Tuesday, May 26, 2009
You Tube Guitar Practice Videos
"I focused on the left hand. The first lick that got me over the bridge was BCD E (Fret 9, 4th String alternate picking."
"And that's what got me into fast picking. That was after 8 years; It didn't happen quickly. And I don't think it should have happened quickly; I think the left hand comes first .... your left hand steers and your right foot is the gas; If you can't steer, you shouldn't press the gas!" - Paul Gilbert
Piano Lick - Paul Gilbert (all outside picking)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Guitar Practice Tips and Advice
Before I begin, I would just like to say that I am no expert. I am only as good as the work effort I put in. I have simply learned how to practice out of trial and error because I have had no teacher. However, I do know what has and hasn't worked for me in the past. If you are going to learn about guitar, why not learn it from someone who can't stop thinking about it. If I can't stop thinking about it, I might as well write about it.
You must first realize why you are practicing. It's quite simple. The more intensely you practice, the more intensely you will play. There are 2 important principles in practice that all successful people master. First is the amount of hours they practice and second is the quality of their practice. The easiest way to get good at anything is by doing it a often as you possibly can. So sacrifice your hard earned time on practicing as often as you can. I would say I practice 3 times more than I actually play, but that is only because I want to be an expert by tomorrow. I did start off practicing for ten minutes a night and then I would use the rest of the time just to play. But wow how things have changed. Sometimes I feel bad about all the times I have turned down partying to play guitar, but then I realize that Eddie Van Halen did the exact same thing. You simply get out what you put in, so here we go with some Practice Principles.
1. Treat guitar like a sport. Your hands must be warmed up, trained, coordinated, strengthened, and synchronized in order to play the guitar with speed and accuracy. Some people don't understand that playing the guitar is physically demanding as well.
2. Be patient! If you want it bad enough, you will endure the long tedious hours necessary to excel.
3. Focus on your dream and realize that practicing is the only way to make that dream come true.
4. Warm up your hands before even touching the guitar. Clench both your hands into fists and open them back up again. Continue this motion for 30 seconds. Then press each finger tip against your thumb one at a time from index to pinky back and forth for 30 seconds. You need to do this with each hand at the exact same time just to synchronize your hands. (Pic)
5. The only way to strengthen your hands is to tire them out with constant motion. Your hand will only grow back stronger once you break down the muscle fibres of your finger flexors and extensors. (Sorry I work out to, so I will relate guitar to working out quite often)
6. Slow Down! Form is more important than speed. Once your form is perfect, your hands start moving faster naturally. So don't rush it.
7. Use a metronome constantly! I cannot stress this enough. Go to http://www.metronomeonline.com/ and use this from now on. A metronome not only teaches you good timing, but it forces you to keep a constant slow pace. The hardest thing I struggle with is trying to play faster than I can.
I want to shred the guitar just like you, but it takes time. (pic)
8. "Your practice session must sound horrible! If your practice session doesn't sound terrible and annoying to the people around you, then you are not learning anything! I simply mean practice what you suck at and fail a million times until you get it right. This is the only way to learn....Repetition.
9. Focus on your picking hand separately from your fretboard hand. You will soon realize that your picking hand needs to be completely relaxed and your fretboard hand must be as strong as possible. Speed comes from finger strength and relaxation.
10. The biggest mistake when practicing is trying to pick faster than your fretboard hand can go. A strong fretboard hand is really what makes picking fast easier; TRUST ME!!! It took me a year to realize that.
11. "There is no substitute for hard work" -Thomas Edison
You must first realize why you are practicing. It's quite simple. The more intensely you practice, the more intensely you will play. There are 2 important principles in practice that all successful people master. First is the amount of hours they practice and second is the quality of their practice. The easiest way to get good at anything is by doing it a often as you possibly can. So sacrifice your hard earned time on practicing as often as you can. I would say I practice 3 times more than I actually play, but that is only because I want to be an expert by tomorrow. I did start off practicing for ten minutes a night and then I would use the rest of the time just to play. But wow how things have changed. Sometimes I feel bad about all the times I have turned down partying to play guitar, but then I realize that Eddie Van Halen did the exact same thing. You simply get out what you put in, so here we go with some Practice Principles.
1. Treat guitar like a sport. Your hands must be warmed up, trained, coordinated, strengthened, and synchronized in order to play the guitar with speed and accuracy. Some people don't understand that playing the guitar is physically demanding as well.
2. Be patient! If you want it bad enough, you will endure the long tedious hours necessary to excel.
3. Focus on your dream and realize that practicing is the only way to make that dream come true.
4. Warm up your hands before even touching the guitar. Clench both your hands into fists and open them back up again. Continue this motion for 30 seconds. Then press each finger tip against your thumb one at a time from index to pinky back and forth for 30 seconds. You need to do this with each hand at the exact same time just to synchronize your hands. (Pic)
5. The only way to strengthen your hands is to tire them out with constant motion. Your hand will only grow back stronger once you break down the muscle fibres of your finger flexors and extensors. (Sorry I work out to, so I will relate guitar to working out quite often)
6. Slow Down! Form is more important than speed. Once your form is perfect, your hands start moving faster naturally. So don't rush it.
7. Use a metronome constantly! I cannot stress this enough. Go to http://www.metronomeonline.com/ and use this from now on. A metronome not only teaches you good timing, but it forces you to keep a constant slow pace. The hardest thing I struggle with is trying to play faster than I can.
I want to shred the guitar just like you, but it takes time. (pic)
8. "Your practice session must sound horrible! If your practice session doesn't sound terrible and annoying to the people around you, then you are not learning anything! I simply mean practice what you suck at and fail a million times until you get it right. This is the only way to learn....Repetition.
9. Focus on your picking hand separately from your fretboard hand. You will soon realize that your picking hand needs to be completely relaxed and your fretboard hand must be as strong as possible. Speed comes from finger strength and relaxation.
10. The biggest mistake when practicing is trying to pick faster than your fretboard hand can go. A strong fretboard hand is really what makes picking fast easier; TRUST ME!!! It took me a year to realize that.
11. "There is no substitute for hard work" -Thomas Edison
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
What I have learned....the hard way!
Okay so I have been playing guitar about a year and a half now and I haven't blogged for a good six months and honestly I had to simply erase almost all the guitar exercise theory and practice principles simply because I was learning from trial and error. I did stop blogging, but I did NOT stop researching guitar playing whatsoever. I have never been more compulsive and overwhelmingly addicted to guitar theory and practice in my life, so trust me I have evolved to a hire level.
Okay, so I have practiced guitar in so many different ways using so many different practice theories and what I have found is that there is NO short cut whatsoever. For those of you looking for a quick route to playing guitar like a pro, just stop! Simple as that. Stop looking; you will not find it. The reason you will not find it is to do with muscle memory. Your Brain and hands need to slow down and learn the process of playing so that your neural pathways become deeply engraved over years of training.
Your brain needs to remember what to tell your hands to do. So when you try to play too fast, your hands screw up because you haven't learned how to manuever in that manner yet. Simply put, you cannot do something your brain hasn't learned. You learned to walk by falling a whole bunch of times until you got it right. And now your body does it automatically without thinking. Guitar is the same. You must play and play until your hands and brain synch up and learn how to play each note perfectly.
Okay, so I have practiced guitar in so many different ways using so many different practice theories and what I have found is that there is NO short cut whatsoever. For those of you looking for a quick route to playing guitar like a pro, just stop! Simple as that. Stop looking; you will not find it. The reason you will not find it is to do with muscle memory. Your Brain and hands need to slow down and learn the process of playing so that your neural pathways become deeply engraved over years of training.
Your brain needs to remember what to tell your hands to do. So when you try to play too fast, your hands screw up because you haven't learned how to manuever in that manner yet. Simply put, you cannot do something your brain hasn't learned. You learned to walk by falling a whole bunch of times until you got it right. And now your body does it automatically without thinking. Guitar is the same. You must play and play until your hands and brain synch up and learn how to play each note perfectly.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Learn Guitar and Music Theory Here
Lesson 1: Guitar Body and Fretboard (referred to as fingerboard on diagram)
To Start out... briefly overview the various parts of the guitar and their labels to get an idea of how the guitar is set up. You will hear these terms referred to often, especially if you are beginner and are reading articles and books that teach guitar for beginners. I would say the most important part of the guitar to know is the fretboard (fingerboard). The fretboard is simply the neck of guitar that commonly contains 22 frets. Frets are the horizontal metal bars on the neck of the guitar that the 6 strings lay over. In order to sound a note, press the tip of your finger down on any string right behind any fret. It is important to remember that frets are also referred to as the entire space between the 2 metal bars (frets). These fret spaces contain dots (position markers on the diagram) that are a visual ways of remembering the fret number. For example, the first dot is located in the 3rd fret space indicating the 3rd fret and so forth. 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21 are all the labeled frets. The double dots on the 12th fret indicates that the fretboard is repeating the same notes over, but 1 octave higher.
As you notice, there are letters E, A, D, G, B and E above the diagram. These are the 6 guitar string names and are also the notes that sound when you play the strings open without touching any frets.
String Name E A D G B E
String number 6 5 4 3 2 1
Low Pitch -----> High Pitch
As you play around with your guitar and play random notes, you will soon realize that some notes sound great together and some sound absolutely terrible together. This has to do with sound frequencies and mathematical calculations that we will not get into yet. For now, you must understand that the notes that sound good together are the ones found in any scale. Scales are simply a set notes that are known to sound good together because of mathematical and theoretical observations.
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