Worst advice?

lloyd

As the title, what's the worst advice you've been given regarding your playing?

Mine was by a tutor in college who made me play with a pick at my weekly lesson with him-why? I always use a pick now and can't use my fingers as well as I used to. Not saying it's his fault! I would have gone that route without his insistence in the 5 or so lessons I had!

Surely you should do what feels right? I get that there's a bad habits to avoid but that's not one of them surely?

HAL9000

^ This. Use to use a pick cos people told me to. However, I'm far more comfortable without and my playing is definitely more fluid using my fingers. And I'm in good company - Jeff Beck, Hubert Sumlin, Wilko, etc.

koneguitarist

Theory is more important than learning songs!

I was told to learn scales and chord structures as that is really important when you are learning to play. 

I favour learn how to play songs.

vasselmeyer

I spent a few lessons with a guy who tried to get me to play electric with a permanent left-hand classical position (i.e., thumb in the middle of the neck at all times). If I wanted to do neo-classical widdly widdly or chromatic jazz runs, maybe that was good advice, but at the time I wanted to be SRV.

ElectroDan

vasselmeyer said:

I spent a few lessons with a guy who tried to get me to play electric with a permanent left-hand classical position (i.e., thumb in the middle of the neck at all times). If I wanted to do neo-classical widdly widdly or chromatic jazz runs, maybe that was good advice, but at the time I wanted to be SRV.

Same here. Guitar on left leg, neck up at 45 degrees, hand in classical position, and press very hard. It took me ages to re-learn with my thumb around the neck and my fingers at more of an angle (which helps with the bends and vibrato).

lloyd

Some bad advice going in this thread! I'd say @koneguitarist is the worst though! I still no next to no theory (and am pretty average technically) but can play a few songs and gig fairly regularly.....I know which I'd prefer

Phil_aka_Pip

koneguitarist said:

Theory is more important than learning songs!

I was told to learn scales and chord structures as that is really important when you are learning to play. 

I favour learn how to play songs.

I can't see the point of teaching theory exclusively. I can see every point in a two-pronged approach:

1. A structured study of theory which uses songs as examples of it
2. A structured study of songs which makes use of the theory so far taught

Theory and techniques give you the tools to understand and play songs. Take them away and all you do is show the pupil how to parrot something without understanding what it is, or how to use the knowledge embedded in the song for other purposes. I never taught repertoire on its own - I always taught the tools required to capture your own desired repertoire. These included theory (how to describe what you're reading/playing/hearing), techniques (how to play what you're reading/hearing), reading, ear training. The Rockschool grades go some way towards this.

Once I taught for a few months a bloke who had been going for a few years to another tutor. The other tutor had just shown him riffs and chords. This bloke didn't understand them, couldn't string them together, and had no repertoire to speak of. By the time he had been with me for a little while, he could read a chord chart and had some idea of how chords fit together in keys. He could transpose a song to another key. He also learned minor pentatonic scales and how to use them in various kinds of songs, and although his ear was not highly developed, he had some idea of how to decode stuff off a CD.

The balance is always between what you do practically in playing songs, and how you understand what you're playing plus your acquisition of the techniques that enable or assist your playing. You can't put the former before the latter, neither can you restrict yourself to the latter. That is why Rockschool teaches scales, arpeggios, and theory as well as set pieces with a little improv.

koneguitarist

lloyd said:

Some bad advice going in this thread! I'd say @koneguitarist is the worst though! I still no next to no theory (and am pretty average technically) but can play a few songs and gig fairly regularly.....I know which I'd prefer

First of all I am not saying learning theory is a bad idea far from it, same as most on here we are talking worst advice that we are personally given.

Learning exclusively from theory at the beginning is to me a bad idea, it can demoralise a student, and stop them continuing on to play the instrument. 

Not every person is a good student, some take to it well some don't. To me the most important part of playing a guitar is making and creating music with friends or other musicians. To say you can only do this via theory is as wrong as me saying"never" learn theory. 

A balance must therefore be struck between playing music as quickly as possible and learning theory along the way. For example, I am not a good tutor and try not to teach if I can help it, but everyone I have taught has gone on to play in bands. My approach is to learn a simple song during first lesson, a 3 chord trick for example, by the end of the lesson they are invariably playing a song and when asked what they are doing, they normally reply trying to play these chords extra, I say wrong you are now playing the guitar, you don't know much, more that some less than others, but you are "playing" the guitar. 

It's like a lightbulb moment, as the first hurdle to get over is to believe you can play! 

The more songs you learn the more theory you will pick up, if you don't want to learn any and just play the thing, in my book that's good enough. If you want to learn more and become an even better player, great do it!

 But it's like talking, you learn to talk before you learn how to read! Lots of people have made lots of money with very little education, lots of people with degree's are stacking shelves in Sainsburys or Tesco's.

And @IIoyd you can play songs and you are gigging regular, lots of people I know don't gig, as they fear they don't know enough, I know which one I would prefer to be. 

JAYJO

Its perfectly safe to put my hand down the back of my amp while switched on..

You can sing.

Use Rotosound 08

you can afford the payments

Its ok to jump off a moving bus while carrying amp and guitar.

Nobody else in the shop will know how to play stairway but you.

jump up in the air when practicing it dosent matter if you hit your aunties chandellier with your headstock making an almighty smash waking the kids your meant to be babysitting.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON.

lloyd

I agree @koneguitarist purely theory would be no fun at all-I wish I'd done more than I had but that will change with any luck-i now want to know a bit more theory-why a chord is a chord etc but time is a factor-I wish I'd do e it when I was 14 and guitar obsessed and time rich!

lloyd

Some beauties in that list @jayjo!

koneguitarist

lloyd said:

I agree @koneguitarist purely theory would be no fun at all-I wish I'd done more than I had but that will change with any luck-i now want to know a bit more theory-why a chord is a chord etc but time is a factor-I wish I'd do e it when I was 14 and guitar obsessed and time rich!

Simplify everything, I am learning what I have been playing for years, just by looking at what I am doing, playing it slowly and working out, why this note works better than that one. I still can't play minor blues scale.

But when asked to play Black Magic woman in a band once, a few guitarists came up and asked how to play it the way I did. Because I didn't sound like anyone else that had done it, didn't have the heart to tell them I didn't know how to play in a minor scale so I played it in a major. Long as I landed on the root notes I could getaway with it as technically I was playing "A" right note, not a wrong one? 

lloyd

Haha why not! I think I probably know more than I realise but could do with formalising what I do know....that said, with work and the band-originals so writing and rehearsing, time is an issue....I could incorporate it into songwriting I guess-I'm lazy though!

koneguitarist

No reason why you cannot get a lesson or two with a quality teacher, who can look at your style and help you develope in areas that need it, whilst explains some of the knowledge needed.

lloyd

Yeah I've been thinking about a couple lessons-I think it would benefit anyone to be honest

mike_l

You need to learn the minor pentatonics right across the neck, but I'll only show you one shape....

Here's a list of the modes (related to the major scale) but I'll only show you one shape (again)....

And I'll only give you one application exercise........

You really need to learn more chords  - than you'll ever use unless you play jazz.......

You need to learn all the theory possible. Rather than learn a song, with the theory and techniques behind it.

 

I'm see ing a pattern here

 

HAL9000

You need to go down to the crossroads 'round 'bout midnight boy. And be prepared to part with immortal soul...

mike_l

HAL9000 said:

You need to go down to the crossroads 'round 'bout midnight boy. And be prepared to part with immortal soul...

I did, the fucker gave it back muttering, it's not worth it....

Teetonetal

The worst piece of advice I had was in my late teens, my goal was to be a professional musician, my teacher at the time told me to concentrate on learnign songs and licks. So I followed his plan for a couple of years.

i thought I could play pretty well, but when it came to having technical dicsiplin I fell short. I had a few auditions with some big function bands, cruise ships etc... whilst I could play alot of the songs, I couldn't cope technically and I couldn't learn a lot of material at speed. the muscle memory just wasn't there and neither was the bredth of knowledge, I remember at one audition being given handwritten sheet music to a mix of Gloria Estefan songs and 5 mins to prepare before playing along with a spliced backing track...) 

Looking back I wish I had a teacher who worked on a developed my technical skill (at that time at an age where the body/brain picks these things up more easily.) I now think my teacher just wanted to teach me what was easy for him to teach.. ie what he taught all his students.

And this is the point isn't it? Some of us love leanring the mechanics of music, and to be technically profecient others couldn't give a monkey's and in this regard there is no right or wrong way, but a teacher needs to be flexible enough to workout which is the way for his student. I also believe a teacher should never neglet one area for the other...

Never did make it as a pro musician, but I am told I am a pretty good teacher

Clarky

ElectroDan said:

vasselmeyer said:

I spent a few lessons with a guy who tried to get me to play electric with a permanent left-hand classical position (i.e., thumb in the middle of the neck at all times). If I wanted to do neo-classical widdly widdly or chromatic jazz runs, maybe that was good advice, but at the time I wanted to be SRV.

Same here. Guitar on left leg, neck up at 45 degrees, hand in classical position, and press very hard. It took me ages to re-learn with my thumb around the neck and my fingers at more of an angle (which helps with the bends and vibrato).

guitar on the left leg is actually a good thing.. because it'll place in in a posture that closer resembles your stood playing position.. I teach this to all my stude's..

thumb around the back... not always.. depends upon what you're doing at the time.. some moments require this.. many other moments do not

press very hard.. absolutely never ever.. I teach to go for the minimum pressure you can get away with plus one smidge of extra pressure to make sure.. in fact.. I get all of my students to do a "go find the min pressure" exercise to get them to learn the feeling of a gentle touch.. over pressure will be the cause of:

- poor dexterity

- poor stamina

- poor intonation [the notes will sharpen on an electric, especially if you have monster frets like me]

- loss of speed

- a quick path to painful tendons

Clarky

Teetonetal said:

The worst piece of advice I had was in my late teens, my goal was to be a professional musician, my teacher at the time told me to concentrate on learnign songs and licks. So I followed his plan for a couple of years.

i thought I could play pretty well, but when it came to having technical dicsiplin I fell short. I had a few auditions with some big function bands, cruise ships etc... whilst I could play alot of the songs, I couldn't cope technically and I couldn't learn a lot of material at speed. the muscle memory just wasn't there and neither was the bredth of knowledge, I remember at one audition being given handwritten sheet music to a mix of Gloria Estefan songs and 5 mins to prepare before playing along with a spliced backing track...) 

Looking back I wish I had a teacher who worked on a developed my technical skill (at that time at an age where the body/brain picks these things up more easily.) I now think my teacher just wanted to teach me what was easy for him to teach.. ie what he taught all his students.

And this is the point isn't it? Some of us love leanring the mechanics of music, and to be technically profecient others couldn't give a monkey's and in this regard there is no right or wrong way, but a teacher needs to be flexible enough to workout which is the way for his student. I also believe a teacher should never neglet one area for the other...

Never did make it as a pro musician, but I am told I am a pretty good teacher

what you need is balance between technique and repertoire.. the trick is to work on technique via the repertoire your are studying..

studying technique alone is dull and makes for a technically solid player that is dull to listen to..

studying songs without getting fussy about technique will result in a sloppy player that knows loads of songs..

getting the balance between the two right is critical