How Good Were you 6 Months Into Playing?

[Cody_King]

Just wondering how I par up. I pratice quiet a bit. I started late so im hoping i can jump on board and get ahead.

How far were you at 6-7 Months into playing?

[Polera]

i wasent far at all :) ! I knew bunches of chords, how to hammer on and pull of and was practicing to master barre chords. I could play songs like "used to love her" by gnr, "house of the rising sun", "night moves" by bob segar and "layla" by clapton.

[kingdavid]

I sucked.
How good you are depends on how much and how well you practice.
And the way you are,I think.By this I mean that some people would gain,all other factors(like diet and so on) held constant,say,10 kg of muscle if they work out an hour a day for three months.Others would probably take six months.I suppose this also holds for guitar.

[SLY]

I was progressing normaly ... I began with nylon string acoustic (spanish) ... In 6 months I could play "romanza" & other classical pieces , almost all Nirvana's , some GnR , some scorpions , a little Metallica & other similar artists ... lead parts (solos) before the 12th fret !

[Dejan Sajinovic]

I could play mostly KISS songs back than. Incl. leads. I had this KISS tab book (Greatest KISS) and all I did was learning and playn´ songs from that book. Wasen´t intrested back than in any kind of music than KISS. I still like them but not as much as I used too. I remember my arguments with my friends about who´s the worlds greatest guitar player. For me it was always Ace Frehley.

[Cody_King]

Fun stuff, guess im doing ok then. I can do coords hammer ons hammer offs, pentonic scales and such. i can play most songs i try to learn. im working on memorizing the keys on earch string now.

[Axl_Rose]

I could play almost every guns n roses song after six months. Learnt sweet child o mine after about a month of playing, but people dont believe me!! Infact, i joined this forum when i got a guitr and i'm sure my first post was an arguement over playing!

[Graz]

I think I could play Crazy Train and a few other Ozzy riffs, all the AC/DC stuff but not much in the way of soloing and bending the notes was pretty chronic on the ears :)

Smoke on the water was the old favourite and I learned a few chords.

I think the way I knew I was progressing after six months was that I could pick up notes pretty quickly from records.

I'd hear something and be able to play it back roughly in minutes, that was a good skill to have.

As long as you practice and keep learning new things you'll improve, keep challenging your fingers.

I played as soon as I got home from school till late when I had just started. It takes time for your fingers to do what you want them to, keep pushing yourself though.

[N4Player]

6 months...I sucked also. First song I ever learned was Fastway - "Say What You Will" ....course that was 21 years ago...Then moved on to Judas Priest - power chord mania, some Iron Maiden, mixed in with Black Sabbath. Nothing too tough.

[PonyOne]

i was terrible.

i still don't make any effort to play anyone else's stuff, if i hear something i like i look it up & learn it then apply it to my stuff. i've always known people who were like "yeah, i've been playing a year, and i'm learning another 35 vai songs" and it just hasn't ever interested or impressed me. not to say i think that there's no place or validity to that musically, i just prefer to cut my own path.

[Auron]

Originally posted by Axl_Rose
I could play almost every guns n roses song after six months. Learnt sweet child o mine after about a month of playing, but people dont believe me!! Infact, i joined this forum when i got a guitr and i'm sure my first post was an arguement over playing!

including the solo Axl?

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by PonyOne
...i still don't make any effort to play anyone else's stuff, if i hear something i like i look it up & learn it then apply it to my stuff...i just prefer to cut my own path...
I agree.
I like to think that music a language,just like the way we speak.And while learning other people's stuff is OK,it shouldn't be your focal point.
It's just like getting on some pulpit somewhere an going
"I have a dream..."
The best thing would be to listen to Martin Luther's speeches,and try and see what made them tick,and then see how you can use such or similar techniques in your own speeches.

[Graz]

Yeah fair enough you need to cut your own path and stuff, but you also only get better by learning new things.

I didn't deliberately set out to play anyone elses stuff, I would hear something I like and then pick it up by ear.

The only way you can improve is to push yourself and learn new ideas and techniques. Where do you learn them from? I mostly picked them up by ear and then applied my own personality to them. After all your own personality should come out in your playing.

I wasn't interested in playing a song the whole way through at all, it would always be bits and peices from here and there, pick the things that I like and don't like.

I'd like to think thats how I developed my own style of play.

[Edited by Graz on 01-31-2003 at 05:02 AM]

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by Graz
...I didn't deliberately set out to play anyone elses stuff, I would hear something I like and then pick it up by ear...
Everyone,and I mean everyone starts off by playing other people's stuff.

[Graz]

Yep Fair enough, KD, I loved Randy Rhoads and it was that kind of stuff that made me want to play guitar.

Then Satch and Vinnie Moore caught my ears also.

What I am meaning is I would pick things that they had done and then play them my way. I think the only song I ever learned note for note was "Always with me, Always with you", to me that is one of the nicest guitar instumentals I have ever heard to this day. It's also not really that difficult to play.

Needless to say there was no way I would have been able to play that 6 months into playing ;)

[TheDirt]

I sucked at 6 months. I could play a couple songs... quite badly... And almost never the whole way through... After a lot of frustration I just gave up and set my guitar in the corner. The following couple months I just avoided all music (which at that point in my guitar playing history I renamed "stupid f**king s**t"). After a while, I once again resumed listening to music, but I now had an aversion from the music I was trying to learn when I played guitar, so I looked for something new. I hopped on the net and looked up "best guitarists" and found quite a few names. I went out and bought some cds based totally on my absolute faith in the infallibility of the internet and those who put stuff there (I was ignorant back then too). Some of the cds totally sucked, but I also managed to get the G3 cd with Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Eric Johnson. Listening to it forced me to go buy almost every cd made by these 3 guys and many more. I was resinspired to pick up the guitar, but I quit trying to learn songs: I began to work on technique, and I researched theory. Don't feel bad if you don't think you're good after playing "a WHOLE 6 months". Keep at it and you'll look back later and be like, "wow, I can barely even remember when I had been playing for ONLY 6 months"

[TheDirt]

Whenever you're thinking this: " *sigh* I don't think I'll ever get good at guitar."

Think this instead: "Hey, at least I'm a hell of a lot better than TheDirt was when he had been playing for 6 months!"

You should feel much better about yourself shortly...

[Axl_Rose]

including the solo Axl? [/B][/QUOTE]

<sign> Yes, including the solo, although i couldnt do the "where do we go now?" bit with the harmonics and stuff.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Axl_Rose
including the solo Axl?

<sign> Yes, including the solo, although i couldnt do the "where do we go now?" bit with the harmonics and stuff. [/B][/QUOTE]


Do you mean you could play the whole song including solos in one month from your first time to play a guitar ???!! :confused:

[Dejan Sajinovic]

Yeah man, I mean it´s not an easy solo. The run where wah comes in is pretty difficult and than the triplet thing just before the where do we go now break and the lick where Slash plays wierd 5-notes per beat lick just after the break.

Nowdays that solo is pretty easy for me but I don´t think I could play it after one month. I remember I had still problems with basic chords.

[Lordathestrings]

After 6 months, I'd had my own guitar for about three weeks, and I was driving the rest of my family crazy while I played for five hours a day. I was in high school at the time, and I had a morning paper route, so I was basicaly getting by on about four hours of sleep a day. I don't remember what I was playing at the time, but if you check out the Top 10 charts circa 1968, you can see that I had a lot to try for!

[Axl_Rose]

I dont think learning a song like sweet child in the first month is all that great. As far as guns n roses songs go, stuff like estranged, or live n let die offer more problems. There are some mad chords with massive stretches in them in live n let die, an destrange requires amazing technique.

[aiwass]

I knew some basic folk and pop songs. I think I'd just mastered fingerpicking (I started out on acoustic, then classical, then electric). I didn't start to shred (or at least try to) until after about two and a half years. The late start in soloing was in a sense beneficial, though, in that knowing songs and chords (and of course reading music from classical guitar) gave me musical KNOWLEDGE to base my technique upon. Also, my ear was used to all the different chord changes and such.

[Led Zeppelin]

After 6 months I was better than I am now. Well not really but I learnt the intro to Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin and could play Needle & The Damage Done by Neil Young. Since then Ive devoted most of my time to singer/songwriter stuff and my classical pieces but I do still love learning the odd solo, even though my amp is broken and will probably never work.

[SLY]

Originally posted by Axl_Rose
I dont think learning a song like sweet child in the first month is all that great. As far as guns n roses songs go, stuff like estranged, or live n let die offer more problems. There are some mad chords with massive stretches in them in live n let die, an destrange requires amazing technique.


It's not that it's a hard one ... It was one of the first songs I played on elec. , but I've been playing Spanish (Classical) guitar before and my fingers were already used to the fretboard.

It's realy hard to believe that someone can play even just the intro in his first month with guitar ... I don't mean you're lying , may be I'm misunderstanding you . :)

[bigmarty]

6 months? proabaly not good I was still struggling with certain things mostly chords and and scales.I could play Black Sabbath and stuff like that but to tell you the truth ,My interest in playing wasn't too much .I had other things goin on when I was 16 (girls,parties things like that)But I got into it more as I kept playin and before you know it I was hooked but six months though not too good.

[Axl_Rose]

EH!! are we forgeting something here.. a month.. 30 days, in (januray 31! lol). You dont think that despite playing at least 2 hours a day, mostly on average about 4 or even 5, thats a possible 150 hours, you dont think its possible to learn a simple 8 note sequence looped?!?!!? Obviously i wasnt just learning that particular song or intro all the time.
In the UK we have a show called "the moment of truth" and people get a week to learn mad things, every golf courses name in world, or be able to pot every ball off the break off at pool. People can do that!! Is it really hard to believe I learned sweet child in a month, i dont think so. Im not saying i got it perfect, only 2 years on can i say I can play it really well. But within that first month of playing guitar all i was learning was solo's really. And on sweet child there are no difficult chords, no chords to remeber really.
I think people lack determination! Becasue, I'm digging a deeper hole here but i think i nailed the intro in a couple of days! Its only 8 notes for god sake! A great tip is to watch tv whilst playing guitar. If you come across a hard chord or that, just sit n strum it over a whole show, by the end you'll be perfect at it. The intro to sweet child is the same, sit for an hour playing it and youl get it, given a whole month to do it is ridiculously easy!

[Edited by Axl_Rose on 02-02-2003 at 06:59 AM]

[aiwass]

I met this kid in a guitar store in Oslo, and he'd been playing for one year. He could play several Dream Theater tunes and solos, and he was faster than me! (I had been playing for 4 years around that time). After ONE YEAR, he could play the solo for Pull Me Under! I mastered that thing after about four and a half years! Apparently, he practiced something like 12 hours per day.

My point is, if you concentrate enough on something, and practice it 'til the point where your fingers are about to fall off, you will make it.

[andy82]

Do the young(er) ones learn faster or the free hours they can afford paying off after all those practise? Just a curious thought... like they say, can't teach an old dog new tricks, but is that true when it comes to guitar? Any later starts like me here on this forum?

I'm 20 and got a normal lifestyle (I think... work, uni, girlfriend, and of course my beloved guitar) and I must admit that I don't practise as hard as before. I started guitar as soon as I finished my HSC to goto uni 2 years ago (equivalent to SAT's in US, is that what you call it?) I really can't play alot once the break is over and I have uni :(

[aiwass]

There's a Danish shredder called Torben Enevoldsen who plays lots of Yngwie-styled stuff. He started when he was 23.

There is hope.

[Dejan Sajinovic]

Pull Me Under is pretty easy solo though. But after a year, that´s impressive. Still, I prefer alternate picking on that last pull off/hammer on lick.

It´s sad that I have forgotten lot´s of those KISS solos I learned once. They were cool in a way. But my first solo wich I learned after ´bout 2-3 months of playn´ was Ain´t It Fun from Spaghetti Incident. First song I learned whitout solo was Blind Man by Aerosmith.

[andy82]

Hahaha, well that's the best news concerning guitar I've heard in ages. Seems like all the guitar greats + most people her on the forum started playing during their high school era.

[Dejan Sajinovic]

It´s when most of us figured that school wasn´t a real thing for us and we all felt to lazy to work for rest of our lifes in a factory and still, we wern´t any bigger sport talents so the only thing that could save us from boring life was MUSIC.

[andy82]

:) I was a typical rap + hip pop fan. Tis a shame, I could have started earlier..

[aiwass]

Originally posted by Dejan Sajinovic
It´s when most of us figured that school wasn´t a real thing for us and we all felt to lazy to work for rest of our lifes in a factory and still, we wern´t any bigger sport talents so the only thing that could save us from boring life was MUSIC.

Word. I had the highest grade average in my class before I started playing guitar:D

[Lordathestrings]

Ohhh Yeaaaah! Like I said in my earlier post, I was playing for 5 hours a day when I was 16. If I tried that now, I'd be doing it on street corners, 'cause I'd soon be unemployed!

[kingdavid]

Originally posted by aiwass
There's a Danish shredder called Torben Enevoldsen who plays lots of Yngwie-styled stuff. He started when he was 23.

There is hope.
Thank you.