Fresh start

Hi,

Well here I am again, still trying to to be the best guitarist the world has ever heard, but forgot this only comes with practise. I have two very nice guitars which I aquired about three years ago and untill now have only played around with and maybe wasted a lot of time, (this has been the story of my life). However I have just retired and at last have time on my hands to do the things I had promised myself I would do, but have never got around to.

It would be good to know how my fellow guitarists started and the path they traveled to become guitarists of a reasonable standard and how many hours of practise each week. How many of you have been able to reach this standard through Guitartrick?

I look forward to your coments.

Smile and be happy peter (retep69)

I play around 1/2 hour to 45 minutes a day, myself.

Hmm.....Well I picked up a guitar when I was 14. Liked it alot. I fiddled around for about 4 years just learning easy songs. I found GT in 2002. I'll tell you right now I'm glad I did. It has helped alot. I did get an Instructor for a few months before and it helped too but not quite as fast as on here. I play about everyday and usually for around an hour unless I'm recording something. There are times I take a few days off.

uve made the right decision coming on board..i have learnt heaps as well considering i have only started like 8 months ago..tho i am fully aware i still need to do more but im picking up songs easy and making my own too...GT is amazing not only for its lessons and whatnot but the people as well...so join in for the fun...nth beats learning and having a blast...i play everyday every second except when i sleep...my guitar is like my wife it sleeps beside me everynight...

woot

Hi Peter. I won't tell you my whole musical journey since it would take ages and be full of very personal stuff. :) However, I'll sum it up a bit: I wanted guitar lessons all my life, but my parents refused. Finally, when I was nearly 17 I got myself an electric guitar and started to teach myself. Back then I didn't have an internet connection and there were no TAB books or magazines in my town. So I pretty much just learnt by messing around. Later I would go into the city sometimes and memorise songs from TAB books, because I was too poor to buy more than one every few months. My first three TAB books were music by The Doors, The Police, and Joe Satriani. So I go better by playing stuff I enjoyed listening to. It wasn't till years later that I established some kind of regular practicing to target areas I needed work on. Now I do a bit of both. I still feel that music is about expressing yourself and playing things I want to play, but I also play for other people and need to be able to play anything on demand. And that keeps me musically "fit".

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my thread. Its just the kind of comments I am looking for to give me determination and discipline.

Many thanks Peter :) :)

I started playing guitar when I was 12. I wasn't really even into music at the time, but my friend told me he was taking guitar lessons and I didn't want to be outdone by him. I got my dad to teach me a few chords (G, C, and D), which I spent a few weeks getting down pretty solidly. For Christmas that year I got some beginner-level instructional book, which taught simple melodies and a few additional chords. By summer, I'd learned it all the way through and got another book. When school started again, I decided to take lessons with the same teacher my friend was learning from. I ended up taking 4 years of lessons with her, and I got pretty darn good. I decided not to take lessons this past year, simply because I wanted to get into rock music more, and my teacher was more of a classical/jazz-trained person. I thought I could do alright learning on my own, seeing as my first year of playing was self-taught.

However, I was wrong. I am progressively sucking more and more. It'd be alright if I had some sort of rigid practice schedule to follow, but I do not.

Everyone who is a high-bandwidth subscriber seems to think it helps them a lot, so if you're all about improvement, I suggest high-bandwidth. Whatever you do, don't just sit around the forums all day like me.

GT forum = less time spent practicing = BAD.
GT lessons = instant virtuoso = GOOD.

I first wanted to play when I heard my older brother playing everyday in our basement. He eventually quit, and gave me his yamaha acoustic. I messed around with a beginners book for a while, I think this was when I was about 10 or 11. I begged my mom incessantly to get my guitar lessons, and she eventually gave in.
I learned a lot through getting guitar lessons, and had a very nice teacher. He taught me until I got to be better than him, and I started giving lessons in his staff. I began to take theory, keys, and electric guitar.
Senior year I had to get a real job, so I quit all my lessons and giving lessons. I wasn't upset about quitting electric guitar, because its just not for me. I've been attempting to teach myself classical this year, and writing a few songs.
August 12th I go to band camp as a member of the pit. I'm major in music education with a focus on guitar performance (perhaps a minor, I haven't decided). I'm working with William Feasely as my guitar instructor, who is supposedly an amazing musician as well as an amazing teacher.

well, It all depends on how good you want to be and how fast you want to be that good.
I say, play as much as you can each day, without distracting from other duties and passions, and never any longer than it remains fun...I tried to push myself to play hours and hours daily, but after about four hours a day, I stopped enjoying it, since then I slowed down, and now play for as long as possible each day, which is usually close on an hour or so.

Yesterday I played for about 6 hours. About half of that time was spent working on just one solo, so y'know. What you put in is what you get out.

I have found it's not how long you practice, it's what you practice. 1st 10 mins should be warmups and stretching excersizes. Followed by a well diciplined practice routine. Try and focus on learning concepts instead of simply learning songs etc.

Don't play much past where your fingers start to hurt. Taking lessons can and does prevent bad habits which are tough to break once ingrained.

Denny

Welcome to the boards Peter...

I personally didn't get very serious about guitar until I had already been playing for 3 years. I'm 22 now... I started playing when I was 16... I just started messing around on it because one of my friends was learning to play. We were the kind of friends that were always around each other and did everything together... So I got a cheap Fender DG-7 and started learning with him. He got pretty serious about it... I was trying to get a baseball scholarship so I was pretty involved in that. It wasn't until my Freshmen year of college that I finally got into it. Since then I have caught up with him. I've never taken lessons or anything beyond simply trying to teach myself some basic theory. I don't want my style to be majorly influenced by the laws of music theory. I would rather know the very bare mininmum and be able to work my style based off of that... playing without any concsious boundaries. I feel like I would be restricted by the knowledge of all the laws of theory.

Yellow.......

I started playing when I was eight. Got taken to an Eric Clapton concert, and wanted to be a rock star :D . My folks sent me for guitar lessons, but they turned out to be classical - not what I had in mind. I took the classical lessons until I was 12, but never really applied myself. I ended up fairly OK though - knew some chords and was OK at fingerstyle, but it bored me.

I stopped playing until I was 15, at which point I went electric. Lessons again with a jazz guy for a couple of years, then I went to Uni and played in bands in my free time.

Now (at 29) I teach others, play the occaisional session and the even more occaisional gig. I'm about 50/50 on earnings now between my regular job and music. I practice about 2 hours per day but I think I'm pretty much where I want to be. Agree with the others, it's about what you practice - I like to think I'm pretty handy, and about half an hour a day is all it takes to keep my dexterity up. I do notice the drop in ability if I take time off though. Maybe it's all in my head.

The only significant thing left for me is to develop a random skill, such as tapping with a thimble, playing a double neck with both hands etc... best idea I had was to play slide with my weiner, but I'm not sure if I'd make it through a gig! :eek:

Well, All I can say is thanks to everybody who has taken the time to reply to my plea for help, you really have given me some inspiration and determination to get this guitar playing licked.

Smile and be happy, Peter. :) ;)