to be as good as...

Originally posted by trebledamage
I think hes referring to playing on stage. Although I think Chris really hit the mark, Ras makes an important point. You really will see drastic improvement in your playing if you incorporate some form of stage experience with you lessons, practice routine, etc... Open Mic nights or open jam sessions at restaurants, bars, book stores, or coffee houses are a great way to break into playing in front of an audience. Its a great way to meet other musicians as well.

As for the person who started this thread, the amount of time you practice really depends on what you are seeking to accomplish on the guitar. If you want to play like Joe Pass, then set aside a considerable amount of time each day because you will have your work cut out for you. If you want to play Green Day songs, you will probably need much less time to accomplish your goal. (No offense to Green Day fans) There really is no set time. But you should make it a point to "practice" every day. Like Chris said, right now you have more time than you will ever have to practice. It gets much harder once you get a job, family, etc...

lol i want to play like jerry garcia. i have a new schedule now. I practice 5 hours a day no matter what. its worked out for me so far pretty good.

i have a job at mcdonalds, they only work me 5 hours a week though. Harsh! lol. I've been playing alot of folk music lately, i figure if i want to play like jerry garcia i have to have the mind of jerry garcia ( not to mention that i already like folk music!) so its pretty good now, 14 year old kid with the practice routine of over 5 hours a day.

[Edited by Incidents Happen on 12-30-2001 at 04:39 PM]

I also ment jamming in general. When you're playing with other people you learn how to bounce ideas off of eachother, to communicate without words, and you're forced to tow your weight- if you screw up, it shows. If you let your mistake throw you off, you leave a much more noticable "space" in the music.

It also forces you to look at what you're doing in the context of a band- I can play this crazy fill, but will it work with what we're doing? Ok, maybe it will, but how do I make it fit?

There's a lot you can only learn by playing with people and a lot you can only learn by playing in front of an audience.

Not that I wouldn't have preferred to have learned those Zeppelin tunes before I went on stage, but I was a last minute addition anyway- I had bought a ticket before they asked If I'd play bass for it, and the guy who organized the show still owes me $15.

yes! exactly! Theres this band i like called the Big Wu, and well they have the greatest lyrics, im tellin' ya. anyways, the music is great too, but not 'too' complicated. i found a tab site for them and was like thinkin "i can do this, all of this, except where it says 'jam' because i cant make solo's up really great yet". any help on this, because the two things missing in my guitar playing are-

Solo-ing great

Jamming Great

I know for a fact that I could become a great jammer, i have jammed with my instructor a few times and it didnt sound too bad. In my opinion it was okay, but my teacher and my mom said it sounded excellent.
Solo-ing though, for a 14 year old kid, is tough. For me at least. Is it kind of like how you have to get used to it, like chords? with repetition, etc?
I can do other people's solo's real easily, but 'making my own' solos...im having difficulty with. I can play 'solos' that are based out of the scales, but i cant get them to sound GREAT. Am i trying too hard to get this perfection?

If you wait 2yrs before tackling note reading your gonna have to regress so far back your never gonna want to do it. Think of practicing as weight training, you can't just excercise one muscle group because their gonna be stronger then the rest and over compensate..you have to do everything equally.
So tell that teacher of yours you wanna start learning to read music NOW..in the long run it's a lot easier then reading tabs..plus horn players and piano players don't read tab..and they don't write out the parts for the guitarist in tab either..so if you want to learn the international lingo of music learn to read. Some of my best teachers played instruments other then guitar (sax, piano, vibes)you don't have to limit your musical education to just studying w/guitar players.

He's right. I learned how to read music in grade school when I played trumpet. I avoided reading music for the guitar though, because it was more difficult than reading tab. Unfortunately, I realized many years later that to get to a higher level with the guitar, I was going to have to improve my music reading skills. Even with knowing how to read music, I had to take a major step backward to learn how to apply my music reading skills to the guitar. It was very humbling and frustrating. Save yourself a lot of trouble and learn how to read music now, instead of later on in life.

It's what Jerry would have wanted for you!!!

your lucky you said its what jerry would have wanted for me because if you hadn't i probably wouldnt have listened.
I got myself a music reading thing, and Im going to learn to read music. I know the notes on the fretboard ( always have, well for a few months at least), and if you guys say its gonna help me out i bet it will. Um...about 'how' much will it help in playing?

A lot of our heroes started out as 'session' players - sidemen who play a few tracks for someone else's recording session. Buddy Guy was doing this kind of work at Chess Records before he headlined his own band.

An old joke among session players:

Q: "How do you get a B.S. wanker to shut up?
A: "Hand him some sheet music!"

Everyone wants to be a rockstar, but the more I play the guitar (should I add, the more I play my new second-hand '93 strat plus, drool, drool), the more I realise what an honour it would be simply - read, not at all simply; probably a lot harder than being a rock star - to be seen as a good seesion musician. Bruce Langhorne, who played on lots of Dylan's 60's rock stuff I just love listening to; it's the session guys who make albums by solo artists really come alive.

Everyone wants to be a rockstar, but the more I play the guitar (should I add, the more I play my new second-hand '93 strat plus, drool, drool), the more I realise what an honour it would be simply - read, not at all simply; probably a lot harder than being a rock star - to be seen as a good seesion musician. Bruce Langhorne, who played on lots of Dylan's 60's rock stuff I just love listening to; it's the session guys who make albums by solo artists really come alive.

yep! and most of "real" musicians aren't rock stars, but they actually make more money than some of them.... Tommy TEDESCO was one of them!!

Im 14, been playing since I was like 6.. But as Chris said there is a difference between practising and playing, until about a year ago I didn't practise much, but played alot..

I play from 2 up to 8 or 9 hours a day, but not all of that time is practise, some of it is noodling aswell :)

Like I said before, just cause you play guitar that doesn't mean you have to just study guitar music. Music for violin fits very well on the guitar and will help you with your technique as well...also try reading through some Charlie Parker solo's with the Omni Book, notice how many Jerresque licks you'll find in there. Oh..you'll have a hard time finding these things in tab.

thanks for everybodies tips. and for the 'rockstar' thing, if i ever got a great band together and we were touring and in front of like 10,000 people, i wouldnt want to just explode and rip the guitar up ( shreddin like crazy when yur not sposed to), i would probably be just happy that that many people showed up. I get kind of embarrassed when somebody says something to me like "oh wow you got a pretty groovy technique" i got that one a few times...
I'm developing a state of mind where im starting to sit down and express my emotions into scales ( usually the major scale cuz im happy alot:)), and anyways, i got my acoustic/electric DCE-1 Guild today, and i was happy, and sat down, and was playin good ole folk songs for about an hour, then i just started tryin to make a riff, and i made this killer riff. doesnt sound that great on an electric but i really like it on an acoustic. i'd post it but i change it every time. Its in the key of B ( like usual for me) and i really dont know how to type stuff out in tab online yet. anyone know how to do that?

from reading the previous messages i wrote not long ago, i realize now how much better i have gotten since then. times like these that are the greatest in the world...

I perfectly understand what you said, yet I believe that practicing for five hours or so is not very productive. Now I'm no expert in the guitar, yet I do understand how the brain functions (I have two friends who went to Berkley and took some lessons, one of which stressed this point). If you are still beginning to learn the guitar, I would not recommend a five hour session for several reasons. First, your brain will get incredibly tired, and it does not happen only in music, it happens in almost every other aspect of your daily life, thereby reducing your productivity. Second, since your brain will get tired, then you will start making errors that may hinder your progress, especially in the basics learning phase. Third, you may get a bit tired of the guitar; I do not mean that the enthusiam wont come back, yet you will loose some time while you get the interest back (strange thing this one). In the end, we are not all professionals, (say as the Beatles who would practice for 8 straight hours a day) take your time, learn things one at a time and take some breaks. You will come with a less stressed brain back to the guitar.

Very good point, but having some kind of work technique, you can work for hours without getting tired or bored or anything...
I'm not saying it works for everyone, since I have lost some time wandering around when I first started practicing for several hours a day. But if you have a good teacher and discipline, you'll have to work a tremendous amount of time to have mastery over your instrument. You need work and time, and you need to consider all the points you have made. Put them all together, and you'll work more effeciently.

i usually go an hour, take a fifteen minute break, then go for 2 hours, take a fifteen minute break, then just go and go and go.

lamicafolloe ( i will never get his name right...) is right, because i never really do get tired of playing. if my brain feels stressed, i just stop playing for a little bit, usually play a videogame for a half hour. works for me.

we are not all proffesionals, true, but to become a professional, takes time, hard work, determination, and work ethic. im extremely interested in playing music the rest of my natural life, so 5 hours a day is completely nessecarry ( sp?), and i believe if i go less than 2, it loses it's seriousness. Guitar was made to be played, and as thomas jefferson was at the books for 15 hours a day out of 24, i am at my guitar for at least 5 out of every 24.

since i started doing this , 2 months ago, i learned more than i did in 6 months normally. if you can take years of practice off by crunching it all in, then why not do it? my technique just keeps getting better, its not getting worse. and when my brain gets tired, i sing a few songs if i dont feel like playing a game. songs usually bring back my attention, especially grateful dead songs.

i now have the skill to improvise, and i get better and better at improvisation every week. every week counts, every day counts. there is not a day since july that i have not played the guitar.

also, since i play an acoustic, my fingers just keep getting stronger the more i play. another thing about practice :)

[Edited by Incidents Happen on 02-10-2002 at 04:36 PM]

i am 15...i started when i was 14..i wish i had the same mentality as you do....to where i will only play things i dont know so i can continue to get better...

but i dont do that..and a lot of my time is spent dicking around and not getting better...
but i still usually throw in about 1 hour of totaly dedicated time to getting better...
on the weekends...much more time is put to getting better...
i cant help you at all...because you are better then me :)

I've been shown a thing or two by a lot of people less technically advanced than I. Sometimes it's something that seems small yet is very critical in the big picture like knowing when not to play.

Everybody's got something they can teach somebody else, and everybody's got something to learn from everybody else.

seriously though, i started doing some fingerpicking ( i had a little experience with it a few months ago) tonight andim not that bad at it. but things branch off, the better you get. there are so many styles...