Who can you believe?

I get mails telling me how funny my tunes are, or cool, or how much I shred etc...
AND I get mails telling me how bad I suck, how I should stop polluting the net with my sloppy sound etc...

The guitar community is pretty weird, you tell a guy he's good when you aren't close to play like him, but when you have pretty much the same level, you try to kill the guy with comments (your timing was off etc...) I know that's what happens, because I do exactly the same...

My question is, who do you turn to when you try to have feedback on your tunes/technique/sound, other than your wife's 'great tune hon'' or your student's 'how did you play that lick?'?

hmm
my guitar teacher wont lie to me about those things..
I once i had him yelling on me during a rehearsal "whats that **** that youre playing" and then he turned my amp off
but when im playing good he always compliments me and i know hes not lying, so i guess hes the man

player..


but the best opinions (most objective and dispassionate) i've got were from my teacher (way back) and guys who played professionaly and were about twice my age (a lot older anyway)- they don't have to "prove" anything by saying "you suck" or try to be cool by liking/disliking what style of music you play around them. if you know some guys, casually, in local bands maybe you can get them to listen to your stuff.

My own take is that I might think "oh fark i dropped 17 notes and played like a scalded cat - i'll do better next time", BUT the audience was entertained.

The few "gigs" i played were received well - but I KNOW i aint Jimmy Page (etc) so i just say thankyouverymuchgoodnight and hope they like it next time.

If most of the audience liked it that's really it - if they behave like the country bar audience in The Blues Brothers-find a new town/venue. ;)

Originally posted by Zeppelin
I once i had him yelling on me during a rehearsal "whats that **** that youre playing" and then he turned my amp off . . .

LOL . . . that's pretty harsh.

I think you need to know the person you ask for advice, or at least have a good image of the guy.

You need to know if he can be objective towards your music.

There's one thing you can be sure of when asking advices. If someone tells you "it's good man, you play well", there's always a chance he might really think you suck but he's too polite to tell you. On the other hand, when someone tells you you play really bad, at least you know he's honest about it.

Personnaly, I would ask some of you for real objective feedback. I feel most mods and seniors know what they talk about. Even if I'm not a theory buff I can still be objective. So I think the best advice probably comes from other players.

My problem is that most guys either musicians or not, seem to stop at the technique level, even older guys like you mentioned, and I hope my music is more than just speed...

My guitar teacher has great chops, but he never uses them in his band. He is the composer fo the music, and he never gives himself solos (the music wouldn't really work with them)! He always pushes for me to improve my technique, but he never suggests that that is the be all and end all of playing. A couple of times when he gives me improv work to do he has just looked up, laughed, and said "that's ****!". Generally when he says that I already knew that I wasn't playing too well, so it's not as if he cuts me down when i feel like I'm doing really well.
Also, because he doesn't improvise very often, he sometimes is impressed by what I can do, and will then talk to me about what I just did, which is nice.

what are chops?

I hope that's a joke.
Grog go now...make noise

Lali you suck......just give it up!

Who cares what other people think, you can't please everyone, the only persons opinion who I really take to heart is my own, and I'm a pretty harsh critic.

I guess you can understand what I mean Chris... After you have acquired enough chops, it's pretty hard to find someone who has the level to tell you your errors without necessarily telling you bad things because he feels endangered...

Originally posted by chris mood
...you can't please everyone...

It's a legend and it's true.
Let me quote someone else I read:
If you're going to write and tell me how much I suck,don't waste my time.
If you're going to write and tell me why I suck.....