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Well, only mildly ashamed.
I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
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.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
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.
At home in the French backwaters
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
You mean, pro gig reviewers don't actually know anything about musicianship???
Shocker :-O
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)
@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.
Any tips for remembering chord sequences? I guess repetition is the key really....and maybe just learning one song at a time.
@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.
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.
Ringleader of the Cambridge cartel, pedal champ and king of the dirt boxes (down to 21)