The 'How good can you get by Christmas challenge' !

guitarblaster

Hey guys,

I thought this might be nice idea for a thread and a good thing to get a lot of us motivated and make these next 9 months significant in our guitar playing journey. 

This isn't a challenge where there's a clear finish line, and their certainly isn't any winner in this challenge! It's about us setting out and sharing honest and ambitious goals and then trying to get there in a shortened amount of time. 

If I'm honest with myself, I want to be able to play electric guitar like Jimi Hendrix and John Mayer. They're my two favourite electric players. That's obviously a massive ambition and I'm certainly not going to get there by Christmas! 

I know my weakest point is my lead playing and as well as needed to develop on all other aspects. I know playing lead I often bend sharp or flat, and I'm generally sloppy which I know detracts from the overall effect of playing - so by Christmas I want to work towards fixing that.

 

The point of the thread is committing yourself to play more than you would have otherwise done! Imagine what you could possibly play like at Christmas time with hard work.

So the idea is, just respond saying that you’re in! What your target/goals are and over the next few days post up a video of your current playing. Not a video of you playing your weak points, but a video of you playing your strong points - things you enjoy playing. Then hopefully at Christmas time you can post up another video of you playing, but this time with goals added in that you wanted to achieve! So your weak points that you didn't want to highlight in your original video are now in your ‘good happy playing’ video!

This is my plan for this 'challenge' - and obviously I'll adapt it as my needs change!

15 mins a day - warm up with picking exercises, chord shapes 

5 mins a day - names of notes 

30 mins - Learn from Lick Library Advanced Blues in 6 Weeks

30 mins - Learn Jimi Hendrix/John Mayer or similar songs 

Obviously some days will be more, weekends etc. 

 I’m over at my girlfriends now but hopefully I’ll post up my short video tomorrow.

I just thought this might be a good little motivator for people -  by Christmas seems like a good amount of time to see improvements but also not too short so there’s too much pressure!

Let me know if anyones in! It’ll motivate me knowing I’m doing it with other people and come Christmas time we’ll be much better!

Or if anyone has any ideas how to make this better, post them and we could do it!

frankus

Great idea

9 months is about 3 habit milestones, I'll have a think what I could expect to do in that time.

For me first is fretboard familiarity by June, just got to think about some solid goals and the other two aims

Handsome_Chris

I'm up for this, I'm already trying to develop the technical side of my playing. I've also discovered that my improvisation needs a kick start.

paisleysoul

I'll bite.

9 months to Nashville Chart glory (A.K.A. Making theory interesting)

When I kicked the piano and picked up the guitar in my mid-teens, most of my theory abandoned me. So, over the last few years i've started to build it back up again slowly, partly because I have students asking for more complex lessons and partly because I want to know for my own satisfaction. However, presenting me with a load of theory with no reference doesn't work. It's too dull. So....NASHVILLE CHARTS!

I want to be able to read Nashville charts without a second thought. For those of you who don't know, Nashville charts are chord charts with numbers. Now thats a very simple description, there is a lot more to it than that. Essentially, each note of a scale is given a number, then charts are written out like this:

...meaning you can transpose on the fly from one sheet, provided your theory is up to scratch enough!

I'm also throwing triads into this to learn the two methods together. So learning my scales well, and my chord construction too is the aim! And to start writing these charts out too!

frankus

Ok, so my priorities have changed in joining a band, learning tunes and not sucking are the order of the day, but I did find the practice plans I got from Dario, Justin and Phil Robson... so step 1 is to claim 3 15 minute spots to practice.

I aim to get CAGED patterns sorted so when the singer says: new song capo on the 6th fret, A minor, Fsus, G, up 7 frets open Cm6 shape - I can translate that into voicings that don't require a capo. Going to use find a note to a metronome for that.

Next, years of playing Jazz Chord melody stuff has destroyed my picking been using fingers - so technical exercises required, 3NPS, pentatonic for finger rolling.

Next I want to work on all my Chord transitions, I am pretty much okay with the Chord shapes the songwriter composes with but I want to find alternative voicings and stuff that's less notes like triads is not something I usually play. I get told off for playing nice chords.

That's enough to begin, are we having set days to check progress? Weekly might be good to begin with. Finding the routines for those should be okay, first incentive can be a new set of MMA gloves.

If I hit all my targets I'll buy a right handed Mexican Strat

Branshen

@guitarblaster I truly believe the key to overcoming sloppiness is a metronome. Use it during your picking exercises and you'll improve loads. I'll admit that I've neglected it up until recently, but after a week of consistent metronome accompanied practice, I already see improvements!

Branshen

My 1st goal will be an easily measured one. 8th note arpeggios at 120bpm while sight-reading a real book.

Goal 2: 16th note scales at 120bpm.

Goal 3: Fluent chordal based soloing (hardest cause I have no clue how I'm gonna achieve this)

guitarblaster

Brilliant to see there's a few people motivated! Let's do this! Branshen! Thanks for the tip - I downloaded and metronome app and used it today when doing picking exercises! It really does force you to fret each note cleanly and did make me concentrate on my technique - I can see this working. I like the idea of weekly updates! Your goals all sound great, really interesting and has made me realise just how many aspects of playing there are to improve - I'd never even heard of Nashville charts before! The video idea of where you are now probably wasn't the best idea, so let's leave that! But a Christmas time video would be cool showing how we've improved!

meltedbuzzbox

cool idea. 

I dug out a book I had been meaning to use for a while. Guitar Aerobics

I have been doing it for 3 weeks and it is already making a difference. 

Goal 1 : hit the Jazz. I always flirt with it but never fully commit. 

Goal 2 : play more classical

Goal 3 : practice my singing a lot more

DrJazzTap

I had set a very similar thread on the Rob Chapman forum.....in an effort to stop GAS ......Although I have bought a Strat and a few nice pedals since haha.

I set myself the task of learning harp harmonics...Need to stop biting my finger nails.....

I do want to learn House of Mirrors by Holdsworth and improve my legato technique. And break out of pattern playing.

viz

I have 16 more lessons till Christmas, during which time I will become a jazzer.

meltedbuzzbox

viz said:

I have 16 more lessons till Christmas, during which time I will become a jazzer.

does that mean you now have a wardrobe of turtle neck jumpers? :-P

meltedbuzzbox

meltedbuzzbox said:

cool idea. 

I dug out a book I had been meaning to use for a while. Guitar Aerobics

I have been doing it for 3 weeks and it is already making a difference. 

Goal 1 : hit the Jazz. I always flirt with it but never fully commit. 

Goal 2 : play more classical

Goal 3 : practice my singing a lot more

as an update I have been been doing the aerobics book almost every night. My sweep picking has come on leaps and bounds (despite me not really liking sweep) and my movement up and down the neck is alot more assured/smoother. Big thumbs up. 

I have also been jazzing it up a lot more and my chord voicing knowledge has increased. Also been working in arpeggios in 7ths with some Jazz stuff. Been enjoying it. 

Need to do more classical. 

Singing is coming on :-)

guitarblaster

meltedbuzzbox said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

cool idea. 

I dug out a book I had been meaning to use for a while. Guitar Aerobics

I have been doing it for 3 weeks and it is already making a difference. 

Goal 1 : hit the Jazz. I always flirt with it but never fully commit. 

Goal 2 : play more classical

Goal 3 : practice my singing a lot more

as an update I have been been doing the aerobics book almost every night. My sweep picking has come on leaps and bounds (despite me not really liking sweep) and my movement up and down the neck is alot more assured/smoother. Big thumbs up. 

I have also been jazzing it up a lot more and my chord voicing knowledge has increased. Also been working in arpeggios in 7ths with some Jazz stuff. Been enjoying it. 

Need to do more classical. 

Singing is coming on :-)

Excellent stuff! Well done!

I've been continuing with metronome - thanks again for that tip. 

I've been continuing with the Lick Library blues stuff - I'd highly recommend their dvd/online lessons

and also learning more songs!

I've got down John Mayer Another Kind of Green and currently working through Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and Gravity. 

alvynmcq

My goal this from now to the end of the year is to improve my classical playing. My right hand is pure dung at the minute, I have started practicing Giuliani 120, so hopefully improvement will come soon.

viz

meltedbuzzbox said:

viz said:

I have 16 more lessons till Christmas, during which time I will become a jazzer.

does that mean you now have a wardrobe of turtle neck jumpers? :-P

Mellowwww.

Hertz32

I've got a couple stacks of Modes/Scale/arpeggio flash cards. If I work through them 4 cards a week, then I should be finished by september! That should improve my fretboard knowledge by lightyears and hopefully my imrovising and riff writing too.

thomasross20

I've got a bunch of stuff I'm actively working on. 

- improvising using the major modes but never starting on the E string. 

- alternate picking. Triplets up and down strings. Major scale starting on down then upstroke. Very difficult at speed. 

- the usual legato exercises but my focus is on picking as it's not my strong point. 

- Improve travis picking by learning songs (currently doing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac).

- Improve acoustic playing/fingerstyle in general with a LIGHT focus on singing. 

- continue learning band songs.

- get more familiar with stage gear (PA, acoustic amplification, that sort of thing). 

- finish off the guitar parts for the album and get stuck into drums. Then onto mastering etc. 

- Possibly create a website (definitely soundcloud) for album promotion. 

I love guitar and everything about it - it really fills a void in my life. 

Barney

im going to work through the Jamie abersold book until things become second nature for me...
the one im working on right now is getting it together so working on playing over more dificult chord changes than i usually would and trying to bring out more of a jazz style in my playing...

also iv stopped using legato and hybrid picking in a effort to improve my alternate so where as i would normaly use them and neglect alternate im not doing that now..

i normaly record my playing so i can hear or see any good points or bad points so heres my practice over a Abersold backer using random chord changes

thomasross20

Jazz isn't my thing but nice playing! 

Barney

thomasross20;619210" said:

Jazz isn't my thing but nice playing! 

thanks...its something im trying to do do more this year but my main style is Blues /rock type of thing