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Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
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“Theory is something that is written down after the music has been made so we can explain it to others”– Levi Clay
The second was starting a band then writing songs, doing some gigs and recording. Each of those made me concentrate harder and practice more.
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I played for myself for the first 15 or so years and my timing was awful. I've been playing with a drummer, bass player and another guitarist regularly for a couple of years now and I'd say my rhythm playing is pretty tight now.
Still can do a solo worth a damn but I'm working on it.
Not that I'm "good" cos I'm not, but I figure I must be "good enough" to other people to seem like I can play -- if that makes sense.
Getting lessons I was bumbling through, with no real direction.
Now I bumble through, with no real direction, but have a vague idea of what I'm doing.
Also having backing tracks to play along with helps. And the "Lick Library" series of DVD's, for learning specific parts. Because of the LL DVD's, I managed (just, with a lot of help from BigJon and Viz) to get through All Along the watchtower, in front of people.
Yes, @Bigjon, and @Viz, All Along was the first time I'd been brave/stupid enough to try that (and Hey Joe) in front of an audience......
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
1. Getting a new wife.
Wife #1 was not very guitar-friendly. Or fun-friendly. Or me-friendly (apart from the money, naturally) after a while. Did the trade-in deal (which cost me plenty but worth every penny), and wife #2 is far more guitar/fun/me friendly. And that's 12 years later ...
2. Getting something I could use to play-along to stuff with.
Currently that's an iRig device into my iPad, some comfortable headphones and a variety of apps. So, I can pick up a guitar and play for my amusement, or listen/play stuff to learn, all without annoying the rest of the room/house/street. Seems to work for all.
3. Guitar Pro.
After a long time of not playing (see point #1), I found it hard to listen to something and work it out sufficiently well to learn it. Luckily, the Internet happened during my exile period, and apps like Guitar Pro now make it so easy to get the basics.
4. Playing with others.
As others here have said, there's no substitute for playing with a drummist and bassist. We only play for our own amusement (so far), but it's far more fun than playing along to backing tracks or whatever ...
Sorry, not quite "the one thing"!
It was a shock the first time because it was immediately obvious that I wasn't as good as I'd foolishly imagined I was but having got over that it's been an enormous benefit.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Also, using a decent sounding amp and distortion helped me a lot. Especially with muting unplayed strings, and pick hand control (ie not hitting unplayed strings).
Also I like to practice things with stupid amounts of gain (Boss Mega Distortion) once I've got my fingers around what I'm trying to learn. This gives (almost, not exactly) a "live" situation of having to control things, Ie when volume goes up, gain goes down, so when volume goes down (Ie at home) the gain goes up for a more "live situation" setting (ok badly explained). Keeping things sounding cleanly played with that amount of distortion is hard, and does help (at least helps me)with controlling the guitar/amp.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)