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Thread: Practice Habits...

  1. #1
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    Practice Habits...

    I'm just getting back into the guitar and I want it to stick this time. The main things I can do to have it stick I think are the following:

    1. Play songs you're capable of playing. Don't get discouraged that you can't pick up a smoking Brad Paisley or Eric Clapton solo. They are paid professionals who have been playing guitar all their lives and play far longer per day than you can. Relax, play songs you can play, have fun, and the advanced stuff will come in due time.

    2. Develop good practice habits so you develop the correct tools to play competently.

    Which brings me to the point of the post. What are some good practice habits/routines to get into? What exercises should I be doing? I'm assuming exercise work in the Major and Pentatonic Minor scales would go a long way to help me with blues/rock/country stuff.

    What are your all's recommendations?
    Got them Statesboro Blues

  2. #2
    Forum Member phantomman's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Jamming with others generally results in many "teachable moments", Tugboat. If you can hook up with some like-minded souls I'd wager that your skills will improve exponentially. The other points you've listed are great as stand-alone drills but it's also important to understand how riffs and melodies are integrated into the final product of a completed arrangement.

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  3. #3
    Forum Member boobtube21's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    +1 what PM says.

    Also try playing to a click. It's annoying at first but you'll figure it out. For me it can help to learn something I'm have trouble figuring out: If you can figure out what notes are on the beat, you can fill in the rest from there.

    Plus having a good sense of time when you go to play with others is invaluable.

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    Re: Practice Habits...

    I plan on playing with people at some point but I'm talking about getting to the point where I can function decently in that setting. Start someone from square one (or close to). What are your recommendations for good practice habits?
    Got them Statesboro Blues

  5. #5
    Forum Member pauln's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Try to practice each time until you learn something new.

    Concentrate on rhythm, ideally when you play with others your rhythm will sych with the bass and drums so that your actual playing sound kind of disappears, yet is still there.

    Find an open mic / jam and take note of the songs being played - learn those; then play there. Playing with others on stage is better than 10 days of practicing alone. There are a lot of things that you only learn by playing with others on stage - most of these have to do with the invisible communications and signals between the musicians.

    In general, try to play every day.
    Try to learn new things first by ear; then follow up or verify.
    Train yourself to recognize chords by their sound. This does not mean you have to know all their names but that is good, to0; but you want to be able to hear a chord and know how to play it. You should be able to tell if a chord is major, minor, seventh, augmented, diminished, sixth, 6/9, major seventh, minor seventh, sharp eleventh, etc.... all these chords have a distinctive sound you should be able to recognize when heard, and when playing a song you should be trying to anticipate and "hear" the next chord coming. The ear does not care what the names are, but other musicians do, so it is good to know these names eventually. It is also good to be able to build a chord on the guitar when you are presented with the name of it. If you want to play lead solos, all that will make a lot more sense if you have a good basis of understanding and hearing the chords.

    Now here I will suggest what I think is the truly most important recommendation for practice:

    The purpose of practice is to advance, and this advance has two aspects that if kept in balance will make the fastest most effective progress. Those two things are your ear and your hand.

    If the development of your hand is ahead of your ear then you may feel the frustration of "hitting the wall" and not making improvement, and it will sound like you have some skills but don't know what to do with it.

    If your ear is ahead of your hand you will be frustrated by knowing where you want to go and what you want to play, but your hand won't keep up to satisfy you.

    So, what you want to do is asses you ear and your hand to see which one is behind... If your hand is behind, spend more time playing. Anything you play will develop the hand's "knowledge" of the fingerboard, its accuracy and speed, the micro adjustment and execution of invisible little things that make the difference between easy tone-full playing and difficult playing.
    If your ear is behind your hand, spend more time listening to your favorite music and other kinds, experiment with intervals and chords, progressions and things like that.

    The idea is that you want your ear to be able to make a musical idea and request your hands to express that idea, and you want your hands to be able to execute with ease the ideas it gets from your ear. When both ear and hand are in good balance (matched levels of accomplishment) then playing what you want feels easy and natural. If one is ahead or behind the other, you will feel that as though the instrument is fighting back at you - it will either seem that it is not playing what you want or that it does not understand what you are asking it to play.

    If you make a continuing effort to focus your practicing on the straggler of these two, the overall progress will be most efficient and more of your playing time will be more effortless and enjoyable.
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    Forum Member Goshawk's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Practice for at least thirty minutes every day. Set goals, like
    learning the rhythm part to a song correctly or a set of scales etc.
    When you have a plan and stick to it you won't just play randomly
    and get stuck in a rut but will be accomplishing something. Learn the blues.
    This will be a solid foundation plus you will have the ability to play with with other
    musicians without having to know the same songs.

  7. #7
    Forum Member hudpucker's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Learn to use your pinky. WAAAAAY too many are content to only use three fingers.

    Many will ignore fingering exercises but they will absolutely pay dividends in the future.

    1=index
    2=middle
    3=ring
    4=pinky

    Play many diff combos such as 1-3-4, 2-3-4, 1-2-4, etc. Don't be content to be a 'two note per string' player.

    Using a metronome/click track is a great idea as well.

    Learn to play across the neck and not just 'in the box.'
    Tone is in the fingers, eh? Let's hear your Vox, Marshall and Fender fingerings then...

  8. #8
    Forum Member melody's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Learn all the note's on the fret board.. Helped me beyond belief if you know where they all are it's easy to find the money note's in any key..

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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Thanks for the tips so far guys! Very helpful! :)
    Got them Statesboro Blues

  10. #10
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    my 2 cents:

    1. learn songs first, then riffs. you should know both, but if you can't play an entire song then what's the use?

    2. learn to play in time. this is so crucial! there are a lot of dudes who can play some hot licks, but can't play them in time or with a band. both the same thing really!

    3. taste. but this come from playing a whole bunch and making mistakes. so make all of them and learn from them.

    4. take some lessons. this will be really helpful, but make sure you're taking them from someone legit. don't take them from a "shredmeister" or some other dude who's doesn't play in a band.

    all that to say: learn some basics, play a lot, make a bunch of mistakes, learn some more, and then make some more mistakes. it all comes down to how you play, and you won't really know that for awhile, so just go for it and learn as much as you can. not the best answer but you need to travel down every road you can until you find it. and "it" will be different than my "it". but it's all music, so practice everyday, take your vitamins and say your prayers.

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  11. #11
    Forum Member Doc W's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Here are two things you might try. I teach guitar and have had some success with these ideas.

    Let's look at blues or blues-based rock first which uses mostly minor and major pentatonic scales. Memorize the pattern for both in a few different positions. As hudpucker pointed out, do not use only three fingers. Then take a relatively simple song by a blues player you like and try to learn it, note for note. Whether you do get it, note for note, is irrelevant and you probably won't anyway. Rip the song off the CD and then play it back half speed, picking your way through the different licks. Recently, I got a student to work on a BB King song, "Sweet Little Angel," and although he didn't get more than half of it, he learned a helluva lot about how minor and major pentatonic interact and how a good player builds a good solo from melodic fragments. This is an exercise which forces you to slow down and listen.

    Next idea. Try improvising using a basic major scale. Here is the first exercise I give to students who have learned the basic scale. Use the scale which begins on the 5th string, 5th fret, 4th finger, and ends on the 2nd string, 3rd fret, 2nd finger. No reaching, one finger per fret. Then either get someone else to play D Bm G and A (classic, I VI IV V) or record that and loop it. Do NOT reach for any notes that fall outside of the notes in the scale, but you can play additional notes in the scale on the 6th and 1st string. With these limitations, try to create a simple but interesting melody. Pay attention to the notes in each chord, notice which notes are common to more than one chord (e.g., D works in the chords D, Bm and G) and notice which notes do not work with a given chord.

    Don't try to do anything fast. Play as slow as you have to in order to get the notes you are playing to sink into your head, otherwise your solos will always a version of "let your fingers do the walking," i.e., aimless meandering or wanking as we love to say.

    This is obviously hard to explain over the net and would be better if we were sharing a few beers, but I hope this is of some use to you.
    "The beauty and profundity of God is more real than any mere calculation."

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    Re: Practice Habits...

    Quote Originally Posted by chuckocaster View Post
    my 2 cents:

    1. learn songs first, then riffs. you should know both, but if you can't play an entire song then what's the use?

    2. learn to play in time. this is so crucial! there are a lot of dudes who can play some hot licks, but can't play them in time or with a band. both the same thing really!
    These are two things I've vowed to do this time around! Play in time and learn songs, not riffs. Last time I knew parts of a lot of songs but I knew few whole songs. This time I'm gonna stick with easy songs first then work my way up. Start with The Beatles, the Stones, CCR, etc... with easy to learn songs and simple solos. For acoustic stuff I'll do that and maybe play slightly "dumbed down" versions of songs I can't grasp the way they're played (I'd like to -perhaps eventually- learn some some John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Old Crow Medicine Show, etc...) then go up from there. Don't even touch Cream, Van Halen, or Pete Anderson until I can play better.
    Got them Statesboro Blues

  13. #13
    Forum Member chuckocaster's Avatar
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    Re: Practice Habits...

    seems like you've got a good game plan there tugboat! i just think it's so crucial to learn to be a musician, and not some schmoe with a guitar. heck, i started on clarinet, and damn glad i did. because of that schooling i try to approach playing as a band member.

    there is so much enjoyment to be had in making music, whether that's strumming some chords while singing your favorite tune, or laying down some cool solos. it's all good. but you've got to be able to walk before you can run.

    best of luck in your studies.
    "don't worry, i'm a professional!"

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