What have you learnt this year?

Fuengi

Not sure if this is the right section... 

A good year for fiddling with guitars and parts, if nothing else 

I have learnt to finally play a major barre chord from the 5th string!

I can play a little fill in every minor / major position, although my timing is still dreadful. 

I have made my first few overdrive pedals and can identify some basic components (thanks @Danny1969 )

I've put together my first partscaster and it sounds and plays great (thanks @rexter )

Funny how if you just keep at it you keep learning (thanks The Fretboard Forum for all the help and tips). 

LordOxygen

I have learnt that I like Telecasters. 

Grampa

Hmm, I learnt "if it ain't broke, don't f**k with it", especially where guitars are concerned.

munckee

I’ve learned that after years with strats and teles I’m actually a Jaguar man. As well as strats and teles obvs!

poopot

I have learnt that unless I’m gigging I don’t actually like guitars!...

JerkMoans

I've learned not to place my nephew's pet chameleon onto a tartan rug

ArchtopDave

How important music is to me. Whether that's in terms of playing by myself or in a band, or going out to gigs and concerts.

Winny_Pooh

How better to tastefully use chromatics in lines. 
Started playing slide after only doing lap steel to date. (Short slide, middle finger is what works for me.)
I learned the Pat Metheny slur (instead of: 5/7, you go 5h6h7 fast) by chance after skimming a Rick Beato video.
A bit of an Allan Holdsworth sounding trick of using pinky slides to get 5 note lines or 3rd finger slides for 4 note lines 

brojangles

I've always been scared of fingerstyle so I finally tackled some and learned Never Going Back Again by Fleetwood Mac and a guitar arrangement of the prelude from the first Bach cello suite. It took me 3 weeks of quite hard work to be able to play the Bach piece through (and more time to get it up to tempo). The Fleetwood Mac song took about five times longer. 

LastMantra

I done my first ollie in 30 years. 

Fez

Some new songs:
Motorhead, City Kids, Dancing in the moonlight, Boney Maronie, A change would do you good, beer drinkers and hell raisers & 16tons. Others still in the works:
Promised land & Ghost riders in the sky.

Lestratcaster

That my lead sound must have delay and reverb. Reverb is great. Never used it much in the past.

TTBZ

Lestratcaster said:

That my lead sound must have delay and reverb. Reverb is great. Never used it much in the past.

Same, I've been getting more into it since I got the Neural Plini trial. Not really sure what if anything the reverb on there is based on, but it sounds awesome. Would quite like to find something like that in a pedal that isn't an expensive Strymon unit. On other gear I've learnt to stop fannying about with Fender style guitars, they just don't work for me with the longer scale length and bigger feel. I'll stick to Gibson designs which are so much more comfortable and easier to play. 

Song wise I haven't really learnt that much, I learnt the solos in Alive (Pearl Jam), Rosanna and Easy Lover, a few Mastodon full songs. Most of my playing focus over both lockdowns has been writing with the band we formed just before the first lockdown - we've only met a handful of times in the break between lockdowns but have written loads of stuff. Bandlab has been the saviour.

p90fool

That I don't like Rickenbackers.

Boy that was an expensive year....

Sassafras

That no longer being able to play hasn't curbed my interest in all things guitar related, unfortunately.

Chris.B

Trying to learn for several years from YouTube videos and books in between work and travel, I was getting nowhere. I retired early last year and in January of this year found a local teacher.

In the 11 months of taking weekly lessons, I've made steady progress and enjoying the learning process. At 60 years old I just have to accept that it's going to take longer, but I practice every day and slowly but surely I am working my way towards being able to play.  In my case dogged determination replaces natural talent. 

Being a lefty, GAS is not so much of a problem, I just have to suffer the frustration of seeing so many beautiful guitars in the shops and then finding a couple of dusty old southpaw models in the corner, although the availability of LH guitars does seem to be improving. 

skullfunkerry

First of all, I (re)learnt that writing music and making it available for other people to hear is a great feeling.

Then I 'learnt' (realised) that I'm really starting to miss gigging now.

Next, I learnt that even though I'm more than happy to stand on a stage and play in front of people, the thought of doing some playthrough videos and putting them on YouTube is quite daunting...

After that, based on comments on some stuff I posted on here, I learnt that some people like my playing, some even think it's quite impressive and so I think it's probably good enough for some YouTube videos.

Most recently, I learnt that shooting videos to put on YouTube is very time-consuming...

Next thing to learn is how to edit videos

Alexlotl

How the Vox Top Boost tone stack controls interact. It’s really impressively unintuitive, I had to download a tone-stack calculator frequency visualiser to really understand it.

That VVTT controls on a guitar, which I always thought I wanted, are actually a faff, and I much prefer the simple, quick-to-adjust two-knob VT system.

That my playing comes on a lot more when my gear stays static, as I spend less time tone chasing and more time getting on with it. Not sure I'm going to take this last lesson to heart, though!

thegummy

skullfunkerry said:

First of all, I (re)learnt that writing music and making it available for other people to hear is a great feeling.

Then I 'learnt' (realised) that I'm really starting to miss gigging now.

Next, I learnt that even though I'm more than happy to stand on a stage and play in front of people, the thought of doing some playthrough videos and putting them on YouTube is quite daunting...

After that, based on comments on some stuff I posted on here, I learnt that some people like my playing, some even think it's quite impressive and so I think it's probably good enough for some YouTube videos.

Most recently, I learnt that shooting videos to put on YouTube is very time-consuming...

Next thing to learn is how to edit videos

Absolutely. When playing live and you make a mistake, even if anyone spotted it, it's gone from existence a second later.

On a record it's there forever.

Something I hate, and still get affected by despite being recording myself playing instruments for 20 years, is that I can sit and play a part over and over flawlessly without thinking about it then as soon as I hit record I suddenly start thinking about it and mess up!

Greatape

No great leaps - marginal gains in reading, understanding harmony. Worked hard on time and playing through changes using triads contained in or related to the underlying chord. Worked on a few new standards. 

midlifecrisis

i dont need anymore guitars, amps, pedals, but to use what i have. however i have bought a cello so cello GAS could become a thing.