getting better at playing your instrument

[$harkToootth]

Scales are trippy bro. Tuning is trippy. I'm not saying knowing theory is a must but for me it helps expedite some ideas. Especially knowing how "they are not supposed" to work. Knowing scales has helped a lot with getting dissonance and harmonic overtones.

Also if you are playing with someone and find yourself confused it helps to just go "wait, what key are you in?" "F bro" "oh fuck...I know that....I know what I can do with that! I've done this before!"

[Invisible Man]

TEN THOUSAND WHORES

Judges 4:17

[D.o.S.]

I can give you a ton of ways to get worse at it, so if you do the opposite you might improve?

[$harkToootth]

Or just watch guitar moves. Problem solved!

[tremolo3]

Just learn covers by ear, then you can call moves by "the yo la tengo thing", "that brian eno noise" or "the don cab riff".

[sylnau]

I'm not good by ear.

[$harkToootth]

Me and you both. And I'm bad at site reading!

Steve Via has perfect pitch.

[The Eristic]

I'm not good by ear.

You git gud by doing it. A LOT.

I play and teach guitar/bass/banjo/mandolin/etc for a living (if you can call it that). Theory is incredibly useful as a relatively shorthand common language and a consistently expressible method of understanding our harmonic conventions/devices within our musical system, but you still have to really *listen* to it and internalize it all with your ears for it to be meaningful and usable.

Start by getting the intervals into your head and finding them on the fretboard. Scales, chords, everything, all built from or interpretable via that basic set of 12 relationships, directly or indirectly. Once you start hearing them more or less automatically (which usually doesn't take that long if you work at it in earnest), you're golden and everything else gets way easier.

http://www.musictheory.net/exercises has a bunch of useful stuff, especially the ear training exercises. Definitely worth running through a few times a day.

[kbit]

I'm not good by ear.

You git gud by doing it. A LOT.


Start by getting the intervals into your head and finding them on the fretboard. Scales, chords, everything, all built from or interpretable via that basic set of 12 relationships, directly or indirectly. Once you start hearing them more or less automatically (which usually doesn't take that long if you work at it in earnest), you're golden and everything else gets way easier.

http://www.musictheory.net/exercises

Agreed on all points. Intervals have been the single most useful bit of music theory ive learned (aside fron maybe polyrhythms ).

Thinking of scales as specific progressions of intervals has helped me begin to branch out and learn the "wrong" way to do something that still sounds cool.

It felt like I was trapped by intervals when I first learned them because I realized how the riffs I had been playing up to that point were easy/typical. But with enough time it really helped me grow.

[sylnau]

Thanks all! A lot of usefull info there.

[Blackened Soul]

Nothing gets you better than having to learn 4 hrs worth of songs in under 2 weeks and gig

[behndy]

I watched Behndy playing so much that I decided to try a little trick he has where he flicks his hand downward to hit the strings. Every since I tried it, I've worked on getting better and better at it and now I never use a pick. That's my pick if I need one.

Here's a video of him doing it.

[youtube][/youtube]

That is a fun technique, it's a flamenco guitar thing actually, I like to do that on double bass, it's fun

[youtube][/youtube]

hah. i actually want to learn some flamenco and traditional Chilean style acoustic guitar. IT'S ON THE LIST.

i'm skeered of the tiny strings though.

AND SHUSH. COMPLIMENTY THINGS ARE WEIRD. SHUT IT.

but yah. i'm sloppy as butts and have never studied the things i want to learn enough, it's always been seeing/hearing something interesting, trying to copy it, FAILING HARD, but figuring out something useful?

MY METHOD. IMPECCABLE.

[Eric!]

TINY STRINGS, TOO COMPLICATED.

Notes then scales then chords then progressions. Gotta make drilling fun/fulfilling however you can to you

[MechaGodzilla]

Just learn to play everything you hear and you'll get a pretty decent feel for the theory that ties it all together, even if you don't speak orchestra or read music.

Nothing gets you better than having to learn 4 hrs worth of songs in under 2 weeks and gig

^^This!

Also, I came into this thread expecting dick/wank jokes and I was disappointed