First strums to shred - join me 'round the elephant

I’m not the most intuitive guy. And that’s been a big problem for my development as a guitar player, because it seems that most people who become what you could call ‘decent players’ found their way to mastery less by thinking and more by feel.

If American English is your first language, you know about the blind men and the elephant - everyone’s trying to describe the same thing, but doing so without clarity. Looking at the book “Shredders!” and the chapter there on practice just confirms this. Lots of great players there doing their best to describe the journey, but very little in the way of useful, practical take-aways.

I’m actually about ready to finally toss my practice schedule out the window. Regimented, strategic planning has turned me into a “student,” rather than a “player.” That’s not what I was aiming for. But if CTC has taught me anything, it’s that while ‘conventional wisdom’ is not always reliable (I’m finally over my metronome addiction;), there is some kind of unspoken wisdom about improvement on guitar.

Maybe only Troy, who appreciates cheesy last-century analogies, will get this, but… Does anyone remember Greg Brady donning a beatnik vest and hep-cat lingo, thinking that if you look the part, maybe then you’ll actually be cool? It didn’t work out too well for him, granted. But with guitar practice, I think somehow it’s different.

And so what I never tire of is trying to piece together what that ‘way forward’ might look like - to ‘crack the practice code,’ if you will. Not without a lot of speculation on my part, granted; maybe you’re already ‘there,’ and so for you, less. Anyway, this is what I’d offer so far. Can you add anything to the list?..

  • Successful players rarely if ever spent lots of time on method books. Their ‘exercises’ are licks and riffs from actual songs.
  • They recognize that when something mechanical isn’t working (e.g. stringhopping), ditch it (rather than believe that by dutifully pounding away, it will somehow work out).
  • They didn’t take the shmorgasbord approach to practice (a little bit each of like 17 different things).
  • They intuit when a challenge must be met by a ‘method’ (e.g. develop fluent chording by dropping each finger cat-like on its fret - simultaneously), by discovery of correct mechanics (e.g. single-escape picking), and when it just needs to be done over and over again (maybe most fingerstyle play).
  • They are great experimenters. (I’m thinking of @Pepepicks66’s super-long list of all the stuff he tried while developing his picking.)
  • They were often playing out within a year or two of picking up the instrument (though probably not at nearly the level of playing they’d ultimately reach). Lots of learning and encouragement involved there.
  • They didn’t play 30 minutes a day. 3-4 hours is more the norm, and often there’s a ‘rage to master’ phase of a more intense schedule that lasts 2-4 years. (Not saying you can’t get anywhere with short sessions, but it’s clear from all the interviews you read that some major time was invested.)
  • At least as often as not, it’s a DIY job. For every Vai who learned with Satriani, there are several more guys who say they never even took a lesson.
  • There seems to be a bit of impatience, actually, that goes together with the work ethic. Someone out there said that solemnly accepting that ‘this is gonna take 10 years at least’ is a good way to never get good at guitar.
  • They learned to distinguish between helpful/useful (e.g. learning to read music) and essential (or nearly so; e.g. knowing the notes on the fretboard), and made practice decisions accordingly.
  • They followed their instincts about primary and secondary (e.g. maybe first learn to play fast-ish with a lot of POs/HOs, and then later figure out that seriously fast, alt-pick thing).
  • Watch a lot of tv (with guitar in hand; watch the chunking magic happen).
  • And this I gotta say, just to beat Troy to the punch: they spent way more time playing than writing posts on forums. I know, I know…:wink:
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Brian Regan has a new standup comedy special on Netflix called “Brian Regan: On The Rocks”. He says he was worried he might have OCD, so he went to the bookstore to find a book about it. But that section of the bookstore was so disorganized he spent 3 hours sorting the books instead of finding a book on OCD. :drum:

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I appreciate the Rage-to-master point, but I think plenty just straight up loved guitar and loved music. They didn’t look for the ‘next thing that would allow me to meet this or that challenge’ - it was all music and all the progress came from being in a state of flow where you can do all the non-judgemental exploration without even thinking about it. Vai is an interesting case in that he has often said that he has always had to work hard and nothing came naturally and the whole 20 hr workout thing. But the way he talks about the guitar, I think it was all play , not work. I bet he worshipped his guitar more than some men love their wives! In the same way that whilst everyone was brushing their teeth, Guthrie Govan was playing guitar (sorry if that is in poor taste!) :rofl:

Unless I’m getting the wrong idea about this thread (very likely), do the 2 quotes above contradict each other? My question is that 'if the above list grows by 20 bullet points, what do you intend to do with it? Is it any different from what you will do now as it stands?

(Posted just after @PickingApprentice, so my point is redundant :-P) Interesting post :slight_smile:

My only add: it seems that they were all just consumed with playing. Whether it’s called love, or obsession, dedication, or drive – and I don’t think they’re synonymous – playing and exploring was really who they are. It was less practice than it was an expression of themselves, or working towards that realization of themselves.

Not guitar, but piano: reading about Chopin, Bach, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven, they were all their vocations – they all worked themselves to the bone, but playing/working/practicing was not something separate. (Well, Beethoven’s father was abusive and terrible, and Mozart also had issues with his father, but these two are special.)

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Also totally forgot to add - those big names the malmsteens, Satrianis etc. They never had to be anyone but themselves - the goal/destination was streamlined. Vai probably never put many mandolin rolls in his practice, Satriani probably didn’t try to be the best picker in the world, Albert Lee probably doesn’t work on muting because he hates the sound of a distorted guitar and Slash never took up the bagpipes. Yet a lot of us (me included) want to be that guy that can play everything that everybody else does…talk about making the climb steeper!!! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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I feel a bit compelled to comment since you called me out specifically lol:

I think this goes hand in hand with players that want to be better, but don’t actually listen to music that aspires them to do so. If, for example, you only listened to music with very simple guitar parts and just decided to arbitrarily “be better”, you might look for some kind of “guitar method” book that has exercises / patterns that you’ve not seen before. This may or may not stick, depending if you buy into the method, find the riffs pleasing, etc. If something does stick, you might just call it a day and decide you’ve improved, and never push the topic again unless you again feel like you need to improve (which if your musical tastes haven’t changed, you might never want to). I know a few players that fit this to a T.

I think @Troy 's approach in CtC reflects the player that listens to music that tends to be way above their skill level, and really want to get there. Troy has hit on most guitar icons that people idolize, and lots of the exercises / topics revolve around or are derived from their recognizable riffs and playing. I don’t think I’ve seen any content from him that’s not tied to some classic riff.

Approaching the problem from different avenues is definitely critical. You could argue that my “experimentation with variables” I identified and listed is a “shmorgasbord approach”, just with smaller components of the final picture.

This was how I developed technique, because honestly I don’t think I have natural talent. Some people will pick up a guitar and end up playing circles around everyone in a short amount of time without ever thinking about how they hold the pick, move it, string escapes, etc. Luck of the draw I suppose.

This can be helpful, but not a requirement. I’ve seen some “bedroom shredders” that annihilate without ever having set foot on stage. Would they play as well if it were in public? Who knows.

This is wildly varied depending on the player, their goals, how much “practice” was actually them jamming out for fun, or practicing with a band, or playing shows… I think the “rage to master” point is a thing, but it can be smaller timeframes (even just a session or two) for smaller goals (a single riff, not a vague technique goal). Also not every day is the same, let alone week / month / year. I didn’t touch a guitar for most of 2011 and ALL of 2019. Even now I go through phases that I feel uninspired to play and go a month or so without playing (I think I did this October 2020? At least a couple months in the last year). Even now when I try to learn something challenging, I think I top out at 30 minutes before I feel diminishing returns. I’ve said it before, but it’s totally ok to step away from pushing the envelope (or even playing entirely) if you want to.

When I first started playing, there was music I listened to which I knew for a fact I wouldn’t be able to play in at least a year, if not more. Depending on the player, I knew it would be at least multiple years of dedication. It didn’t bum me out, as I was making sure to cherish the small improvements, but definitely drove me to improve to get there faster. The mindset helps me now when it comes to climbing, as improvement (for me, also not a natural) is at a tectonic pace.

This also applies to technique. I have spent maybe 10 hours of my life practicing legato, and perhaps 10 minutes on sweeping. I just never wanted to improve them past where they are, and I figured they wouldn’t help my main goals.

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I agree with this. I get the feeling that @Yaakov is looking for the shared elements amongst “good” players in the hopes that it will maybe streamline his practice / focus, but everyone’s trajectory is unique, even if there are similarities.

Yeah, its kind of a fun thread, but when you have 2 of your favourite players on opposing extreme ends of the spectrum in terms of what they may have done for practice you’re screwed! :rofl::rofl::rofl::crazy_face::crazy_face:

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Lots of great comments, but I’ll just response to this one for now, to keep the thread on track…

I hear that, good question. I should be clearer… @Pepepicks66 said it better than I did. I’m trying to get away from finding a really specific ‘formula’ for my practice - but while at the same time maintaining the belief that there seem to be an identifiable set of ‘best practices’ evident in the development of solid players.

So yeah, if the list grows, I think I would in fact try to incorporate more and more of what’s working for others. And I think (or hope!) I could do that without getting too narrow and ‘shmorgasbordy’ again. (I am, by nature, a real tab-A-into-slot-B kind of guy. But old habits die hard - even when they work miserably;)

Instead of trying to figure out exactly and precisely what better players did (an exercise in futility - though I still want Troy to strap Magnets on the next 100 Squiers that Sam Ash sells!;), I’ve moved now towards trying to understand what sorts of more general things work for developing guitarists.

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And even though he had to work at it, Vai has often talked about the thrill of “being able to do something today that I couldn’t do yesterday.” That is, Vai had strong intrinsic motivation from the feeling he got when he made progress, however he was defining it at some particular time. So while he may not have thought “I’m gonna grind away for 2 years so I can become great”, he was consistently thinking something along the lines of “I’m gonna grind away today at that thing I’ve been working on lately, because it’s gonna feel so good when I finally get it.” Not that I’m saying this is the best approach for everybody, or even that it was the optimal approach Vai could have taken, just that it’s how he has characterized what his experience was.

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That’s a good point. I think you’re saying that there’s more focus when you’re following your own interests/strengths, as opposed to watching great players and constructing this list - ‘gotta do that, gotta learn that, want that techique,’ etc etc. In a word, less is more.

I agree. But by ‘shmorgasbord,’ I meant writing out a schedule with 15-20 different things on it (which I’ve done multiple times). You end up doing little amounts of everything, and get nowhere.

That’s another good addition to the list. Call it: enjoying the small victories.

I’m getting the feeling that you lean to the planning side of things too much. As a suggestion, focus on one thing in your next session (getting a riff to feel more consistent, for example). Once you get that, identify something else that’s likely attainable within a session or two, and attain that. I hope this makes your playing less regimented and feel more organic as to what the session will lead to (we all have good days and bad days, and you need to be able to identify them and play accordingly).

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Its a good point. I think its great to have a list of things you COULD do as opposed go a list of things you HAVE to do. I think whats important to understand the type of practice you need to do. A planned rotational regime is great for keeping on top of things you already have - its a methodical way to organise these known elements. However, if you are trying to get something new, you will need a more experimental approach that might require a more random/unplanned practice session.

@Yaakov, my 1st thought of your failed ‘shmorgasbord’ was that although I think the variety in a practice session is a great thing, if each element shares the same major problem, it kills the variety! Depending on how sighted you are on the key issue, would determine the likelyhood of making progress on any of these elements.

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Yeah, totally hear both of you. Today pretty much all I did for hours was work on one song. In the past, I’d have worked it for 20 minutes tops; today I just pounded it and made progress I’m happy with.

Learning, slowly, to think outside my little box;)

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Sort of talking out of my ear now, since I was in bands on bass but never guitar… I think when you’re a basement player like me, one thing on my list - play out sooner rather than later - is actually a really big thing for development. Meaning that when you do play out, you’ve got a set list, and then one day you’re able to add a song that had something tricky… and it’s like, ahhh, I’m improving.

When you’re in the basement (bedroom, garage, whatever), you tend to focus more on skills than songs. So you bang away and your technique improves, a tiny bit here and a tiny bit there… and basically you feel like you’re hardly getting better.

When the growth curve looks less like a curve and more like steps - flat line, then a vertical line, then flat, then vertical again - you see and feel the improvement. With the ‘curve’ (gradual-gradual-gradual - the way it is when you’re not performing any of your stuff) - it just doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.

Again, the theme of the OP, I’m trying to be less theoretical about practice/improvement these days, and looking more at real life experience as my guide. Gotta admit that I never heard about any famous player having played alone in his bedroom for 5 years before he made things real by jamming & performing. If so, I might be attempting the impossible.

I wonder if this is an issue for others, especially during Covid and with a lot of people picking up guitar without intention to play with a band (at least in the beginning)…?

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I use a mixture of straight technical practice and then playing songs. Every practice.

I start with warmups, then specific technical skills. I will spend half my practice time on this. 30 minutes usually. Then I switch to the musical part of practice. Songs, riffs, licks, timing, for 30 minutes.

Once or twice a week, I will switch it up to be a full practice of just learning all the rhythm parts of a new song and playing it through. Or just working on a single technical skill for the whole hour.

I also keep this structure as more of a guideline than law. Sometimes I’m not feeling it, and go in a completely different direction. I will get my acoustic and just practice all my chords, learn a few new ways to play them, or jam some classic Johnny Cash.

I guess my point is that I learn by keeping it fresh, making sure I get a good mixture of skills and practical playing experience and always feeling good about what I did that day.

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That’s big. That could go on my list, above:)

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