Especially fast stuff. Grooving with a metronome helped a lot with that. Using a metro really helped me to feel the time and start to develop groove.