Your Journey to Becoming a Guitarist

cheezyridr · 06-26-2009, 02:07 PM

for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.

cavanherk · 06-26-2009, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheezyridr

for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.

I agree with cheezyridr, though I got past the boredom phase after listening to more acoustic musicians. I wanted to play their songs, so I would print out the chords and practice until I had it down. It became pretty fun once I had a few under my belt I could play.

Edit - I did learn Led Zeppelin riffs before much songs. Then I learned the infamous guitarist newbie song-Stairway to Heaven-and then went to bar chords after that.

Quote:

life is short. don't be bored.

Damn right. Glad we have people like you to remind us...I need to make some changes in my situation

mr dave · 06-26-2009, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheezyridr

for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.

ABSOLUTELY!

to the OP - don't stick to playing what you already know. how would you improve?

when i started learning i went right for the most ridiculous stuff i could get my hands on with the expectation to 'fail'. hendrix's 'little wing' was the 2nd song i tried learning. it's NOT a beginner's tune and it kicked my ass all over the place - until the solo. i could nail that wonderfully simple lead line without much hassle and it encouraged me to keep going for more.

after trying that song for a few weeks going back to 'simpler' tunes that had given me problems earlier on i found myself breezing through some of their more 'complicated' passages.

i think the attitude that one needs to be 'better' before they're able to progress is ultimately self-defeating and worthless. if you want to play lead lines then start playing lead lines, if you want to play complex songs instead of 3 chord stum-a-longs then do it up. there's no checklist out there that you have to hit X amount of milestones in order to be good enough to level up.

Ricochet~kun · 06-28-2009, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cheezyridr

for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.

well ive been playing for maybe 2 1/2 years now, and i havent found any jam buddies yet, but it was alot like that for me for the first year and a half, then i had a HUGE downtime... maybe a month, when i just didnt want to, but the *i want to go play guitar now!* comes in waves. during the down times i try to play at least 15 mins. -> 1/2 hour every day. thats helps me get back when i get pumped up again =P

so i would say play a little bit each day so you dont lose skill while your waiting for interest to return

06-26-2009, 02:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
cheezyridr Music Addict Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: sunny canadia Posts: 131	for me, when i first started to play, i was obsessed. any free moment i had, literally, ANY free moment i had, i practiced and played. i did that for over a year. after that i got up the courage to find other people to jam with, and sought out people who were better than me. i spent all my spare $$ on gear, except for a fri nite pizza and a small bag of weed. if you're bored, i would take that as a sign to move on to what excites you. life is short. don't be bored.