Good God I need help on so many levels

Well, I'm a dumbass and a half. Just when I go and start thinking I'm getting good (not to say I suck) I realize just how much there is actually going into being a great musician. My aspirations are to succeed in mastering as much as I possibly can and on my journey to doing so I learned that I'm a whopping no where near. I've recently baned myself with a stricter practice routine so much as just jam times and due to some events in my life I learned that I should be putting more time towards practice than I have. So, where to start. Also, I like variety, so if anyone could suggest things ranging in skill levels, that'd be great. My complete gratitude is given for the help.

1. Rhythm - I learned that I can't keep with a beat for ****, any suggestions on where to start with learned to keep with a beat?

2. Sweeping - Sweeing looks fun and I sure wish I could do it coherantly, some help for making it sound cleaner would be nice.

3. Legato - Ok, I start playing and when I move higher up on the neck the notes are harder to hear and soon basically seem to cease all sound. Do I need to crank my volume or something?

4. Tapping - Now, I read on another post about 8 finger tapping, I'm not so much of a newbie on tapping, but it could stand to be more comlex and the idea of doing 8 finger tapping legato style just seemed so awesome to me that I'd like to give it a try. Any help is much appreciated.

5. Ear training - ok, I've recently begun attempting to get "perfect pitch" as I guess it's called. I have 12 midi files of all the notes at different octaves on a cd that I listen to at work. If I was to sit there and listen to those notes for X amount of time (x = 8 hours at most but probably not that long because that would just suck) would that be a bad thing or are there better approaches to training my ears?

Ok, I'll leave it at that...Yeah, it's been a while since I've been here, I've just been busier than usual lately. Nice to see you all again and all that other welcome back type crap.

Oh yeah...Speed. Gotta have it. Yeah, yeah, if you play it nice and slow you'll get fast, but is there another way I can work to get my speed way up? And accuracy as well. I have no problem with taking my time and moving slow at first and all, I'm just wondering if there's something I can do on top of that.

PRACTICE??! lol..All great things require time...Rome was NOT built in 1 day contrary to poopular beleifs.

Always START SLOW

getting rythym?

Learn to count the beat of the notes.
Learn to use a MetroNome.


Perfect Pitch ear training?

That take ALOTS OF TIME

And theres no point in listening to notes over and over for x amount of time if you dont have a clue what the note is.......

Originally Posted by: MetaRome was NOT built in 1 day contrary to poopular beleifs.

"Poopular belief????"

Poopular, now thats worth repeating,,,.......


Cryptic, you may want to leave some time for some counselling, cause it sounds like you're trying to give youself a nervous breakdown, you can't master everything at once, my advice, work on what you need to be able to do now, work on your weak areas first, if you keep trying to pick up new things and keep moving on, you will have nothing but weak areas,, hey Rome was Not built in one day, contrary to "poopular" belief............ :)

Time I've got. I'm not worried about how long it takes to do things, I just want to know what's good to work with to help me get better, however much discipline it might take. As for the ear training...I've got 12 midis (one for each note) and they play the notes at all sorts of octaves, so I actually do know which notes are which since I"ve got one going at a time or I can add to it for variety or whatever, is it still an in vain idea to listen to those during work?

If you don't have one, get a metronome. They are the greatest aid there is in learning rhythm and building up speed. Like everyone else said, start slow. Up the speed of the metronome by increments of about 4 or 5. You'll build up speed before you know it. This is how I learned Flight of the Bumblebee. I stated with a tempo of around 120 to learn the notes, then increased the speed by 5 bpm, got comfortable at that tempo, then increased another 5, and so on until I finally hit it at 230 bpm. This took me about 2 weeks.

As for ear training, there are a lot of different ways to go about it...(by the way, perfect pitch is rare). Anyway, try humming or singing along to what you play. Practice a scale and hum along to it. This is how I improvise when jamming, except I "hum" in my head and play what I'm "humming." I picked that up from listening to Jimi Hendrix. He was one of the rare players that would play to what he was singing rather than sing to what he was playing.

As for sweep picking, I'm still trying to figure it out. I can do 'em, just not cleanly. John Petrucci's Rock Discipline video has a decent section on sweep picking.

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollyson"Poopular belief????"

I think that's what my doctor was saying about why I'm not "going"; something about a lack of faith.

Originally Posted by: iamthe_eggmanI think that's what my doctor was saying about why I'm not "going"; something about a lack of faith.

o dont worry we all got it in us.

I FINNALY MADE A CATCH PHRASE!!!!!

i knew if i tried hard enough something would cath on.

POOPULAR

Originally Posted by: Metao dont worry we all got it in us.

I FINNALY MADE A CATCH PHRASE!!!!!

i knew if i tried hard enough something would cath on.

POOPULAR

Oh, crap (no pun intended). He's gonna be telling this same ****ty (once again NPI) joke for the rest of his natural life.

Poopular seems to be an asweme word :D

Originally Posted by: AzraelPoopular seems to be an asweme word :D

Hahahaha. You rock my socks dude.

With all this talk about poop and crap and similar words for excriment, this thread is starting to stink.

Yeah, funny how threads seem to shift from topic to topic isn't it? What began as a simple question for help quickly veered into feces of all things. And from nothing more than a simple misspelling. Very mankind of us. Leave it to a person to take something and bring out the immaturity in it. Don't get me wrong though, I'm guilty of the same thing as I sit at work all day and talk about jerking off and whatnot with my colleagues. Anywho, I got answers to my questions in one form or another, so I don't really mind what this thread's become in this stage. And in response to the poopular belief. I think that's the greatest term I've heard yet. Go team.

Originally Posted by: Cryptic ExcretionsGo team.

That makes me laugh.

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonHahahaha. You rock my socks dude.

Azrael is stealing my thundAAAAAAAr How dare you =p

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonOh, crap (no pun intended). He's gonna be telling this same ****ty (once again NPI) joke for the rest of his natural life.

No no no........im not gonna tell YOU that joke ...imma tell alllllllllllll of you ...over and over and over and over till someone wants to shoot me.....[unles someone already wants to do that]

Originally Posted by: MetaNo no no........im not gonna tell YOU that joke ...imma tell alllllllllllll of you ...over and over and over and over till someone wants to shoot me.....[unles someone already wants to do that]

Say someone did want to shoot you? (not to imply that it's me or that anyone even does want to) I'm just curious as to what you would do by default.

not to ruin everyones fun there having with poopular but I would like to answer the question about 8 finger tapping I would first try to get down 4 finger tapping then when you get that work up to 8 finger like the guys said
start slow


POOPULAR!! :D

Score man, thanks for the poopular advice. Will do.