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

  1. #1
    Forum Member BlueFrogs's Avatar
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    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.

  2. #2
    Forum Member curtisstetka's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Try not to suck.

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

  3. #3
    Forum Member sabby's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

  4. #4
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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...

  5. #5
    Formerly Tele-Tubby TT100's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "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
    On SmartPhones:

    "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But That only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." Frank Herbert.

  6. #6
    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

    Seriously, the best advice was "listen"
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  7. #7
    Forum Member Kap'n's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Don't give up your day job.:toobad
    Several guitars in different colors
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  8. #8
    fezz parka
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "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

  9. #9
    Forum Member Skip's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "don't play when the horns come in"


  10. #10
    Forum Member jim in texas's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

    You can never have too
    much music in your life.

  11. #11
    Forum Member Tele-Bob's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.
    If you're bored, you're not groovin'.

  12. #12
    Forum Member VibroCount's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "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."
    Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't. -- Pete Seeger

  13. #13
    Forum Member dez's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

  14. #14
    TFF Stage Crew
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

    Also, see other thread for "plastics" shaming.

  15. #15
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kap'n
    Don't give up your day job.:toobad
    +1
    "Live and learn and flip the burns"

  16. #16
    Gravity Jim
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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."

  17. #17
    Forum Member Kap'n's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan
    +1
    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.
    Several guitars in different colors
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  18. #18
    Forum Member cooltone's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "Stay Humble"

    One of my guitar teachers replied with this when I asked him what I needed to do in order to 'make it'.
    "If you're cool, you don't know nothin' about it. It just is...or you ain't." - Keith Richards

  19. #19
    Forum Member FrankJohnson's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Mistakes happen...get over it.

    With a good recovery, most mistakes can be forgiven.
    Kenny Belmont
    >:^{I)>

  20. #20
    Forum Member anthonyc007's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Enjoy what you play!

  21. #21
    Forum Member moonpie's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.
    If you leave the house, you're just asking for it.

  22. #22
    Forum Member DoobieK's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.

  23. #23
    Forum Member Dave TV's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

  24. #24
    Forum Member moonpie's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Gimour is the Sland
    If you leave the house, you're just asking for it.

  25. #25
    Forum Member The Nazz Are Blue's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Quote Originally Posted by pc
    Think like a horn player or singer when playing--i.e., allow for breaths between phrases.
    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.

  26. #26
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    "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.

  27. #27
    Forum Member Annie D.'s Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

  28. #28
    Gravity Jim
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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."

  29. #29
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

  30. #30

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

    Listen to everybody, but be yourself.

  31. #31
    Forum Member shoebox22's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Don't stop.
    They're REAL anyway.....

  32. #32
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Serve the song with confidence and humility.

  33. #33
    Forum Member itbepopples's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.

  34. #34
    Forum Member Annie D.'s Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

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

    and I meant it...

    Honest Engine

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

  35. #35
    Forum Member hudpucker's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    '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...'
    Tone is in the fingers, eh? Let's hear your Vox, Marshall and Fender fingerings then...

  36. #36
    Forum Member Mikey's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    Have a good time, otherwise, why bother?
    If, at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving.
    Two leaps per chasm is fatal!

  37. #37
    Forum Member radiognome3's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.

  38. #38
    Forum Member Fripperton's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    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.
    VM



    If aliens listened to our current top 40, they'd think that the entire planet was populated by sexually ambivalent robots with ethnic insecurity.



  39. #39
    Forum Member moonpie's Avatar
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    Re: What's the single best piece of advice you've received as a player?

    see tag line
    If you leave the house, you're just asking for it.

  40. #40

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

    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
    DougStrummer
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    ".....make a joyful noise"

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