Becoming an advanced player

[JustMac]

I am currently enjoying floating around in the gray area between advanced and pre-virtuoso

Whoah, that sounds epic! Are there any clips or vids of you playing? I'd kill to see your stuff

 

[80H]

Whoah, that sounds epic! Are there any clips or vids of you playing? I'd kill to see your stuff

Haha Yes there will be soon, I cannot say how soon but it's definitely coming. I have about 30 minutes worth of material now, but unless you want a shitty laptop 144p video at 3 to 8 fps and audio recorded into an iphone3, then no it's not ready yet. I've been set back way too many times and don't even own an amp anymore currently (which sucks huge huge huge dicks), but all of the gears are turning, and once I get my living situation squared away I should have close to 24 (or more) finished instrumentals to work with + a meaty-ass book launch + video series + lots of other stuff I'm not 100% ready to talk about yet because it might give too much away.

I am moving out in the next 2~3 months (or less!), and once that's done I can start putting my money back into things I enjoy again. Gonna be awesome. Thanks for asking though (` - `)b

 

[80H]

I agree with most of this. When I say advanced, it is kinda one of those "I don't know exactly what it is but I know it when I see (hear) it" kinda of things. What I really want is to improve on is:

1. Increasing my speed and left/right coordination (alternate picking, legato)
enough to...
2. Become proficient with finger tapping and sweep arpeggios
3. Learn more "tricks" for my arsenal
4. Maybe not so much "theory" per se, but guitar terms and scales. Not that interested in stuff like sight reading. I don't want this one to take to much of my total "guitar time"

1. Speed is mostly technique and cognition. If your pick can move as fast as you can think the note, you should be fine unless your accuracy is iffy. Accuracy training is tough because you reallllllly gotta get up under your brain's sense of punishment and reward and convince it to make accurate play the only acceptable option (at least in my personal experience). Tricky but doable.

2. Tapping is easy: it's just muscle memory and finger strength until you get into complex tongue-twistery and multi-finger approaches. I like to hold my fingers to my morning coffee cup to get some heat into the tips as that helps build calluses a bit faster, but I also do it with the side of pans before they get too hot when I'm cooking something. Heat doesn't build calluses as fast as friction (in my experience), but too much friction tends to wear away my calluses, while heat just seems to mildly and gradually improve them.

3. Tricks? Watch a few videos on sleight of hand and pay very close attention to steve vai's fingers on anything you can find that has a good shot of his hands. Don't just copy him though; try to figure out the underlying root of why what he's doing works and is musical and then try to apply it in your own way. Or you can just play with your teeth.


4. If you learn how to memorize, you can easily learn any scale on the guitar within a week or so from the open strings to the final fret. Repetition and visually associating an imaginary letter (A# or Bb) with the visual location on a fretboard over and over and over again is the fastest way that I've found. It's tedious sometimes, but I know logically that after a couple of hours on the fretboard, I'm going to know exactly where every note is. I used this to learn every major key, harmonic minor, melodic minor and then a few odd scales (akebono, egyptian, hungarian minor....all of which I never use). This includes the modes of those scales, but I am admittedly rusty with those because I haven't been practicing them enough.

This should help:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/200911/how-remember-things

 

[progman]

Alright. So it seems like people consistently posting on this thread have a good idea what I am looking to do. I need to compile everything and come to some consensus (if possible) and then a plan of attack. Lets say I have 30-45 mins to work on technique (which leaves me with about 15-30 mins to write/rock out a day. What exactly should I be doing with my 30-45 mins. What would you do? I can worry about long term planning later. I need a short term aka "now" plan.

 

[viesczy]

This @ 400 bmp! Now don't come back 'til you got it!

Nathan Milstein - Perpetuum mobile - YouTube







Okay, listen to what Sir John has to say:

John McLaughlin's guitar lesson @ PRS part I - YouTube




BTW if I knew how to post them both as vids to just embed I would've.

Derek

 

[Maniacal]

https://soundcloud.com/adamsatur/lydian-9-thang Bit rushed together and kinda awkward but you get the jist.

What was that demonstrating?

 

[Solodini]

Requested Lydian #9 funtimes.

 

[progman]

Alright. I know it is really basic stuff. But, I have been working on some very traditional Paul Gilbert alternate picking type stuff with the metronome. One other technique I have been working on is string skipping arpeggios. What do you guys think of them? I feel like they: 1) add a new little sets of "tricks" to my playing. 2) Works on string skip picking and 3) Works on hammer ons and pull offs.

 

[Leveebreaks]

This thread is incredible, full of information I don't really understand but really want to. I'm at a similar stage to Progman so I'm bookmarking this bad boy for practise exercises. Good work shred dudes

 

[thatguyupthere]

1-2-3-4 up and down the neck
4-3-2-1 up and down
1-4-2-3 etc etc

.

yeah if you stay on the same 4 frets and do this on two strings like
-----------4-3-2-1
---1-2-3-4---------1-2-3-4
it will help alot with rolling your fingers from string to string which is a must have when sweep picking

 

[Dirtdog]

I did some theory type videos on you tube.
Take a gander. I am trying to explain them in a straightforward way.
and its in video form so you can watch whenever.

Judd Oakes - YouTube

subscribe and you'll be the first to see new vids.
Just thought I'd throw it out there.
Thanks