What would make you feel you’re now a “Good” player?

Also, it'd be nice if someone in the family, or otherwise near me except a band member, would like my music, want to hear at least some sometimes, instead of the polar opposite that I have to only do anything related to music while I'm alone.

(Strangers do quite often like my music fine)
LOL!!! Im SOOOOO in the same boat as you there!!!!! If I ever heard the wife say... "Hey... that sounds pretty good.." I will know I have made it.

If I ever get to the play anything, anytime, anywhere state then I'll consider myself good.

Me too Chris. But in the meantime, I think we're allowed to slice it into the rough sometimes. Even Tiger Woods plays poorly some of the time. You might not be "great" yet but you've surely played in bands enough now to be considered good by a pretty solid chunk of lesser players.

Delighted to see that the current clear favourite is based on social criteria rather than just technical ability. Enjoying the support of your your friends and family. I'm a big fan of the idea of music as a cheerful communal communication rather than some kind of macho pissing contest. :)

Incidentally, my wife just got home so I asked her how she knows when her own work is “good” or not. Just to put that in perspective, she has two psychology degrees and nearly 40 years working experience. She heads up a section in one of our government departments that, among other things, does evaluations on the relative successes or failures of various policies. Judging what turned out to actually work, as opposed to just looking good as an idea on paper, is something of a specialty. So I was expecting that I might get a fairly technical answer when asked how she would evaluate how good her own performances had been. Her off the cuff answer was basically that if you're honest with yourself you know deep down whether you're doing a good job or not. Or to put it another way....

"There's a little, little place wayyyyyy in the back of your mind where there are no pretensions, no BS. That's the guy that has to like it...  "

Not sure whether that means I have to give Cat another coconut, or whether I'll need to ask him to share the first one.... :?

I know what I am as a guitar player and where I fit in at the moment. Somewhere in the middle of the road I suspect in the whole scheme of things.

Not something I lose sleep over, I definitely want to continue to improve, which is something only I can really measure.

For what i do right now I have the skills for. I mean playing the rhythms and some leads ain't all that hard and I know I can play my parts well, but it's not where I want to end up. In terms of playing with the band my thought process has always been to play my part as well as I can to add to the tightness of the band. If the band isn't tight doesn't matter how good I am or anyone else. So that's my priority when playing with others.

My personal goals though are more technical and wanting to do things I can't do at the moment either well or at all.

Pleasing yourself doesn't come easy! :(

When I was a kid I tried to emulate the great rockers...Page/Beck/Clapton/et al. Nope, it didn't work. I was angry about it, frustrated, and "why bother?" often set in...until I discovered my own niche.

Okay, I'm not now, nor have ever been, a guitar virtuoso. But how many virtuosos can ply their talents without someone like me writing something they can hang a hat on? Look, Clapton can't write to save his life (my opinion)...

There's way more to life than R/4/5...and WAY more to YOU than you have yet to see!!! :wink:

Cat

Clapton can't write to save his life

I dunno about that. His autobiography was pretty good.

If I could sight-read a jazz lead sheet, comp from it AND transpose it on the fly... I'd at least feel like I could call myself a guitar player. Instead of a good musician & bass player who plays some guitar, which is what I am. With that much competence I'd feel like I had a platform from which I could try to get good.

I didnt tick any because it seems like its done now........

I just like playing though, it doesn't really matter how good I am. In the past when I was only able to play simple chord songs I just did it because I liked playing, knew how to analyse what I needed to improve. Then I was learning scales for the first time and didn't know how to transfer around into differnet keys so easily. Now I can just pick up the guitar and play it and don't even have to think too much about keys and I feel very free on the instrument (electric guitar), I can work out songs fairly easily (sometimes it takes a few go's for unusual ideas). So I feel fairly happy, I can improvise a lot better these days then I could when I was just beginning to learn that skill, though I still know there are faults and shortcomings with my playing (but few can say otherwise I think).

So in short...... I am feeling now more than ever that I'm a good player, and in ten years I hope that I will feel I am even better.

I just like playing though, it doesn't really matter how good I am.
A well-adjusted atitude if ever there was one! :D

Cat

I'll be heading up to a stage pretty soon. I hope I'll be good. if I worry about the other guitar players in the audience, especially those I know that have better chops than I do, I will have a really bad night. if I head up on stage feeling that I will play to have a great time (fun) then I will have a good night.
when I compare my playing to others I consider myself a hack. when I realize that I, as an individual, have something to say (contribute) to guitar then there is no need for comparison; no need to worry, no need to feel incompetent.
I will entertain the crowd, I will please my bandmates with my positive attitude.
when I have my tone dialed in I feel on top of things. I become creative, fearless. I end up playing things beyond what I thought my abilities would allow.
when I try and fall asleep and can't because I am all jazzed up from the high I get when I do play well then I will say ' yeah. that went well '.

I'm having a blast learning right now. Being in a band would make it all the better. Went to my instructor's gig on Friday at a local bar and his band rocked. What a great goal it is and the reward of getting a crowd dancing is awesome to me. I was watching him play and a random woman came up to me and took me to the dance floor. That was whole lot of fun.

I'll be heading up to a stage pretty soon. I hope I'll be good. if I worry about the other guitar players in the audience, especially those I know that have better chops than I do, I will have a really bad night.

Chances are between nothing and nil if someone out there is better than you Randy. I've heard your playing. If there is, they'd want to play with you...so...so what heck! :wink:

Cat

This is a great question, but so difficult to answer.

For me the goal posts keep moving. When i was a beginner, i thought people who had solid rhythm and could handle all the barre chord shapes was a good player. When i could do that, the goal posts moved and i thought people who could improvise solo's were good.

Then, the posts moved again, and a good player was one who had a wide variety of arpeggios and could use them on the fly in a melodic manner while improvising etc etc

I constantly look at myself as not a good player, but appreciate that I am now somewhere on that ladder where others might think differently.

i guess whether i feel good or not depends on 2 things 1) who i am jamming with, and 2) what material i am playing and how comfortable i feel with it.

Jamming with less experienced players over nice easy chord progressions makes me feel like a rock star - jamming with experienced muscicians playing over complicated fast changing chords in silly keys makes me feel rubbish :D

For me the goal posts keep moving.
That's why you allow yourself 45 seconds of self adulation. Maybe up to 2 minutes if you're the overly confident type.

I'm with you. I used to hate that part about anything skill related, but I've learned to enjy the ride.

It's kind of similar, in a weird way, to management. Managing a team of people. There is always the bad apple. The worst of the bunch. The one who doesn't stand up with the rest of your team. Then comes the point when you've been there too long and you've watched your "star performer" turn into that bad apple without chaning a thing. Point is, is that there's always something lacking in a skill-set waiting to get exposed and corrected.

I think it's like Al said the goal post keeps changing. When you start you don't know what you don't know and it all looks difficult as you progress you look back and wonder why you thought it was.

Most of the things I know I'm weak at I don't spend enough or any time on so I have no one to blame but myself.

I guess I'm growing horizontally, learning more songs and perfecting my current techniques rather than growing vertically, learning and mastering new maybe more difficult techniques, but I realize that, and for what I am doing I'm OK, plus I only have so much time to practice.

Even though theres things I still can't do on guitar - I feel I'm in a nice spot. I realise a lot of the things I do are amazing to some people (though not so amazing in my mind because I can do them). I hope that doesn't sound arrogant but I will give you an example, I can hear a song and very quickly work out what is going on and play it back - now I am sure a lot of people on guitar noise can do that, but there's still a lot of guitarists out there who need a tab in order to play something (especially those slightly younger than me). I have always had an ear of some sort when working out things, it has become more attuned to the specifics of what is going on (rather than just getting a chord that fits I can now get the exact rhythms and notes = the specifics). Well I feel thats a big acheivement, I have also been told that not everyone has the ears that can work out things in that way but (and this is moving off topic a bit I suppose) can't everyone learn that skill too? Or is it a thing of you either can or you can't do?