How do you practice?

1) sitting or standing?
2) with or without distorsion?
what do you recommend?

I say practice standing, cause if you start playing Live. More than Likely your gonna be standing. Practice both Distorted and Clean, you will use both later on. If you are doing any finger exercises and stuff like that. I say do it clean, cause when your distorted it's harder to pick up on if you accidently played a note half-muted or bumped the wrong string slightly. When your guitar is distorted, even alittle sloppiness is covered up, when Clean your ear is more discriminatory to your playing. When just jamming around, It's more fun to be distorted (for me anyways). That's the best reason to play, cause it's fun.

If you're playing through your amp - stand. If you're playing through a processor (headphones), sit. I did a combo of both. Just don't get used to sitting.
-Bob

i believe that it's a good idea to not listen to what others say about practicing, but to make up your own method. choose what you are most comfortable with. it also helps to use effects if the song includes them. you shouldn't play a clean song distorted unless you know you like the sound of it. if you want to play it clean, that's entirely your business. tell me it this helps in any way.

I have to disagree with you shreddplayr, I don't think it's a good idea to ignore what everyone else says about practicing. To me that will only make you close-minded. It's good to learn from other people, as well as make up your own ways of doing things also. After all, one person only knows soo much. By listening and learning from others and there opinions, you begin to open doors you wouldn't have know about unless you let yourself be a student of others.

Now going only by what others say, I think is shutting yourself off from your own potential. I think you should balance both, their is alot to be learned from others. Just as their is alot you can learn from yourself.

Damn! Does that sound like Yoda or what??? lol :D I just didn't know how else to write it. I gotta stop watching Star Wars. :o

[Edited by noticingthemistake on 12-29-2002 at 03:36 PM]

I would practise clean, especially when practising lead lines. If your distortion is cranked, how can you hear string buzz and stuff like that? Get your stuff down clean, then put distortion on it. Then it'll sound sweet.
And practise sitting. Stand when your rehearse with a band and get used to it then. Or just do whatever your comfortable with.

Personally i play sat on chair and play about 2 metres away from my combo 50w marshall and have it on 1/4 volume and both clean and distrted channels are used using clean for more rythmy or blues solos etc or when learning a riff

thanks guys I appreciate your advice
I noticed that when I'm doing the shred exercises standing it is much easier to do them sitting
And Happy New Year
I'm just back from a 2-day party and my head is totally blown away :D

I used to always sit when I practiced, now I am finding it very hard to play standing up.

if you're practising difficult passages (lead lines, or maybe lightening chord changes) then i recommend sitting until they are perfect or pretty fu*king good.
i was learning the Crazy Train solo and i can do it prefectly sitting down, but when i started playing it standing there were a few kinks. but i just worked on it until it was perfect standing and sitting.
if you're playing with a band, you really need to stand. and you REALLY need to stand during live shows.
i was recently learning a tough Metallica solo and i started standing up and it was pretty messed up. then i sat and got it down, then i stood up.
also, go over as many techniques as possible when you practise.

Dude,

Practice whatever you want to learn and challenge yourself to improve by practicing things you can't play. Also as far as practicing goes. It took me a year to gain enough speed and control to shred and play insane stuff like Becker or Malmsteen with much ease and enjoyment. The trick i found was working up coordination in anycase. So i would sit and practice the stuff without my electric plugged in to make it harder to make the noise audiable. Which meant playing harder to get it to sound good accoustically on my electric. Basically this is similar to playing clean through an amp but a bit harder for most electrics aren't very loud when played accoustic as in not plugged in. I figure if you can play something cleanly and audiably accoustically on an electric the transition from that to distorted will rule. And in most cases it has.

As for sitting or standing do a mixture of both practice chops and stuff sitting and then just go play it standing always remember it comes down to being comfortably coordinated with whatever you are playing. Also i susggest playing whatever you are learning slow and make sure you get a smooth solid sound to your playing unless you want a weak in feeling but technically proficient sound like Malmsteen. I also suggest trying new things and learning new tiplet patterns to improve your shredding. Don't just get stuck wtih simple 3 note per string patterns that can easily be played up and downt he fret board. Get creative and challenge yourself and always strive to work on that which you cannot do now but will someday.

Remember practice makes better not perfect. Especially since perfection is in the ear of the beholder. That and perfection is unattainable by any standard except the lowest. Practice for the ears of others to enjoy your music but most importantly practice for yourself to be satisfied with the sound coming out of your amp. Time is of the essence. Sit down for an hour and practice getting the leads or solos nailed by playing them slow and working them up. Play all exercises with extreme care listening for errors in playing. Then after an hour just play. you should be warmed up to haul-ass.

Hope that helps a bit dude.