I figured to spark some discussion by asking what kind of projects and foci you are currently working on to improve your playing?
Working on my picking hand. I’ve always felt my picking hand was pretty accurate, but I know I have some bad habits that should be addressed. I started to become more focused on how I hold a pick, the type of pick I use, and adjusting things to improve my attack, technique, and overall accuracy.
In some ways, it’s a little like starting over after 30+ years of playing. I can’t play every riff, solo, or full song as well as I do when I fall back on “bad habits”, but I know the persistence will pay off. The YouTuber and pro-musician, Bernth, was a bit of an inspiration for me to assess my picking hand technique and start the process of improvement.
Since I’ve been working on my picking technique as well, what were the biggest flaws in your picking technique now in hindsight? I’d be interested to see if I can identify some of them as well
I have played with my picking hand fingers more flared out like an “ok” sign and tend to anchor my pinky finger against the body at all times. I’m not opposed to maintaining an anchored pinky for certain techniques, but curling my fingers more like a fist instead of an “ok” sign is helping control unwanted string noise. It also is changing (for the better) how I attack the strings with a more controlled angle.
I also pinched the pick (for lack of a better description) between my index finger’s tip and my thumb. My index finger was more straight than curled. Now I’m trying to hold the pick with the pick against my index finger’s first knuckle (after the finger nail) and the side of the finger while curled vs the pinching method.
I hope that makes sense.
Lately, sheet music. I picked up a few classical and Spanish guitar books from the local library and have been working on a tune here and there.
I learned to read notes sometime in the mid 80s but I’ve always been slow. I also never really got very good at finding notes on the fretboard quickly. So far it looks like this is doing wonders for both as well as putting some thought into chords and harmony. That will be another thing to focus on eventually. Among many.
Also, I bought a nylon string acoustic that’s older than I am and only fairly lightly damaged for quite cheap, so there’s that. See, GAS had to be involved somehow.
I dug in almost a year learning to read notation, but then other things to practice stole the time. It feels like there are endless rabbit holes to practicing guitar. I guess that’s one of the reasons I manage to keep my unfocused brain interested
forcing myself to read tabs instead of just chords
trying to write riffs for band and getting them rejected [i’m actually really a drummer but guitar is easier recreationally in an apartment]
Sucking it up and actually learning the fretboard and how to spell chords so I can do cool voice leading stuff with inversions and upper structure triads. Painful, but already paying dividends!
Cool! Interested in learning what kind of approaches you are taking in tackling that massive project
Working on better control of my picking hand. I can shred out little groups of 16th notes like in the “No Remorse” bridge or “I don’t know” intro. Little triplet groups, get a good gallop going? No problem.
I have zero consistency when hopping strings between double picked 16th notes. Think “Art of Shredding” intro or “Shedding Skin”. Heck even that one double picked bar of the “I don’t know” chorus gets me sometimes.
I’ve also started using OBS to record myself and my effects chain. I have a ton of “good ideas” saved on my little boss looper but I find that I’ll pull up an idea from a year ago and have no idea which pedals I was using and I end up re-learning the riff by ear.
Now I just fire up OBS, turn on the laptops shitty little camera, and my hands, sound, and effects are all on record!
Well, I’m working on trem picking, because I’m directing a surf rock show at the music school where I work and I’m currently kinda bad at it.
I’m also about to mod my two Pacificas (2021 model 112J and 1995 model 102S) with some TUSQ parts. Turns out Graphtech has a precut Pacifica nut, so I got two of those, as well as some of their string trees and two sets of their import Strat saddles, arriving tomorrow if USPS is to be believed. The only thing that concerns me is that the TUSQ saddles look like little white chocolate snacks and I keep wanting to eat them, because I am stupid.
Trying to use my looper more.
Not only, it’s great when you have no friends to play with, but with a looper you immediately hear any "sloppy rhythm* as the various parts you record don’t superpose well over each other.
Transcribing. I’ve been working on a few Trey Hensley breaks for a couple months. Not sure I’ll ever be able to get them up to speed but it’s taught me a lot of ideas for how to approach breaks.
Transcribing was so frustrating when I started, but oh man is it good for your ears!
I got tired of being sloppy chunking out power chords and generally being really stiff when playing fast rhythm guitar, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to start working on a couple of Iron Maiden songs through Rocksmith, building up the speed and consistency in rhythm guitar.
So far I think I’ve got some pretty good results already, although most songs aren’t really clean at full speed yet. Rocksmith seems to be a really good platform for this kind of practice, since it makes looping sections at slower speeds so easy.
Currently I’m psyched about Rime of the ancient mariner, it’s got such a nice combination of medium-speed gallop and single note lines. Be quick or be dead and 2 minutes to midnight main riffs also make me feel awesomeI’ve been thinking of trying out Rocksmith as a practice tool. Does it give good feedback as you’re playing? Like if your timing starts to drift, will it let you know?
Rocksmith is, I would say, more forgiving of timing issues than incorrect note issues. I’ve seen it pop up a little “LATE” on some notes/chords, but not as often as “MISSED.” Things like string muting and proper tension in your fretting hand (I went from a Strat to a PRS and was fretting chords out of tune due to gripping too tight).
Rocksmith is really fun for playing songs with official backing tracks. As a learning tool, it’s really limited. I have both Rocksmith 2014 and Rocksmith+. 2014, IMO, is the better of the two. The ability to mod 2014 and add custom songs gives you the ability to increase the library WAY farther than the stock DLC.
If you really want to get into it (and this is where I started having the most fun), check out Tonelib-Jam. You can write or deconstruct songs (even using RS2014 files) using the editor that gives you both tab and standard notation, plus it’s got a “play along in 3D” mode that works just like Rocksmith does.
My go-to at this point for just cranking along with some songs is Tonelib-Jam plus whatever songs I feel like grabbing from customsforge.com
It does feedback if you hit the wrong note (or it thinks that you hit one), but it doesn’t really outright tell you about your timing and will accept some horrendous timing if the note was right. In fact that is one of the major points people seem to mention as its’ drawbacks.
Although I would personally say that Rocksmith has been pretty pivotal to my timing (along with recording), since at least for me it multiplied the time I was playing to a rhythm of a background track. The game allows you to loop and slow portions of songs that you like and play the parts on repeat against the original song with a relatively nice and fast interface, way faster than doing it yourself on a DAW. And that little convenience has me playing to rhythm way more than I would otherwise at home by myself, and especially work on hard parts slowed down.
(Can’t stop editing this post lol) Oh and possibly worth mentioning, my experience is with the 2014 remastered edition with popular mods installed (RSMods, RS_Asio and CDLC), can’t say much about the new version
I think the thing that got me out of that zone most was learning to play ska, actually. You can use barre chords and just tilt your hand towards the high strings to get the upper voicings, or you can just learn the upper voicings separately, but the bigger thing is that in order to get the feel right, you need to feel the downbeat and play the upbeat: swing the hand down like you’re going to hit it on the downbeat, but miss, and hit it on the upstroke instead. Seems simple, but is surprisingly hard to really lock in. And once you do, the basic ability to lock in the rhythm hand really tight is very transferable to other styles.
I’m practicing triplets. Again. I have forever struggled with getting them consistent. Every dozen or so I still get my pick stuck and it throws me off. Advice says “Just keep practicing” but I feel like there’s something wrong with my technique. My ultimate goal is to play Metallica’s Battery riff at speed.
Buying more gear so I can sound better. ;)
But seriously, I’ve been playing for a few decades but my theory knowledge sucks. I’m looking to improve that by learning to play keyboards. But it’s kinda daunting to start all over on a new instrument even if you understand many things already.
Trying to record myself more. This forces me into deliberate practice instead of noodling and allows me to analyze my weak points.
