What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

Either as something that someone has told you or something that you read somewhere that just made sense as soon as you heard it.

Try not to suck.

Seriously, I can't tell you how many performances that little piece of advice has gotten me through.

Play less, use the volume knob, and don't hit three or more strings unless you really mean it.

play fewer notes, when you bend a string...bend it all the way to next whole note.....when you practice play the lick as slow as neccessary to get it right with no flubs THEN gradually speed it up...

"Don't go home with her, she's married"

Seriously?

"Don't rush" "Practice" "Use a metronome" "Don't practice what you're good at." "If you can't get it right, turn off the effects"

TT

"If you find big underpants thrown on the stage, don't go try to find the owner."

Seriously, the best advice was "listen"

Don't give up your day job.:toobad

"Dig this: it's all about the three H's. Head, heart and hands. These are your primary tone shaping devices. Got a sound in your head? Play it with heart, and it'll come out of your hands." - Howard Roberts

"don't play when the horns come in"

keep it simple..............

:sun

5 or 6 years ago a guitar teacher told me "your band is only as good as its weakest member." I didn't understand that statement at first but the day it dawned on me, I got bust trying not to be the weakest member. It drives me and motivates me to pull my share of the load and woodshed when I need to so I'm not the one holding the band back.

"Listen" is important.


Others I've found value in:

"Music's not in the notes. Music is the relationship between the notes and the silences."

"If the drummer can't find the one, the bassist must."

"Try not to play a riff."

Seriously, it was "just don't f**k up alot."

Think like a horn player or singer when playing--i.e., allow for breaths between phrases.

Also, see other thread for "plastics" shaming.

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Originally Posted by Kap'n

Don't give up your day job.:toobad

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+1

Best advice: Jim Hall had a small paper sign inside the lid of his guitar case that said, "Make musical sense," placed there so he would see it every time he prepared to play. That just knocked me out, because it contains so much. Create melody. Make it sing. Don't show off. Make it say something. LISTEN to what you're playing. Make musical sense.

Second best advice: Miles Davis supposedly once said to a younger player asking about how to approach a solo: "To start a solo, you think of a note. Then don't play that note."

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Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan

+1

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Actually, the best advice I've gotten (other than that) has mostly been posted here.

The best advice I've given myself is a little phrase I think of often:

If you're not adding, you're subtracting.

It applies mainly in 'larger-than-trio' formats, but sometimes it applies there, too.

"Stay Humble"

One of my guitar teachers replied with this when I asked him what I needed to do in order to 'make it'.

Mistakes happen...get over it.

With a good recovery, most mistakes can be forgiven.

Enjoy what you play!

From Tommy Tedesco:

Turn down a gig that doesn't have at least two of the following:

Good Money
Good Fun
Good Music



Also from Tedesco:

Sometimes it's knowing when not to play.

A drunk guy at a bar once said "You got a Marshall, next to a mixer. Don't ever put a Marshall next to a mixer"

Seriously, best advice I received is not to let mistakes bother you. Your own or your bandmates.

"Hey, slow down. You're not getting paid by the note.....Gimour makes as much $$$ as SRV."

Gimour is the Sland:dude

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Originally Posted by pc

Think like a horn player or singer when playing--i.e., allow for breaths between phrases.

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My guitar teacher told me that a few times before. I think thats the one i keep trying to put into action. Its easy to forget, though.

There are other memorable ones here as well. :dude

"Shut up and play your guitar." (Frank Zappa)

"Shut up and play your guitar some more." (Frank Zappa)

Thanks for all the thoughts and wisdom. :blbros Peace, Bros and Sisters. Make music, not hate.

"Play it like you mean it." Even that tune you're doing for the 600th time.

I like "play it like you mean it" a lot. I've had it demonstrated so many times in my work, which people assume is a cold-blooded, meat-cleaver kind of approach to making music. But it isn't. You have to play your parts with fire and conviction, even if the singer IS singing about American cheese. Because the least sophisticated clients can hear the difference. "Gee, I liked the demo better," is client code for "the demo was hotter, more exciting, played like you meant it."

Here's a Zen lesson I just remembered this morning, and both the moment and the guy who delivered still inform my playing and composing. 30 years back, me and Gary and our drummer Dave shared the ceremonial bowl and then went down to the basement of our house on South Park to jam. On the way down, I realized that the ceremonial bowl had been filled with some truly primo import, and I was "in another land," as we used to say. And I said to Dave, "Damn, that's some awesome weed you are holding, brothuh man. I don't think I ever felt this way before."

And Dave gives me the mysterious hippie grin and says, ""Well... then maybe you'll play something you never played before."

Have fun, and if you f*ck up, so what? It's not cancer surgery or rocket science!

Listen to everybody, but be yourself.

Don't stop.

Serve the song with confidence and humility.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. -Dr. Seuss

Apply that to all aspects of your life especially music....because it's too true.

"When you say 'Bud', you say a lot of things nobody ever says..." :D

and I meant it...

Honest Engine

"You say you care enough to serve the very king of beers..."

'Figure it out yourself'

'Don't spend all your time trying to ape someone else's music'

'You are the lead player, therefore you are expendable...'

Have a good time, otherwise, why bother?

Charlie Parker told Miles Davis early in Miles's career something like:
"If you mess up, do it three times, then the audience will think it's what you meant to do."

If there is only one person sitting at the bar, play to that person as if you were playing to a room full of people.

Never eat fried food the day of a gig.

If they tell you you're too loud don't turn down your volume knob, turn down the treble.

Have fun and let them catch you at it.

:couch see tag line :couch

Had an instructor at the Berklee College of Music Summer Workshops state the following which just made crystal clear sense to me and helps and/or validates what I'm trying to do when I play (I guess it just helps with the confidence thing which aids conviction and a lot of other good advice that's been stated in earlier posts within this thread):

- "trust your ear"
- "when you listen to other people's music, listen intervalically to their phrasing and try to determine in your head whether it's whole steps, half steps, etc."

I have found that that second one has changed the way I listen to music as I'm hearing things that I never noticed before.

Doug

Actually, the most important advice came from my piano-teacher;
said "Try not to think in scales. Find a colour for the key you're in and think and play in that colour.".

When I got home from my piano-lessons that day, first thing I did was plug in my guitar and try to find colours for each song on a B.B.King record. Helped me a damn LOT to become more versatile in pentatonic and diatonic improvisation.

Dear Doug Strummer: okay, I tried to be jealous and think you were being a snob, but I realized you were one of the chosen few and were just shining your light. WOW! And thanks. (berklee don't take just anyone, ya know!)

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Have a good time, otherwise, why bother?

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Mickey, dear heart;

I have seldom found anything worthwhile that didn't come out of "struggle" of some sort, ya know? Then I was able to turn this knowlege into a "good time".

If I'd been only a hedonistic good time seeker, I doubt I could have acquired my measly little things. Know what I'm trying to say, amigo?

We "perform" & can relax and be inspired by the good time at hand, but often achievement, epiphanies, etc. arrive during "scary, strugling, tough" moments.

Whatcha Think Questionmark

Yep! Annie, I agree. What you say is true.
I guess what I'm saying is...After all the work, struggle, practice, tension, etc. you've put into your music, you should just get up there and let it flow out. When you do, you'll have fun. When you have fun, there's less tension, the less tension, the better relaxation, the better the relaxation, the better the performance. the better the performance the more better the fun for the audience.
Therefore, have fun! otherwise why bother with all the grind that happens before hand?

See? I work hard with myself and the music by myself, then i do the same with the band. I do this so I don't have to do anything but let it flow during a performance. The product of all the work is the fun. If you're not going to have fun, why bother with the work?
Maybe "fun" is the wrong word.... maybe something else would be better.
But remember, this was advice I had received, not created.
The guy that gave me this advice is now 62 and still playing in a good time band.
Herb Gross of the band The Invictas.

Annie,

You're crackin' me up...read my post again - it says Berklee College of Music "Summer Workshop". They'll take anybody who's got $2000 burnin' a hole in their pocket at the time :lol

It truly was "money well spent", though, and I'm a much different player for it.....but it certainly didn't involve any selection process...thanks for startin' off my week with a helluva laugh!!

Doug

http://www.berklee.edu/summer/guitar.html

:band

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Originally Posted by Offshore Angler

"If you find big underpants thrown on the stage, don't go try to find the owner."

Seriously, the best advice was "listen"

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Took the words right outta my mouth OA!! I watched player on Sat play his whole solo in the wrong key, and he thought he was smokin! It was obvious he couldn`t hear anything other than himself. But thats ok, as it was his band.:wow

CT.

"Get off the stage."

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Originally Posted by CocoTone

I watched player on Sat play his whole solo in the wrong key, and he thought he was smokin! It was obvious he couldn`t hear anything other than himself. But thats ok, as it was his band.:wow

CT.

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Now that's improvising!:hee

Sounds like he was just doing a Charles Ives. Heck, that's not just jazz, it's groundbreaking!

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Originally Posted by CocoTone

I watched player on Sat play his whole solo in the wrong key, and he thought he was smokin! It was obvious he couldn`t hear anything other than himself.

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I still remember seeing a guy named Tony at an open jam play halfway through a solo before my friend Billy grabbed his left hand and slid it from the fourth to the fifth fret.

EVH: "It's called music theory, not music fact."

This is pulled from an interview with HR, but it's something I heard from him more than a couple of times:

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"PRAXIS: to learn by doing-- take action. Go sit down with a band and play. You hear a song--play it. There are two classic theories of learning. Study the theory, and then get the music out of it. In Praxis it's the other way around. You go to the music first, start doing it, then extrapolate the theory after you are doing it.

Another thought. Guitar players tend to live in this sea of how to play like this guy and like that guy I and they never get to address the subject of the music that's within them. Music is internal. We need to learn how to get it out. It turns out that just about everybody on the planet walks around with music running through their heads all day long. I've come up with the theory that the music is within. We don't bring it in; it's already there. We have to figure out how to get it out."

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If you're gonna play with a slide, dont get it stuck on one of your fingers.

The suit don't make the man. :yay

This is so simple, yet so true:

"Play the right notes...

at the right time."

Bill Powell

Investigate one piece of advice at a time. Otherwise information overload occurs and no real progress is made.

Develop your own style. There's a million people out there who have figured out how to sound like somebody else. Be original.

The best advice was from my wife; "Don't dance......."

tbb: where'd you get that "Happy Feet" avatar? It's GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!!

Doug:

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"thanks for startin' off my week with a helluva laugh!!"

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Yer Welkum

I've gotten so much good advice: I'm just now regretting not taking much of it. :D

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Originally Posted by itbepopples

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. -Dr. Seuss

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good ol' Dr. Seuss what a genious

What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?
Don't sign anything if it sounds too good to be true.