Is what most of us practice basically useless?

sjo89

If you’re like me, you spend the vast majority of what little practice you do working on playing faster, licks, pentatonics and just noodling.

When of course we know full well the guitar is really a rhythm instrument and in a band context the vast majority of what we play is comping.

Look at any session guitarist worth their salt - most of them aren’t really shredding machines, but throw down a chord chart with rhythms in front of them and they would annihilate most keen amateurs in fretboard navigation, chord voicings, sight reading skills, stylistic choices etc.

Why is it we work on this stuff so little, when in reality it’s the bread and butter of guitar?

drofluf

Think it depends why you play? And it may be different for acoustic players.

I like to play finger style tunes so that's what I practice; I have little ambition to perform and play for my own pleasure so speeding up and making the pieces I play smoother is my practice regime.

Tannin

^ What @drofluf said goes for me too. I spend a lot of time exploring new variations on old themes, which gradually morph into unrecognisable new  things.

I never actually get good at anything because by the time I get 80% of the way there I've thought of something to add on or modify, and I work on the new something until I've 80% mastered it and thought of another improvement which I can't play yet but start working on. You get the picture. I spend many hours a week doing that. You could say it never gets me anywhere because I never actually get good at anything. Or you could say that it is the perfect way to keep stretching my abilities and improving my technique, and something which gives me a little frustration and a lot of pleasure, week after month after year.  Both statements are true.

PS: just to be clear, this is all solo acoustic stuff, which is essentially fancified rhythm playing free of awkward constraints like having to leave room for the bass player and not being able to suddenly stick an extra half-bar in just because you feel like it.

PPS: as for pentatonics, I don't even know what they are. I mean I know that they are the same as proper scales except they have some of the notes left out, but I have never been able to see the point of doing that and without looking it up I can never recall which notes you have to remember not to play. 

PAL

I feel most guitarist start and want to play solos which is natural so go straight to YouTube and try to see how it's done and 
  there is TAB or painting by numbers as I call it. Playing the guitar is more than playing a guitar solo just like the record but 
  that's wat we do and we have all been there. I am an older guitarist so have a different grounding in the way I learnt.
  I soon discovered sheet music wasn't that great but it helped a little so the only option was to use my ears !
  I listened to most types of music I didn't want to do scales and couldn't get my head around them so I relied on the little
  ability I had and found my way around the guitar neck because of my limitations but in a way it payed off because I 
  I had to put more feel in to playing guitar to make it sound good ( to my ears anyway ) I developed my timing and rhythm
  I bought two books " 500 chords for the guitar " and I discovered the books did show you 500 chords but hey where just
  inversions. You will see on YouTube "secret scale" " what the pros do " "How to be a better guitarist" it's just click bait !
  for someone trying to get more views !
  Practice is important but it's what you do when you practice because we tend to play what we can play rather than try 
  something we can't play ! Sitting and playing scales fast to me is just that playing a scale so it's a case of what you do 
  with that scale. The best thing I got out of scales is right & left hand coordination but scales are useful.
  I do teach guitar and I advise people to learn chords and I don't mean just the basic chords go beyond that and learn 
  inversions I know they don't want to but I do feel it's important as it will help every other aspect of your playing.
  The other thing be open to all types of music because there is always something in there that will help with your
   guitar playing.
   We do get hung up on the flavor of the month guitarist but we should look outside of that ! I would suggest watching
    True-Tone Lounge on YouTube where you can see really good player and many of them session players and they
    will give you a good insight into how they got to where they are.
   I notice these days is everyone is into recording which is not a bad thing but with music you need to play with other 
    because there will help bring out the music that is within you. 

CaseOfAce

Yeah basically - you can lose sight of the core basics whilst focusing on advanced stuff like tapping, sweeps, economy picking - which never gets utilised in real world situations...

Case in point - our singer has announced she wants to do Footloose - yep - that cheesy Kenny Loggins song from the 80s.

As a certain Freddie Bulsara once remarked "well... I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear" so I got under the hood.

It's a 3 chord wonder - A and D for most part but with G thrown in at times. Peace of pie.

So far so simple...but wait ... the pre-chorus is a walk up featuring a diminished chord and some Alex Lifeson like chords...
the intro part is a fiddly alternate picked / bendy thing. Some nifty major pentatonic riffs as well.. and the syncopation is all over the place...you've got to be dead on the timing with those chord stabs.
The breakdown Loggins does live features a string skipping descending sixths idea - really neat.

Core basics I utilise again and again during a top 40 set (and that's before we come to the effect changes and vocals/ harmonies).

and this is how pro players approached it...

Live From Daryl's House - "Footloose" - YouTube

Keefy

Nope. These days I mostly transcribe and then learn songs that I’m going to be playing live quite soon.

Thinking back though I used to flounder around trying to play blues scales fast, wondering why I never got anywhere.

If I had to give one tip to would-be improvers, it’s to learn to play whole songs.

AK99

CaseOfAce said:

Yeah basically - you can lose sight of the core basics whilst focusing on advanced stuff like tapping, sweeps, economy picking - which never gets utilised in real world situations...

Case in point - our singer has announced she wants to do Footloose - yep - that cheesy Kenny Loggins song from the 80s.

As a certain Freddie Bulsara once remarked "well... I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear" so I got under the hood.

It's a 3 chord wonder - A and D for most part but with G thrown in at times. Peace of pie.

So far so simple...but wait ... the pre-chorus is a walk up featuring a diminished chord and some Alex Lifeson like chords...
the intro part is a fiddly alternate picked / bendy thing. Some nifty major pentatonic riffs as well.. and the syncopation is all over the place...you've got to be dead on the timing with those chord stabs.
The breakdown Loggins does live features a string skipping descending sixths idea - really neat.

Core basics I utilise again and again during a top 40 set (and that's before we come to the effect changes and vocals/ harmonies).

and this is how pro players approached it...

Live From Daryl's House - "Footloose" - YouTube

It's kind of fantastic - and humbling -  to see how a set of pro-musicians pull things together so quickly. That and the way they all have an ear firmly on where they fit into the overall mix. Wonderful.

Lestratcaster

As a guitar tutor I can relate to this. Most of guitar playing if not all - is rhythm playing. If you're playing a song the solo (if there is one) is about 5% yet everyone wants to spend the majority of their time learning this.

I see alot of trial students claiming to be "intermediate level" as they've been toying around with a few chords, 1 shape for a barre chord and 1 incorrectly played pentatonic scale. They only seem to know 2 strumming patterns as well, and one is nearly always the swung blues shuffle one.

They cannot read or follow chord charts, they are confused on how long a bar or half a bar length is and can't seem to find voicings to suit and change quick enough. Once the backing/drum track goes on they dissolve and eventually have to stop as they can't play anything over it. Also for acoustic pop playing the tied 16th note strum patterns exposes them, when they can't do it sufficiently well enough to stay in time but change the chord smoothly.

Subdividing different note values is another, they can't seem to play a scale 3 different ways, in eights, in quarters and in triplets. Once the click goes on they struggle to stay in time and change.

They may also know the famous generic riffs in rock and pop but the timing is all wrong. To play the riff well you gotta get the timing right. Smells Like Teen Spirit springs to mind, the intro. The off-beat pushes in the Back in Black riff another. That kinda thing. The Wonderwall strumming pattern, countless people can't play it right.

The great players like Jimi, Eddie van Halen and David Gilmour so to speak have a great sense of timing and feel, in order to play those licks and riffs.

Most learners first come only wanting to play the "cool" stuff as they've seen someone else doing it on YouTube or whatever and want to copy that within a short space of time.

The main two areas I always focus first on with anyone playing as a beginner or even as an intermediate are rhythm and knowledge of the fretboard. Get those up to speed and you can pretty much learn any style as they're applicable to all genres.

Roland

CaseOfAce said:

and this is how pro players approached it...

Live From Daryl's House - "Footloose" - YouTube

We were looking at Footloose a couple of years ago, and that was the best version I could find.

Roland

Keefy said:

… I mostly transcribe and then learn songs that I’m going to be playing live quite soon.

Entirely this. One of the joys of playing in a covers band is that it introduces you to songs and techniques which you don’t know. If it’s a new technique, or one I’m not on top of, then I’ll spend time practicing the technique itself. Otherwise I focus my limited practice time on new songs.

sjo89

Lestratcaster said:

As a guitar tutor I can relate to this. Most of guitar playing if not all - is rhythm playing. If you're playing a song the solo (if there is one) is about 5% yet everyone wants to spend the majority of their time learning this.

I see alot of trial students claiming to be "intermediate level" as they've been toying around with a few chords, 1 shape for a barre chord and 1 incorrectly played pentatonic scale. They only seem to know 2 strumming patterns as well, and one is nearly always the swung blues shuffle one.

They cannot read or follow chord charts, they are confused on how long a bar or half a bar length is and can't seem to find voicings to suit and change quick enough. Once the backing/drum track goes on they dissolve and eventually have to stop as they can't play anything over it. Also for acoustic pop playing the tied 16th note strum patterns exposes them, when they can't do it sufficiently well enough to stay in time but change the chord smoothly.

Subdividing different note values is another, they can't seem to play a scale 3 different ways, in eights, in quarters and in triplets. Once the click goes on they struggle to stay in time and change.

They may also know the famous generic riffs in rock and pop but the timing is all wrong. To play the riff well you gotta get the timing right. Smells Like Teen Spirit springs to mind, the intro. The off-beat pushes in the Back in Black riff another. That kinda thing. The Wonderwall strumming pattern, countless people can't play it right.

The great players like Jimi, Eddie van Halen and David Gilmour so to speak have a great sense of timing and feel, in order to play those licks and riffs.

Most learners first come only wanting to play the "cool" stuff as they've seen someone else doing it on YouTube or whatever and want to copy that within a short space of time.

The main two areas I always focus first on with anyone playing as a beginner or even as an intermediate are rhythm and knowledge of the fretboard. Get those up to speed and you can pretty much learn any style as they're applicable to all genres.

Yeh i teach a lot of young beginners/intermediates too and the issue is giving them what they SHOULD practice and what they WANT to practice. I try and incorporate the too best i can but ultimately, the vast majority just want the TAB/chords spelled out for them so they can read it and move on - they don't like to be challenged aurally or theoretically, which makes teaching and working on improvising a real challenge too, especially when I only have 30 mins a week with them.

Another weird thing I've noticed in past few years is kids aren't even wanting to learn the guitar parts, they just want to play the tune, which is usually the vocal line. Kids coming to me looking to play James's vocals from Metallica for example!?

fastonebaz

I reckon I'm soloing for about 25% of my bands live set!  

Danny1969

Most of the time I have to learn songs ... playing in 4 bands at the mo so there's generally songs to learn all the time, done 8 numbers this week. 
What I do like to do though, is take a song or an instrumental and work out how I can play it as a solo piece on guitar ... normally electric but sometimes acoustic. So working out how to get the bass note, the chord and the melody on top all at the same time. It's easy to do on piano but a lot harder on guitar so really satisfying when it comes together. 

With practice though I always tell my students ... practice the bits you can't play, don't waste time on playing bits you can play properly. Too many people do that which doesn't make use of available practice time. 

blobb

No time spent playing is waste, in my view. In fact, even when I'm not playing I'm listening - and that improves my playing. The only thing that I find to be counterproductive is over playing, playing too much. Then you get tired and start getting sloppy. It's knowing when to take a break, which could be a day or a week or a month. That's when listening takes over.

roberty

Tannin said:

PPS: as for pentatonics, I don't even know what they are. I mean I know that they are the same as proper scales except they have some of the notes left out, but I have never been able to see the point of doing that and without looking it up I can never recall which notes you have to remember not to play. 

Pentatonic is five notes, 1 3 4 5 7. It's closer to a dominant 7 arpeggio than a diatonic scale

Arpeggios are just scales with notes missed out as well really. I never understood why they are so useful until recently

Tannin

roberty said:

Pentatonic is five notes, 1 3 4 5 7. It's closer to a dominant 7 arpeggio than a diatonic scale

Arpeggios are just scales with notes missed out as well really. I never understood why they are so useful until recently

Now that is a really interesting way of thinking about it. 

stufisher

This thread is the one I've been looking for for ages. 

I'm so reassured by much of what's been scribed because as an old boy relearning I now know that I'm heading in the right direction.

I normally spend some time in every session just playing along with backing tracks on YT ... I don't study all the scales, just try and play by ear and figure out the feel and flow of the music. It's not efficient but these days the tech is so user friendly you can just repeat immediately and pretty soon your fingers are landing on the right sounding frets.

I play chords and inversions with the rhythm line to get used to the feel of the music then once  I get fluid with one or two backing tracks in both rhythm and solo then I stop, load up some tracks I wanna learn and just play them ... badly of course, but on repeat I can turn bad into acceptable (for me) quite quickly. 

When I next play after that I recap where I got to and refresh my learning for the first 20 mins or so then start on something else, usually based on what I've heard on the radio that day.  I'm sure my methods are all wrong but I don't have get exposure to tons of music and different genres so that's great for me  

I am now motivated to try some of the other practice and learning techniques and see where that leads ... isn't this forum just great for helping us all to improve? I love it 

Sambostar

What ever you do, you have to make it listenable with a melody and make it energetic and often it will be the interactions between people's nuances and ways about them that make this, or at least one or two of you having that driving energy and pushing it.  This is what really matters I feel.  Everything that is dead on that metronomic beat, no matter how elaborate, perfect overlaid or complex just leaves me cold tbh, whatever style of music it is.  Even the best DJ's push the beat mixing as does a lot of classical music.  No offence, but Guns N Roses died a death when Matt Sorum joined, precisely for the reason that he is so brilliantly consistent, he never pushes the beat, where as Adler always did, which gave the music an energy.  Our other guitarist is a great guitar player and rhythmic musician, but he is always locked on the beat and our other guitarist wasn't, the looseness was controlled and instinctively we used to fill in each others blanks and that made for a decent listen, as well as filling out the frequencies.  Now we're almost going back to basics, just trying to get a decent sound, where as before, although technically it was slightly out, bar on bar, it just came naturally and sounded energetic and most importantly, listenable.  We're not great musicians by any stretch, but still you can notice it.

The other stuff is very important, especially knowing how different notes sound in chords and how two and three note chords sound against each other of over the main one, as are turnarounds and getting the right notes, but the basis of actually relaying the story of song to someone is almost anti music in a way, if that makes sense, maybe there is a science to it, but possibly not.

Sambostar

Also, I'II learn the guitar interactions of a song and the things about it that make it, but cannot be arsed to learn a solo or something, note for note.  I mean, it won't be a dental waiting room version, but it won't be identical either.  It'll be what I can hear in my head mostly.

Edit:  The stuff you can't play because you can't hear or remember it in your head, because you don't understand how the notes interact in the chords, the picking style or how the licks are played to make that sound or how the phrasing goes.  That is the stuff you should be learning, otherwise you'll never learn anything and keep repeating the same stuff over and over.  If I can play it and therefore understand it, then I can hear it in my head and play it.  Although people's brains work differently.

Sambostar

Today I'm trying this, about as alien as a forward roll on the banjo to me 

roberty

I found that by practicing various elements of soloing my rhythm playing improved. I agree with your observation @sjo89 that a lot of the best players seem to exist in the space between the two. I think it's a fair approach to work on soloing separately and then try to bridge that gap