Subject: How Do I get Good Quickly?
You are getting this e-mail because you subscribed to it on www.learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com. If you don't want to receive these e-mails any longer, go to the bottom of this message and click on "unsubscribe." Hey there Friend, Today I'm going to answer a question that has come in. And just a quick aside, if you asked a question when you subscribed to the newsletter, I'm wading through hundreds, so I will answer you… Eventually. Most likely someone else has asked a similar question and you will see it come up as the topic of an email.Ed wants advice for getting good quickly. While it would be easy to say just practice all the time, that really isn't the most constructive advice. Here's my suggestion to go from relative novice to a solid player in a short amount of time (this is what I did, even though I didn't realize at the time what an affect it would have on my playing). First some background... I started playing guitar at the age of twelve. I took lessons from a local guy for a few months until we moved. After that I didn't do much other than opening my "Easy Guitar" song books (John Denver and The Eagles pre-Hotel California) from time-to-time and working at those songs. I knew the open chords, but struggled with the basic barre chords for B and F. I had pretty good success with recognizing basic strumming patterns, so I was able to play the songs in the book, but that was it. My acoustic guitar was tough to play, so I got good strong fingers on my left hand. Fast forward three years to when I was 15. I just started 10th grade and sat down in a class next to a kid that played trumpet in the high school band. Turns out he also taught himself to play bass. We decided we needed to meet after school to jam, and we did just that. Played some Eagles tunes and started scheming to put together a rock band. I knew a drummer and his next-door neighbor played lead guitar. That got the ball rolling and before I knew it, we were a band! We spent afternoons and weekends getting together, learning songs and learning how to play together. Eventually we played parties and school dances. The point of this story - I went from an occasional guitar player to being a solid player inside of three to four months. Why?
One suggestion I have is to find a reputable online source of video guitar lessons. Guitar Tricks gives you access to thousands of lessons showing you exactly how to play everything guitar. On top of that, you gain access to hundreds of song lessons. For each song you learn all the guitar parts. So if there is two rhythm guitars and a lead guitar in the song recording, Guitar Tricks shows you every guitar part in detail. It's on sale through today (ends tonight)! Once you learn how to play a song, you can then play along with the recording. It's a lot easier to learn songs these days than when I was starting out. Today we can start and stop a song with a single mouse click on our computers. Back in the day, we had to lift the arm of the turntable, move the arm back a fraction of an inch to the part we were trying to learn and set the arm back down on the record. Or we had to stop and rewind the cassette tape and hope we didn't rewind too far. Repeat this a few hundred times and you really begin to appreciate the technology we have today! It was a very tedious process and difficult to first hear then attempt to learn guitar parts. You really had to work at developing your ear to hear what was going on in a recording. We didn't have an affordable means to slow a song down while maintaining the pitch of the song, or looping a section of a song so we could learn that section. We do now with tools like Song Surgeon which is very affordable and speeds up the process of learning songs. Jamming with people is a great way to expand your skills and learn how to play tightly. But what if that exposes you to rhythm parts and lead riffs that are a challenge for you at your current ability? This is where it actually pays great dividends to slow down. Slowing down is a counter-intuitive approach - you want to be able to play that lead riff or the driving rhythm guitar at the speed you hear it on the recording. But you have to start somewhere. In order to get there you have to start where you are and build up to the level. And this takes patient, consistent effort. Using a tool like Song Surgeon, take the song and slow it down to 75% speed (or even 50%) so you can hear all the pick strokes and notes. Learn the guitar parts and practice them at the slower speed (with a metronome) until you have memorized them. Then increase the tempo gradually until you are back up at full speed. In fact, increase the tempo to 105% to really give yourself a workout and you'll find yourself "in the pocket" easily. The great thing about this approach is that as you apply the principle of disciplined practice to your playing, starting slowly and incrementally increasing your speed until you can play it without any problems, will exponentially increase your ability to play new things. Techniques will be easier to incorporate into your playing because you've built a foundation. And your timing will be impeccable! Obviously results are going to vary based on the amount of time you have to devote to guitar. But these tips have helped me over the years, and I'm sure they'll help you, too! Peace, love and Rock & Roll! Peace~ Dave Dave "Eddie" Vance is a rock guitar enthusiast and gear nut. He has been playing guitar for over 30 years and enjoys tormenting the neighbors every chance he gets. When he's not slaving for the man, you can find him rocking out with his B.C. Rich Bich guitar, a cold beer and some sweet tunes. He also runs Learn-To-Play-Rock-Guitar.com, but you knew that already! Follow Learn To Play Rock Guitar:I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: dave@learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com As always, please feel free to forward this email to a friend! I review products before recommending them. If you buy a product based on my recommendation, I will receive a commission. However, my emails also contain links that don’t require any investment on your part and are jam-packed with "juicy, guitar learnin' tastiness". We don't rent or share your name with anybody. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends you think would enjoy its contents. They will thank you. So will I.
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