Best Guitar Advice You Ever Got

[tapper mike]

The other advice I'd give is to finf a competent teacher. Would've saved me years.

This. Wish someone explained to me how valuable a good teacher can be. I actually had a decent teacher for a year when I was young, but then I moved and forgot about it. That and my inherent laziness is why I am not nearly as good on guitar as I could’ve been.
Only now, after learning bass for a good year with a good teacher, I realize how much it helps. I think I’ve made more progress in this year on bass than I ever did in the same period on guitar.

Yup. Went through that. The hardest part was finding a competent teacher. So many were purely lick hunters. Though I will say this:

Once I was trying to work out Western World by Steely Dan my teacher transcribed it and we were working it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brlS32sdz5k

We hadn't completed it and as fate would have it he had to cancel the next lesson. His replacement teacher had absolutely no clue, it simply wasn't his wheelhouse. Instead we worked on three blues turnaround licks. Never played Western World professionally but did join a classic rock/blues band and used the heck out of those licks.

[lfm]

Every time changing strings
- properly locking strings to tuning post so no slippage
- different technique wound and non-wound strings

Every time tuning guitar, another tuning principle to open E string
- instead of a relative offset transport making next string more off
- so no more 5th and 4th fret down the strings

Principle is
- 1st open E to some referens pitch
- 2nd B is 5th fret towards open E
- 3rd G is 9th fret towards open E
- 4th D is 14th fret towards open E
- 5th A is 7th fret an octave towards open E
- 6th E is harmonics 5th fret towards open E

In this way a tiny offset on one string does not transport to next string.
But demands that guitar is properly intonated or higher frets will not be correct pitch.
But a bit tricky on strat with floating tremolo since tension each string make springs stretch a bit. Just have to redo a couple of times until settled. But this is an issue either tuning technique.

[Bombadil]

Back when I was 21 and full of myself, I went to see a teacher. I think he'd have helped me incredibly, but I wasn't making much money, and discretionary income went to weed and beer. Very short-sighted, and wasteful. I still had some Dunning-Kroeger Syndrome happening. He wanted to teach everything from the ground up. Ear training, so on and so forth. All the things I ignored in various music classes in my yout (sic). I figured I'd get along fine. I suppose I did. I have been called 'accomplished' but as far as I'm concerned, there's a hella lot more about how to play the guitar than I'll ever be able to assimilate. I place myself somewhere slightly above avg. But it doesn't matter.

[Dirtgrain]

John E. Lawrence told me to practice my picking in slow motion, striving for ideal motion and efficiency with consistent desired sound. He practiced hours of this regularly, and his stuff was clean. He also taught me about what he called chord melodies (is that a term others use?)--comping chords, doing a melody, and when I got better, sometimes working in a baseline. I remember feeling a step closer to Joe Pass when I got it down how to play the theme song from Mash. At the time, I wasn't too thoughtful about it, but over the years, when I have sat down to doodle on guitar, it was so often in chord melodies. I'm glad he taught me that.

[donkey tugger]

Stop f**king about with the widdling and write some songs.

[mumpcake]

Get it right slowly before trying to play it fast.

[Uncle E]

Get it right slowly before trying to play it fast.

Open up a new page in your Real Book, play it sight read without stopping* at 50bpm, then again at 60bpm, and then again at 70bpm. After you've done this a few times, you'll be nailing songs by the third pass. Do this every day for a few months and you'll get it on the first pass, your sight reading training will be complete.

*Without stopping is crucial. Don't compromise here.

[Bombadil]

Learn to be as economical as possible with your finger movement when doing solos. Takes practice, to keep your left hand fingers at about the same level on the fretboard. It may look impressive, flailing about, but it's unproductive. Also, keep the right hand fairly relaxed when picking.
Idea is to expend as little effort as necessary on the mechanics, leaves more room for creativity, and smoother playing.

[subterfuge]

Learning without any teachers, I spent first few years just trying to play stuff by ear and going through very few guitar books available back then. No tabs, just notation and theory which would be suitable for music schools, not for a young rocker just starting out. Heck, my first chord book was by Andres Segovia, I learned and played full on barre chords and inversions before even learning what a power chord is.

Later on I made a real learning schedule for myself and from that time came some things not only repeated by many teachers, but what I also had to realize along the way to keep on going.

While just playing for fun is...er, fun, when you are actually practising something, even a short session with full attention can be more beneficial than hours of noodling. Another one was that whatever you practise, make it yours by finishing the practise with something (anything) fun you can come up with it. This can make you to look forward to practising again, instead of shuddering at the thought of that.

Also, when starting out with something new, learning often happens in big leaps with some plateaus in between. But the more advanced you get, the less significant the leaps seem to be and the plateaus might seem to go on longer and longer. Have mercy on the fellow in the mirror, it's ok. But don't give up, challenge yourself to push further.

[tapper mike]

If you choose to, and I encourage anyone regardless of the level of skill they may have or think they have. Read notation or even tab.

When you do:
1. Avoid looking at your hands focus on the notes on the sheet.
2. Read slightly ahead of where you are playing that way you aren't trapped and know what comes next.

[rp314]

When playing chords pay attention to voice leading.

As a youngster a keyboardist friend who actually studied music pointed out to me that our open chords tend to contain doubled 3rds and 5ths which can make things a bit tricky (and might make some of us think that the stupid guitar needs to be tuned more often than is really the case).

Anyone studying jazz or classical guitar is well-versed with such things but as a young teenager with no music theory under my belt I had no idea what he was talking about.

[tapper mike]

I think we guitarists are too much under the impression that keyboard players know more than we do and they try to take full advantage of that at any time.

Unless you are getting one of those true temperament guitars necks your guitar will always be slightly out of tune.


The world has somehow figured out how to cope with slightly out of tune guitars. Not wildly out of tune guitars just slightly out of tune guitars.

[Uncle E]

Those true temperament necks are amazing, though.

[vurt]

i cope well enough with wildly out of tune

tuning up is for nerds!

[Dirtgrain]

Has anyone played a true temperament guitar? Does it sound weird to your ears?