perpetual beginners

clare_bear · August 2013

Any other perpetual beginners out there? It doesn't matter how long ago I first picked up the guitar, I never seem to get any better!

I've obviously never practiced very efficiently. On the plus side, I'm probably not much worse than I was when I stopped playing about 2 years ago, to have my son :-) Much less to catch up on if you're not very good to start with.

Sporky · August 2013

And proud.

Well, only mildly ashamed.

ddlooping · August 2013

Clare, sometimes it's harder when you try to teach yourself. Have you taken any lessons recently? (with a good teacher that is)

digitalscream · August 2013

It would probably be somewhat disingenuous to call myself a beginner, but I'd say I'm somewhere on the advanced side of "intermediate". My problem is that I absolutely can't seem to improve past where I was about 5 years ago, and in some ways I've gone backwards. The one thing that has improved is my rhythm playing (I can actually write decent riffs now), but that's it.

holnrew · August 2013

Yeah, that's me. I know what I should and could be doing, but don't. I've got some enthusiasm going now though, thanks to this forum.

birdo · August 2013

Me to. Playing on and off for 18 yrs and haven't got any better for the last 10. It is focused practice I need but it's just to easy to play the things you know and hard to learn new ones. So I take the path of least resistance.

VimFuego · August 2013

*raises hand* here Miss. I seemed to be making pretty solid progress until about 5 years ago. Mashed up my "gesturing" finger on my fretting hand and playing was painful and I got out of the habit of regularly picking up a guitar. So now when I do it takes me an awful lot of effort to get within sight of where I was, then I kinda go off the boil again.

clare_bear · August 2013

ddlooping;4699" said:
Clare, sometimes it's harder when you try to teach yourself. Have you taken any lessons recently? (with a good teacher that is)

I've not found a good teacher, not one nearby. I wouldn't have time now, so I'll have to stick with perpetual beginner for the time being.

mike_l · August 2013

Similar to @Digialscream Sometimes I seem to go backwards. I do keep trying to learn stuff, but as on alternate weeks I work until 6, by the time I can pick up a guitar it's nearly time to put it down...

wordy · August 2013

I spent a couple of years just trying to play songs on an acoustic and really didnt study the guitar at all, I just learned the chords I needed to play songs that I liked. I suppose that now after a bit of a warm up (or about 6 beers) I can probably knock something out, with a bit of style, that sounds ok to the uninitiated, if I can remember the chords.

I think this period helped me develop some strength and dexterity, and realise that actually you can learn things that initially seem almost impossible. I'm sure though that if you naturally have quite good coordination, then you can get to my level much, much quicker.

There's a bloke at work who has literally just started, and when I talk to him, I realise.... the thing with playing the guitar is that you forget how far you have actually come. To a genuine beginner, even fretting a C chord is difficult, and then there's muting the bottom E.... I suppose the fact that I just do all this automatically now, means I'm not a beginner.

I'm still not good though.

clare_bear · August 2013

We need a category between beginner and intermediate! Interinner? begediate? (which sounds like big idiot!)

mike_l · August 2013

begediate, I'm nicking that. Mostly as I'm a bigidiot. :-)

NPP · August 2013

birdo said:

Me to. Playing on and off for 18 yrs and haven't got any better for the last 10. It is focused practice I need but it's just to easy to play the things you know and hard to learn new ones. So I take the path of least resistance.

I'm in the same boat, playing for nearly 30 years now but very little time, no playing with other people, and hardly any progress at all over the last 15 or so. Frustrating! But better than not being able to play at all ...

TTony · August 2013

If you ever find anyone who claims to have mastered the guitar (or any other musical instrument for that matter), you'll have found someone with an excess of self-confidence.

If no-one can really be finished, the most we can claim is that we're beginners who have made more or less progress in any one of an infinite number of directions depending on why we play, what we play, what we play for, etc.

I think it's more important to enjoy playing, rather than to beat yourself up because you don't think you've achieved some arbitrary (and quite probably irrelevant) "standard".

That's my excuse anyway. I'm a beginner, and I enjoy it.

john87300 · August 2013

TTony said:

I think it's more important to enjoy playing, rather than to beat yourself up because you don't think you've achieved some arbitrary (and quite probably irrelevant) "standard".
Well said, sums it up perfectly!

digitalscream · August 2013

TTony said:

If no-one can really be finished, the most we can claim is that we're beginners who have made more or less progress in any one of an infinite number of directions depending on why we play, what we play, what we play for, etc.

You're missing the point. We have to know where we are, so that we can say "that guy's crap!" when we go to see other bands' gigs

ddlooping · August 2013

digitalscream said:

You're missing the point. We have to know where we are, so that we can say "that guy's crap!" when we go to see other bands' gigs

You can always say "That guy's crap", regardless of your own musical/technical abilities. That's how professional critics/reviewers make their living.

TTony · August 2013

digitalscream said:
You're missing the point. We have to know where we are, so that we can say "that guy's crap!" when we go to see other bands' gigs

In my - albeit limited - experience, the person most likely to be shouting out "that guy's crap!" is the person who least knows their own level of accomplishment

mike_l · August 2013

ddlooping said:

You can always say "That guy's crap", regardless of your own musical/technical abilities. That's how professional critics/reviewers make their living.

You mean, pro gig reviewers don't actually know anything about musicianship???

Shocker :-O

[Deleted User] · August 2013

I started playing at 15. I'm now 36 and have had several sabbaticals from guitar over the intervening years; some of several years concurrently. As a result I'm nowhere near the player I was at 18.

These days I'm only playing for my own pleasure, so don't tend to get hung up on my lack of progress.

tonyrath · August 2013

I have been playing about 50 years and teaching for about 11. Conclusion is we are all on the same ladder its just that some are higher up than others. Going to a teacher will only help if you can devote time every day to sustained focussed practicing even if its only 15 minutes per day. Stop start does not work.because muscle memory does not develop.

I would suggest beginner plus as the next stage after beginner

Bellycaster · August 2013

@clare_bear

It does feel sometimes like I don't improve, but I think it's very gradual and probably don't notice it. I do some proper practice but it doesn't amount to a lot of time each day.

I tend to only practice what I intend to use rather than practicing something for the sake of it. The rest of my playing time I like to just "Play the Guitar" and study guitar theory.

I got myself in a state recently with alt picking excercises and I was overdoing them and becoming bored and frustrated, it was becoming like "Work".

I still practice that but less so. I would rather see the improvement more gradual than trying to make it a "Sprint".

I also tend to be impatient and expect unrealstic levels of improvement in short time periods.

If you play the Guitar everyday and are always trying to learn something, whether its a song or a solo, you can't help but get a little better over time. It just wont be as much an improvement as someone who lives for practice.

Realistically, anyone who hasn't got all day to practice and put in an 8 hour a day dedicated routine is not going to become a Virtuoso. That's how long a FULL practice routine would take covering every discipline. How many ordinary people with jobs and commitments do that? Not many.

clare_bear · August 2013

I think much of my problem is that I don't remember songs unless I play them about 200 times! The only song I can remember when I pick up my acoustic is 'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)'. So it always feels like I'm a bit rubbish.

Any tips for remembering chord sequences? I guess repetition is the key really....and maybe just learning one song at a time.

Bellycaster · August 2013

@clare_bear

Repetition certainly goes some way. I'm not being facetious, but you could always have yourself a folder of songs, either paper or electronic and log the songs you have learned and their chords etc. I used to do this because I really go to town learning songs and solos, I learn too many I think.

I now just list the songs/solos I've learned as my memory for how to play them is getting better.

I still have to cheat and go back to the internet for tab to remind myself of a chord I may have forgotten etc.

I don't know if you've started to learn any beginners theory, but that certainly helps de-clutter your head as instead of seeing songs as just a succession of chords and solos as just a long line of notes, it helps you put things into Keys and scales that are used in a given song.

Learning the positions of the Major Scale and Pentatonic Scales is very usefull and also learning about Diatonic sequences(the chords in a given key). Lots of songs use similar chord patterns like the I IV V progression(first, fourth and fifth chord in a key)

Break songs down into mini sections too and especially solos.

I highly recommend Justin Sandercoe's "Justin Guitar" website and also Fretjam, you can learn a lot from those 2.

clare_bear · August 2013

Thanks @Bellycaster. I've been using the Justin guitar beginner's course. Maybe I need to write down the chord progressions for songs and think about the theory. I'm always too busy rushing to play and time has certainly told me that this is not much use. Slow down to speed up should be my mantra!

Bellycaster · August 2013

clare_bear said:

Thanks @Bellycaster. I've been using the Justin guitar beginner's course. Maybe I need to write down the chord progressions for songs and think about the theory. I'm always too busy rushing to play and time has certainly told me that this is not much use. Slow down to speed up should be my mantra!

Probably mine too, I'm guilty of wanting to know everything "Yesterday".

Just try to enjoy what time you get.

[Deleted User] · August 2013

@Clare do you look at your tabs/chord sheets while playing?

I find this one of the main barriers to successfully committing songs to memory.

I have several ring binders, and loads of electronic tabs which I look at whilst playing.

There are relatively few of those songs which I actually "know" off by heart.

The only songs I can remember inside-out are the ones I've made a committed effort to memorise by forcing myself to practice without looking at the reference material.

I usually take it a section at a time. Intro, first verse, chorus, solo etc. I learn a section by looking at the material and playing along. Then I'll play along without looking at the material. I do this as many times as I need to so it "sticks". Then I move onto the next section. When I've got that, I put them together, playing the whole thing up to that point without reference to the tab/sheet.

Before you know it you'll have played a song 10s of times, without looking at chords/tabs, and if you make the effort to play that song each day over the next wee while, most of them "stick".

Works for me.

One caveat. This is a time consuming way of memorising songs, so I tend to only use it for ones that I really like or intend to use in a public environment. For all the others that I just want to play now and again, I just refer to tabs etc.

Facepalm? Really? Why? I'd genuinely like to know...

randomhandclaps · August 2013

Clare, do you live anywhere near a crossroads?

monquixote · August 2013

@BigPaulie is totally right here. I always try and avoid having music with me at rehearsal as you can play something twenty or thirty times with music and still not know it.

Interestingly I've been playing with a few pro brass players who will say "Do you want me to play dots or ear?" because it's so completely different a way of playing.

They could walk in of the street be given a book of sheet music and play the whole gig note perfect, but have no idea what they just played because it goes straight from the page to the fingers without going into the brain.

I should also add that I'm a lazy bastard and all of the skill that I do have came from when I was at university and had huge tracts of free time. I'm probably not technically as good as I was when I was 18, but I can play a gig in front of a big crowd without nerves (and look like I'm enjoying myself), can learn a set full of songs in short order and integrate with a band so though I'm technically total balls compared to a lot of you guys I consider myself a reasonable musician.

digitalscream · August 2013

monquixote said:

@BigPaulie is totally right here. I always try and avoid having music with me at rehearsal as you can play something twenty or thirty times with music and still not know it.
Interestingly I've been playing with a few pro brass players who will say "Do you want me to play dots or ear?" because it's so completely different a way of playing.
They could walk in of the street be given a book of sheet music and play the whole gig note perfect, but have no idea what they just played because it goes straight from the page to the fingers without going into the brain.

I should also add that I'm a lazy bastard and all of the skill that I do have came from when I was at university and had huge tracts of free time. I'm probably not technically as good as I was when I was 18, but I can play a gig in front of a big crowd without nerves (and look like I'm enjoying myself), can learn a set full of songs in short order and integrate with a band so though I'm technically total balls compared to a lot of you guys I consider myself a reasonable musician.

There's a laugh...I'm totally lazy, couldn't read sheet music to save my life, can just about follow a chord chart if absolutely necessary and reading tab is a "sit down and work it out" thing as a last resort. I'm also technically a mess. It's a bit embarrassing, really

However, the one thing I can do is memorise a song...

Quite a few musicians I've played with, though, were very adept at sight-reading to the point where they relied on it and couldn't memorise a whole song even under ideal conditions. They were excellent players, but I have a hard-and-fast rule about no music stands on stage; it may look fine in a brass band or an orchestral setting, but not in a rock band - so I had to let them go. The way I see it, you learn the same way you're going to play; if you can't keep it in your head at home, you've got absolutely sod-all chance on a noise-filled stage with a couple of hundred people staring at you.

My advice would be...if you're struggling to keep stuff in your mind, write out the chord sheets and then throw them away. Try to play it - a section at a time if need be - and if you can't, write it and chuck it again. Rinse, repeat until it's all in your head.

mike_l · August 2013

My way is to use the sheet music/DVD to get the part right, then play through a few times without it, from the beginning of the song.

So it's intro

the intro/verse1

then intro/verse1/chorus

etc

So I'm adding a part each time until I know the whole song.

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