Never 'learnt' properly now I think its time to.

d8m

Back when I started playing as a teenager I never bothered learning proper technique for ANYTHING.

This covers theory, scales and even things such as correct picking technique etc etc.

My guitar learning consisted of playing tabs of songs I like that I had found on the web.

As a result I can play about 5 songs well and bits and pieces of others(if i found a song with a hard/fast bit I couldn't play i would skip it!)

I would like to forget everything(within reason) I know and start again properly and build my playing back up using correct techniques etc.

Does anyone know of any good resource/resources where I can start.

paulh

I was in exactly the same boat as you, the only advice I can give you is get some lessons. I'd taught myself so many bad habits it was like learning to play from scratch again but its definitely worth it in the long run.

RedRabbit

Best answer has got to be to get some lessons.  A good teacher will be able to see what bad habits you've picked up and help correct them with out ignoring the positives in your playing.

Second choice - check Justin Sandercoe's website.  Lots of free lessons covering a lot of ground.  http://www.justinguitar.com/

TTony

d8m said:

Back when I started playing as a teenager I never bothered learning proper technique for ANYTHING.

Ditto.

30 years later, I went along for a couple of lessons and wish I'd done it 30 years earlier (when my brain would have had more chance of learning and remembering it properly!).

Lick Library do a range of very well priced tuition DVDs - take a look at their website.

ThePrettyDamned

I am much the same, though I don't shy away from a challenge, I've no idea about theory.  I've written a really nice arpeggio clean thing today for a rock song, it's not exciting but pleasant and with the right melody will work nicely.

No idea why, so it's more luck that I've come up with it than knowledge or skill.

I think, if I end up in a band like situation, I'd pay for a few lessons.  I reckon, with a good teacher, just a few lessons would give me dozens of pointers to tidy up my playing.  

frankus

First off, it's really easy to throw the baby out with the bath-water - the discomfort of knowing you're limited (sometimes shame)... a good teacher can help you see the good in what you've got - a poor teacher will simply teach what they can teach regardless of whether it spoils your playing style.

Secondly, what's right? what's wrong? Wes Montgomery didn't use a pick - so he could play softly and not wake his kids, Marty Friedman's creapy picking hand, Al Di Meola's muting with the picking hand, Clapton not using his pinky, Robben Ford never playing vibrato oon bent notes... sometimes what you leave out is what defines you in a good way.

If you have songs you didn't learn the hard bits... THAT IS WHY YOU DON'T KNOW MORE THAN 5 SONGS!! It's humbling, and so often people are their worst enemies chosing the wrong songs to learn or transcribe there's a line I hear at least twice a week "A black belt is someone who didn't give up" - every grade I go up, the more I need to know, the fitter I need to be, the more frequently and harder I get hit and the harder my ego is knocked... and ever will it be so.

Most songs I've transcribed despite my initial feelings toward the writer or musician have ended up with a lot more respect and liking towards that music - which is surprising and difficult for me - I wish it was easier.

I'm sorry if that sounds shaming, but it's all about shame and confronting it, if you've got to unlearn stuff and make mistakes and if you've spent years avoiding that it's difficult - you'll need a teacher who motivates and rebuilds you as well as knows their shit.

I don't know how much of that is imparted in Justin Sandercoe's website these days but he can certainly communicate all that in person. As can Lee Hodgson and Dario Cortese...

It's not even about having a "nice guy" teach me, it's not enough, I tried that with a great teacher who just didn't motivate or reassure - I don't even remember not continuing... even though everything he told me was factually bang on the button.


 

dampoldman

I was in the same boat around a year ago, pretty much exactly as you described. I 'started again' by examining picking technique, fretting technique, even really micro stuff like the angle at which the pick hits the strings, where my thumb should go on the back of the neck. It's easy to over-think though. 

I'd also got too into the buying gear/swapping gear/tinkering with gear and lost sight of why we do this in the first place. As you've found, writing your own music is one of the greatest things about playing, so it figures the better player you are, the better you can write. 

It's a hard slog to be honest. As we get older we lose the responsiveness in our fingers so there is a glass ceiling in terms of speed. What's more important is learning properly how to phrase, how to play cleaning and accurately, and how to develop your own internal library of licks you can start chaining together. A slow player, playing the right notes in interesting ways, will always sound more expressive than a shredder. 

Not that I'm dismissing shredders - I'd love to be able to do that but I think that boat has passed...

ps - another key attribute is stamina, which can only be developed through playing. A lot. 

ThePrettyDamned

dampoldman said:

 A slow player, playing the right notes in interesting ways, will always sound more expressive than a shredder. 

...is an untrue phrase told by blues players.

Expression can take many forms, shredding out is just one of them, and is just as effective as buddy guy slow bending a note up in a blues song.

My favourite way of playing (and therefore, expression I suppose) is hard rock riffs.  Typically with palm muting and popping other notes out.  However, I've recently been writing chorus' with simple 4 powerchord progressions for an octave melody to sit on top of.

Or is that sweep arpeggios?  Both would work.  I'll try both and see which suits best.

samzadgan

I have been in the same boat too...my playing consisted of moving power chords all over the neck...and i never knew how to down pick...i use to up-pick...like a plucking action...actually, thinking about it now, the speed at which i use to pluck given i was playing slayer is quite amazing...anyway, about 4-5 years ago i really got back into playing and i started out learning some more covers from tab...but then i decided i need some lessons. I went to about 5 lessons and was quickly very bored.

since then I've found that the best way of teaching myself to play and technique was watching youtube videos and copying some of the techniques, and also just noodling on a nightly basis up and down the neck, and forming chords which may or may not exist. I still have very little theoretical knowledge but when i put my fingers in a spot that i like the sound of, i mentally save that as something go back to.

I have nothing against lessons, but i think a lot of it can be achieved by private practice, and i also think that way of learning is more creative and more expressive. I find sometimes lessons and theoretical sources may paint you into a corner.

just my 2c..

close2u

RedRabbit said:

Best answer has got to be to get some lessons.  A good teacher will be able to see what bad habits you've picked up and help correct them with out ignoring the positives in your playing.

Second choice - check Justin Sandercoe's website.  Lots of free lessons covering a lot of ground.  http://www.justinguitar.com/

This in spades.

And on justinguitar go through all aspects of the Beginners (you may have missed some essentials)

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

 

Then the Intermediate

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/IM-000-IntermediateMethod.php

 

And learn some basic theory

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/PR-010-PracticalMusicTheory.php

Some Blues rhythm & lead (translates later to rock solos and blues derived playing)

http://www.justinguitar.com/en/BL-000-Blues.php

 

Then explore the site for some of the many wonderful things

frankus

ThePrettyDamned said:

dampoldman said:

 A slow player, playing the right notes in interesting ways, will always sound more expressive than a shredder. 

...is an untrue phrase told by blues players.

umm... better add Jazz guitarists and classical guitarists.. to that... so so much shredding is not knowing which notes to play on the right beats... a good shredder lands on the chord tones on some of the strong notes... a poor shredder doesn't even know that's a useful thing to do.

A good shredder sounds faster as he plays in time  ... and you get that good by? playing slowly and slowly escalating till you play faster than the final piece. A bad shredder plays as fast as he can.

Also playing nothing is kinda the reverse of numbers... in numbers you put 0s in front of a number and it's meaningless (£0000004), put them after and it's really important... (£400000) well, in music the last thing played and the next thing played all of a sudden are more important.

I equate a lot of shredding with that nervous member of a group of friends who feels uncomfortable with silence and has to talk to fill the void... which everyone else is cool with.

ThePrettyDamned

frankus said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

dampoldman said:

 A slow player, playing the right notes in interesting ways, will always sound more expressive than a shredder. 

...is an untrue phrase told by blues players.

umm... better add Jazz guitarists and classical guitarists.. to that... so so much shredding is not knowing which notes to play on the right beats... a good shredder lands on the chord tones on some of the strong notes... a poor shredder doesn't even know that's a useful thing to do.

A good shredder sounds faster as he plays in time  ... and you get that good by? playing slowly and slowly escalating till you play faster than the final piece. A bad shredder plays as fast as he can.

Also playing nothing is kinda the reverse of numbers... in numbers you put 0s in front of a number and it's meaningless (£0000004), put them after and it's really important... (£400000) well, in music the last thing played and the next thing played all of a sudden are more important.

I equate a lot of shredding with that nervous member of a group of friends who feels uncomfortable with silence and has to talk to fill the void... which everyone else is cool with.

Yeah, totally agree with you on that.

I like shredding - as in, listening to it.  I used to be very good at it, but I fell into the 'play as fast as you can' camp.  

But if you listen to Andy James, or Paul Gilbert, or Petrucci, they have very clean and fast technique, but underlying all of that is a strong knowledge of what they want to achieve - do they want fast, thrashy and 'noisy'?  Or perhaps they want fast, but emotive and to convey a sense of sadness, or longing. 

Synyster Gates is a favourite of mine as he is able to create some truly spooky sounding lines, but is also capable of using chord tones and arpeggios in ways that are quite interesting.  

Jazzers quite often play far too fast for my ears - couple weird chords (and I'm sure, sometimes, just plain off notes ) with speed and it *does* sound quite meaningless to me.  But others with better ears than me disagree, so they hear something I cannot, yet.

frankus

I'm in that camp in jazz - I think a lot of it falls under Metheny's law: "all sins will be forgiven if the fourth beat is the third of the chord"...

Then again on a saxophone I'll forgive all sorts of sins and I think part of that is down to "blowing out" on a saxophone being an exhale - notes are going to come out anyway...

the same thing on a guitar needs to be generated (it's not the same level of inaction)...

the interesting thing with Jazz is above a certain speed I don't think swing is possible ... so it becomes too dull..

mike_l

@d8m ; Please define "learn properly" (I mean technique)

I'd hazard that every guitarist has learned what they know in a different way.

For scales start with the minor pentatonic, right across the neck in all keys.

Learn the chords relevant to a key/scale. Remembering a major scale has the intervals T-T-S-T-T-T-S (T-tone/2 frets, s-semi-tone 1 fret)

Major scale chords are always Major/minor/minor/Major/Major/minor/Diminished (no chord extensions).

In C major (no sharps/flats)  C-Dm-Em-F-G-Am-Bdim-C. Now do the same for the other major keys. 

Now (in Cmajor still) play the Am pentatonic over the chords C-F-G, see how the notes fit. Now do it over Am-Dm-Em. See the first sounds happy, uplifting, whereas the second sounds sad. Now you've also learned the major pentatonics as well as the minor, and have some application theory too.