How has your guitar playing changed over the years?

fretmeister

Loads.

I was a Billy Sheehan clone for years.

Now I’m playing in a jazz big band with a massive horn and reed section. Playing in most keys, walking bass parts and having to read sheet music.

My chops aren’t as good as they were but I’m a better player overall.

monquixote

Started off playing rock and metal when I was about 14 did that with various bands until I was 22 when I got totally bored with the whole thing and stopped. Got much more into electronic music and stopped being interested in guitar music. Played drums and bass in a succession of indie, folk, rock, top 40, etc bands and became a much better musician with less technical ability. Started playing guitar again seriously at 30ish focussing on funk, soul, r&b type guitar and became pretty good at tight funky rhythm. Stopped enjoying it again and ended up being focussed on obsessive gear flipping and comparing nearly identical drive pedals. Quit my band and stopped playing at 36. Sold most of my gear and 2 years later my ability is much diminished and playing limited to the very occasionally noodle through a katana.

Largely stopped thinking of myself as a musician.

proggy

I started out as a bass player and now play guitar.

@Roland ; How are you finding getting used to a plectrum?

I've never used one before, but my nails are breaking due to lack of calcium though having Coeliac disease, I've bought a few (different gauges) but really struggling to get on with them.

LuttiS

I've slowed the hell down. My idea for a lead line used to be see how many billions of notes you can fit in a few bars.. 

I've also barely used an amp at home for the past two years.. That's not really an active choice thing though, but when i do, i've found the notes are much clearer when i play as i've had to get technique right to make it sound ok when playing unplugged.. 

This year, i've also hit theory. Not hard, more of a gentle massage, but the improvements have been quite noticeable..

TheBigDipper

Oooh! Interesting question that's not about gear. Is that allowed? 

I started out as a guitar player and now I'm a musician who plays a guitar. I used to want to be flashy and fast and now I'm always looking for the one true note and tone. I used to want to learn lots of theory and scales so I could jam along with people and improvise without playing bum notes. Now I'm trying to be deliberately naive (not simplistic, but using my ears for the next note, not a scale I've learned as a pattern). It's more fun and much more personal. 

Oh, and after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me. 

Sorry - this all sounds a bit smug, and I don't feel smug. I do feel happier about my playing, though.

Phil_aka_Pip

Whoever said "The older we get the more hollow our guitars become" was right.

20s/30s - mainly LP plus SG & Strat

40s - mainly 335

50s till now - 335 and other semis, hollow jazzbox, archtop acoustic and gassing for an ES-175

Playing a lot less rock, the blues that I play is a lot less rocky and tries to be a lot more like the way the original blues players used to do it.

@TheBigDipper have a wis!

bluechargeboy

200-odd gigs playing acoustic guitar over the last few years has made me a better electric player in terms of speed, strength and probably accuracy. Like a gym for fingers. It has also led me to incorporate more slides and position changes.

Have recently started to understand proper Floyd Rose usage.

Plectrum technique still abysmal after 33 years; I should probably look into that.

Matt_McG

I started out as a metal/heavy/glam rock player. It was the mid to late 80s. I moved away from that style fairly early, but didn't really develop as a player in other genres for years.

These days, it's more RnB/soul/neo-soul type stuff, or jazz. The jazz is very much a work in progress, although I can make a pretty decent stab at swing and gypsy styles, I'm not "there" yet on bop or later stuff and there's a way to go. I no longer have ambitions to play in a band, although I'd like to get to the point where I can sit in at a jazz jam and not feel like a total moron.

In terms of what I know, it's completely different. I did classical guitar grade 7 about 15 years ago (and could easily have passed 8, but never got round to the theory exams). I can sight read. I have a fairly solid knowledge of chords and harmony (although that's also a work in progress), and my fretboard knowledge is exponentially better than it was when I was playing in bands in my teens and early 20s. My time feel is pretty solid, too. So that's all good.

I've worked again recently on 'blues' type playing, as a foundation for the soul/jazz stuff, and found that I'm really not that great at it. So that needs work. I'm not really a "blues" listener -- no offence to all the dad rock and blues listeners, but I've basically always found that stuff pretty tedious* -- but not having worked on it as a player has been a gap.

I'd also still like to be able to shred it up a bit, for my own amusement. That's a one step forward, two steps back thing. If I consistently work on picking exercises and playing fast for a week or two, I get there. The minute I stop, I'm back to lumpy timing (when playing fast), and poor tone (when playing fast).

* there's a quote from Joe Gore about how he basically loves all blues from before about 1970 and hates almost everything after, and I'm basically with him. BB King? Great. T Bone Walker? Great. Bobby Bland? Great. Endless white guys inspired by Clapton or SRV? Meh.

Roland

proggy said:

I started out as a bass player and now play guitar.

@Roland ; How are you finding getting used to a plectrum?

I've never used one before, but my nails are breaking due to lack of calcium though having Coeliac disease, I've bought a few (different gauges) but really struggling to get on with them.

It’s been a long journey. When I started playing in 1969 I used a pick for single note lines, and fingers for strumming. Over the years I gravitated to playing finger-style on most things. In 2009 I joined a covers band playing songs which required a lot of downstrokes, eg Blink 182’s “All the Small Things”. I dug out my old plectrums, including some which are tortoise shell, and started a search for the shape and material which best suited what I was playing.

Nowadays I use a pick for everything except obvious finger style and fast strumming. I’ve never learned to palm the pick when I’m not using it. I do a lot of palm muting, and I finger pick with three fingers, so there’s nowhere secure to hold it. Sometime you’ll find me with it poking out of my mouth like a cigarette stub.

Roland

TheBigDipper said:

... after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me ...

Too damn right. The best covers involve reworking the song, not recreating the original recording.

Barney

I stopped looking for short cuts cos there really isn't any ..so working on things more and adding these things to my playing ..my playing is going more jazz route lately rather than playing a jazz phrasing over a 1 chord vamp and thinking I'm playing jazz ..my practise time is more deliberate and I really slow things down and don't really look or practise the speed stuff so much in my practise time

Vibetronic

I started out on the rock/metal route and it's by and large what I've stuck to as I love it; still practice massively tech-wise so much better/faster than I used to be, I just really enjoy that sort of thing as I find it hugely satisfying to play. Over the last few years though I've also really concentrated on getting my vibrato and bending better, and making solos musical rather than technical (although still incorporating that sort of thing, obviously  ). 

Brize

Roland said:

TheBigDipper said:

... after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me ...

Too damn right. The best covers involve reworking the song, not recreating the original recording.

If you're a pro musician, yes; if you're playing in a pub covers band, no.

maltingsaudio

Brize said:

Roland said:

TheBigDipper said:

... after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me ...

Too damn right. The best covers involve reworking the song, not recreating the original recording.

If you're in a pub band give it a try ,  if you're playing in a tribute band, no.

Corrected 

TheBigDipper

Brize said:

Roland said:

TheBigDipper said:

... after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me ...

Too damn right. The best covers involve reworking the song, not recreating the original recording.

If you're a pro musician, yes; if you're playing in a pub covers band, no.

It's a vicious circle, IMHO. If you see playing in public as requiring you to meet the expectations of the audience, then you're right. Do what the audience expects, play the 60 covers they want to hear just like the records they already own. You'll get rebooked regularly and there's nothing wrong with that. I just hit the point where I couldn't do it any more. 

ICBM

maltingsaudio said:

Brize said:

Roland said:

TheBigDipper said:

... after decades of playing covers "like the recording" I now refuse to copy a record. If I'm going to cover a song, I want it to sound like me ...

Too damn right. The best covers involve reworking the song, not recreating the original recording.

If you're in a pub band give it a try ,  if you're playing in a tribute band, no.

Corrected 

This. Although I have almost never been in bands which tried to play covers like the originals - just once.

TheBigDipper said:

It's a vicious circle, IMHO. If you see playing in public as requiring you to meet the expectations of the audience, then you're right. Do what the audience expects, play the 60 covers they want to hear just like the records they already own. You'll get rebooked regularly and there's nothing wrong with that. I just hit the point where I couldn't do it any more. 

My experience is that audiences actually respond much better to covers done in an interesting way than they do to yet another near-carbon copy of the original which still isn't very accurate.

And they'll certainly remember you much more if you're not just another covers band which plays the songs like the records.

pmbomb

bodhi said:

Amp's gain knob is on 3/4 instead of full blast.

Sometimes seriously considering turning it down some more.

steady.

scrumhalf

For the first 15 years of playing I would only use a pick. I'm now more inclined to play with fingers, occasionally pick + fingers.

LPManic

I listened to Roy Buchanan. Then it all changed.

stimpsonslostson

When I started out I was all about the riff & the solo- the "guitar" bits!
Now I learn "songs". Only once I can reliably get through a song playing chords etc & doing my approximation of singing do I then start adding fancy/fun bits. 
I came to this realisation at a party, someone plugged in a guitar & I was handed it "you can play can't you?"- being able to play the Crazy Train solo is impressive, but not really musical. Whereas a rock cover of Blank Space by Taylor Swift is apparently a crowd pleaser!