like the topic said,

i would like to know how to improve guitar playing, yeah exercise would do good but what kind of exercise? how long should the routine be?

shares your opinion it here and if u could, maybe u can shares your own way on improving with guitar =)




like me, im using a rubber band and wrap it around my finger while playing, yeah it do increase my finger strength tremendously in short time but i rather find it were quite painful and not tat comfortable to play at the start.



yeah.. my finger condition were not tat good, just started playing guitar and hee.. what to do





This post has been edited by mushimushi88: Oct 17 2008, 05:21 PM

watch youtube videos, play cover songs, get tabs/chords for those songs..... learn as many chords as you can (you can never learn 'too many' chords)

This site: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Guitar/Print_Version has quite a lot of useful information.

rubber bands.... wont that restrict blood flow

it did block the blood flow.. sometimes i play until my finger goes numb!

but my friend suggest this method and presumably he say it works. so i try it since i got nuthing to lose
the result were slowly shown but its PAINFUL and hard! try it =)

any other suggestion that we beginners can try? thanks for the wiki kinetix =)

This post has been edited by mushimushi88: Oct 17 2008, 05:22 PM

lolz u sure that helps?

i think practice helps. it improves your muscle memory and articulation. i guess thats pretty important in any instrument.

Try putting tissues between the rubber band and ur fingers..
You need to practice lots of scaled to be good.

haha yeah true oso. if u know what u're doing its fine. each person has their own technique.

just make sure u know how to see your fingers. later have to cut it off. once u feel numbness, its already a sign that there's not enough oxygen flowing to the tissue n muscles.

wuahh.. thank you sir, gonna stop doink it from now on =)

scales.. oh yea! i use metronome while doink finger exercise =) keeping with the tempo xD

huuu.. my precious FINGERS! gonna slap my fren abit after thiss

oh u are toturing that 5 little fingers on your hand!!!! O.O

4 fingers to be exact, stored my rubber bands away atm =)

oh yea.. 4..XD...

haha thats good to know

How to play ALL downstroke fast ?

WTF?! This is first time I heard someone practising finger strength using rubber bands!

The secret here is not to train your fingers to fret hard on the strings, but to accustom your fingers to the motion of fretting... Doing scale routines will do just fine, like chromatic runs...

Rubber bands?I used to stretch my fingers using a rubber band,but I've never tried playing with rubber bands on.

Anyways,I think to get better on guitar,learn theory.I wasted a lot of time focusing only on techniques and songs but never actually learned theory.

theory? mind to show some? like.. notes?

xD

And then when you get that frequently reported "practice-block", try playing with or in front of other people. Second opinions and critiques does help.

Do not just practise scales and learn theories... Make it a habit to always do improvisation exercises with a chord progression or a backing track. This expands your knowledge on melody and helps develope your own set of sounds...

You need to get to a stage where someone plays a chord progression, any progression and you can improv over it with melodies and phrasings that at least have some musicality in it... and only by then, you will actually start progressing as a musician..

This post has been edited by nkphnx: Oct 17 2008, 09:57 PM

practice-block? i try search meaning behind it.. making guitar as a part of own self?


wow.. deep meaning.. improvise!!

Learn the fretboard notes first.

You become James Hetfield.

Yea Master Of Puppets
So if I train by using Metronome.. What is the suitable speed from slow to fast..
And what notes to play..
Anyone mind to share ?

which is true ..the key is you need "experience" to go along with your "practice routine" ..

you may be able to master ALL the techniques flawlessly , post a super shred youtube video or whatever..

but without experience , what you know will all go down the drain ..

omg that rubber band..
finger pain...
ur finger din turn purple meh??
since the rubber band might restrict the flow of the blood..

er... scales? licks from existing songs? or maybe just come up with your own cool licks.

Normally when i practice soloing ill try to strum like..... 4 chords. Maybe something simple like G - C - Em - D (4/4 beat), and maybe put the tempo quite high

and try to solo to that beat in various scales. It's not the best method, but it sure is fun

There is no definite 'slow' speed or 'fast' speed for you to follow, for example, lets assume that a song you want to learn is played at 200bpm, so you drop it to a level that you can play all notes cleanly without any mistakes whatsoever. Once you're able to do that for a few runs, bring it up another 5 or 10bpm and continue practicing. You could do speed bursts occasionally as well. Plus for downstrokes, try to minimize your wrist movements and keep your arms as relaxed as possible. If you're playing standing up, putting the strap low so your arm extends helps to a certain degree (I believe this is personal preference, but there's probably a reason why Hetfield has his guitar hung so low).

Hope that helps!

This post has been edited by Carbon: Oct 19 2008, 10:02 AM

FOr me i think play classical guitar first , then when switch to electric is much much easier....

The rubberband thingy seems very stupid to me, you don't need to build muscular fingers to play the guitar well. You need to improve your precision in fretting to fret properly without using excessive pressure. Less pain when playing and smoother transition from note to note.

It's true that I feel it's much easier to fret an electric compared to a acoustic, but I don't play any better on the electric compared to an acoustic since the precision goes haywire as I'm used to the acoustic next. when i got used to the electric, the classical becomes hard not because I can't press the notes, but I keep pressing the wrong places.

learn legato...cheating is fun...

Uh oh...don't think gapnap is gonna take this too lightly!

correct..

meet the legato king ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otf5QycHeRA


so...whoever who diss legato..make sure you can be at least half as good as that ..

This post has been edited by gapnap: Nov 3 2008, 03:06 AM

Classical's nylon strings are almost as soft as the electric guitar's steel. Should begin with acoustic steel strings, those are much harder to fret.

legato..? i gotta check this! oooiii Sir Gapnap! no video~! xD

err depends on your string gauge

Wow rubberband , that's something new.

Ritchie Kotzen ftw!
Mr.Big mou??!?????!?!?!?! xD

Best way is to play every day.. practise with feelings, not forced.. when u pluck the strings, hear it deeply in ur heart and soul... bond urself wit the guitar...no pain, no gain..

haha keep myself occupied at least 1 hour a day with my beloved guitar =)

what is legato ???
can share? =P

may i borrow this thread for one question if u dont mind..
i can play guitar...
but i always have problem in playing solos....
i can shred them....but the main the problem is..
i can remember them!!!
i play then half way i forgot what comes next...
its making me angry to my self LoL

Thanks guy.. I appreciate your help.. The tip hanging guitar low really helps
But I need more specific ways to play all downstroke fast..

One way of trainign finger strength is get a paper hole-puncher. Just grip it
using fingers one by one. I did this last time coz couldn't afford the gripmaster.
Now I got bored of it so stopped practicing. But it did helped though.

The key to fast downstrokes ala master of puppets is stamina. Same as running, plain and
simple.But for left hand fingering, thats muscle memory.

ive mastered my fast playing dowstroke by playing songs that has fast
downstroke...
the more i play the more i get use to it...
ist like excercise...
first u can run oni 1 KM..
then later a month u can run 10KM...
as an example..lol

great song to practice fast downstroking is like light to the flies by trivium. its a good warm up song too

great! hang the guitar low, it do help me access the fret easily than higher position

but a bit tiresome tho.. my arms aches >__<

i used to hang my guitar too low till the point where it became uncomfortable to play, so now i hang medium-low so that i can access higher frets on the lower strings

thats downstroke...
but how to improve in playing solos?
like how to remember the solo tabs..
i keep forgetting half way of a solo...

Just keep practicing.If it's sloppy, practice with a metronome. It's a kinda muscle memory thing.

[quote=freakfingers12,Nov 12 2008, 07:48 AM]
Just keep practicing.If it's sloppy, practice with a metronome. It's a kinda muscle memory thing.

[/quote

i guess thats what im lack of...
muscle memory...
....

allrite will practice more from now on...

Trivium for warmup LOL? I can't even nail 5% of the solo for 'Pull Harder' ....freaking sick!

if u are unable to go downstroke....
can u go like down up down up?? isnt that less tiring?

alternate picking? u mean? xD

same here. i used to play low too, like 5 years ago when i 1st venture into electrics. it helped a lot with fast downstroke song. but after a while, i realized it's not really efficient when you start soloing and playing a lot of alternate picking with palm mute(like metallica's battery). so from hetfield's low(wrist around hip), i switch to hammet's low (wrist around waist) which i think is a more controllable position for me. in this position, it's hard for me to downstroke fast at first, but after a while, i get used to it. but i still can't play masters or battery sitting down .

huhu.. me.. just training my muscle memory to a certain basic chord.. straining my fingers like crazy! >__<

need aid,


at first i tought my speed downstroke skills suffered after i stoped playing metal riffs, then i realised that its cause of the palm muting that triggers this effect taht i lock up my wrist.

this follows on to shredding, i can do a 120 bpm no problem (my comfortable speed) but anywhere higher or what my wirst locks up and everything goes off the mark.

another issue i have, my pinky has a habit of bending.

halp

Practicing with metronome. This one I need help. Can anyone explain to me how to practice with it??
Bcos for me, I can only use metronome whenever im playing scale and that the only thing I can play with metronome,
I cannot use the metronome whenever im soloing or riffing,
actually i dont know how to arrange the solo's notes (with all the hammer and pull off) to follow the metronome beat,
what beat i should be using, triplets or 16th notes? Likewise riffing,
So can anybody care to explain to me

Thanks.....

different people have different ways of using the metronome.. for me i split up the notes to the beats, and find "reference notes" basically where the note hits the metronome click. thats how i tell if im playing on time or not. hope you understand what i'm saying haha

LOL...Hetfield is a bad guitarist. You should not take his techniques so seriously.

but I thought sitting would be the no. 1 position for everyone? standing is always a problem for me especially with my LP which is elephant heavy

Try playing your solo on half the speed... let's say 60bpm... you can figure out ya solos pretty well in that matrix slow speed.... den once you got all the timing and solo runs right... play back to you normal speed...let's say 120bpm...

it was an example dude. do i have to spell it? E.X.A.M.P.L.E. happy?

plus, care to support your claim about hetfield? he may not be able to play as fast as hammet or some other guitarist, but he has came up with a lot of cool riff along his career. to me, that is already a mark for a good guitarist. your judgment is flawed and baseless.

Hetfield is good... maybe now sucky la... but he is a very good guitarist during the heydays and post heydays of metallica... Best album for me by them definitely... Reload II...

try this.. break the solo into many many parts, like individual sections and practice them seperately. then when you nail all of them down, start joining them up 1 by 1, like lick 1 + lick 2. practice that then join lick 2 + lick 3, then lick 1+2+3 and so on.. that's my way of remember, hope it helps you too


well you can do that but i prefer not to, cuz i'm quite particular about my playing and i feel that playing all downstrokes make it feel more "chug" and even.

for that particular song i find it great for warmup.. verse riffs warms up my downstroke and lower fret riffing while the solo warms up my alternate picking and arpeggios