How to give your playing a bit of a boost...

Rocker

..play music with another guitarist or guitarist/singer.  Unless both of your musical preferences are miles apart, you both will gain from the experience.

A guitar playing friend came to our house last Friday evening.  Our tastes in music are broadly similar so that was a good starting point but as the evening passed, we tried other stuff.  Tried being the operative word TBH but it was great fun and a bit of a challenge. Interesting that we both used electric guitars straight into amps [usually played at little more than acoustic guitar volumes], no FX pedals were used. We had a "go" at a number of well known songs, played passable intros and brave attempts at solos, not all of which went smoothly, but it was great fun and the evening simply flew by.

For the next night it would be a help if one or both of us knew some song lyrics, at least one verse - which can be repeated as often as required - and chorus, and indicated in advance what song(s) we intended to try on the night.  And the key.

Definitely inspired me to practice more.  Give it a try.

lloyd

I agree that playing with other people is the best way to improve your playing....

Playing in my band with my mates is probably the only reason I still play the guitar "properly" to be honest, I think I'd only pick up my guitar(s) to piss about with. I don't think I'd sit and practice and try to improve like I did when I was first learning.

Voxman

And the way to really up your game is to wherever you can play with folk who are actually better than you. Of course thats dead easy for me! >:D<

randomhandclaps

In general I find the same applies to carnal knowledge.

thomasross20

Lol!!

I think the key, as in most things, is variety... and persistence!

JCA2550

Change part of your technique. I've been playing for 30+ years and have just altered the way I hold a pick.