Any experienced guitar players have advice on how to learn better?
I played very little in highschool and now, 15 years later, I have the urge to go back to it. I’ve been playing for an hour or so most days for the last month which I know isn’t a lot but lets be honest, it’s just for my own enjoyment, I have no illusions of being a middle aged rock star.
Anyway I was wondering if people had any advice, good resources, sheet music that isn’t garbage?
In my position would you go the self taught route or is it really important to have a tutor? I’m particularly concerned about picking up bad technique and then practicing that, I feel like that was a big part of why I gave up in the first place - fucking up the same things no matter how many times I did them because I learned them wrong.
Thanks all.
Muting of string is definitely useful, thought right now it’s another thing I need to physically get the hang of, maintaining the right amount of pressure, etc. I saw the trick of thumb muting the bass strings for the first time recently and it was a bit of an “a-ha!” moment for me. Palm muting is also something I need to practice, it’s a challenge to time and coordinate it in conjunction with everything else but I’m sure I’ll get it.
I definitely like the texture hammers add to a rhythm, so I’ll be practicing them. If you can write up that exercise I’d definitely appreciate it, but if it doesn’t really work with the formatting on here that’s ok, you’ve already helped a lot.
Your point about different timings is a good one too, I’m going to start using a metronome, so being more deliberate about timing is going to be important. Mother I think actually swaps between two time signatures but I’ve just been doing it by intuition so far.
As far as music theory, I take your point. I’ve come to understand it in terms of a concept in my day job called “design patterns” - which are abstractions of common techniques for designing software (for example peer-to-peer and client-server are ones a lot of people recognize but there ones for almost every category of problem). They give you conceptual tools to recognize and solve common problems, and a common language to describe complexity in a high level way, but they aren’t intended to be prescriptive and dogmatic adherence to them is counter productive. So while I recognize the usefulness of theory, I’m content to learn it slowly.
In terms of the tiler analogy, I think it takes a lot less time investment to learn the mathematics of geometry than to develop the type of intuition that an experienced tiler would have. So I think both approaches have their place. Bit gross how little value the academic press put on the experience and skill of the tiler for sure. I think this type of arrogance exists in just about every field.
I’ll give that alternating picking exercise a try too. I might try marking the frets, I’m sure I will get used to the existing fret markers in time but it does take me a minute to count them right now and having more visual distinction would help, I’m of two minds though I because I think the more I use the existing marks, the quicker I’ll learn to use them.
Also, I’ve started learning The Wind by Yusuf Islam as my first fingerstyle song. I’m really enjoying the complexity of melody you can create and the feeling of deliberateness compared to strumming. I think it’s also good for learning to play with that added precision. So far it hasn’t been too hard on my fingers but we’ll see how it goes.
With palm muting, try first playing a three chord sequence (or one to start with) muted entirely (that kind of ‘chunky’ sound like in Cecelia), then lifting then mute on and off with different beats, or different chords, to make a pattern.
With left hand muting, try playing one (or three) chords, and alternating pressing and relaxing your fingers, with a simple rythym so you’re not doing too much at once.
With the metronome, many people reccomend it, presumably for a good reason, but I will say that I’ve never used one, but its presumably helpful.
With the fret markers, its kind of like stabilizing wheels when learning to ride a bike, so that you can learn pedalling etc first before worrying about balance. I don’t use them anymore (I kind of feel what fret I’m on not so much visually but by relative distance and the feel of the strings more), and I don’t think they impeded me learning that, but of course different things work for different people - they do make the initial counting frets easier!
Yusuf Islam is great for fingerstyle!
I will try to write the excersise again, as a new reply not in this thread, because its frustrating reformatting over and over - I keep getting an invalid_body_field error when I try to post, idk if it thinks I’m trying to write code?
Some book recomendations, these aren’t ‘how to play’ (though they do have tips), but more just pieces (in tableture and sheet music) that are well arranged and with a lot for begginers. Obviously if you can find them free its better, and I don’t want to tell you to spend money if you end up not being into fingerstyle, but for your consideration. On that subject, before even thinking of perhaps getting a nylon string, or maybe a steel string better made for fingerstyle, go to a guitar shop and ask to try them first, so you can get a feel of them (ask them to tune them or bring a tuner, they’re always out).
These two are good for learning, arranged well and in order of complexity. A lot are called ‘study no.2’ or similar (like Etude), because they are exercises for students. You’ll end up realising a lot ‘oh this is just C chord with variations’ as you play, and they’re good for learning scales, chords, and timing in a ‘doing’ or intuitive sense.
There are a whole range of these by this publisher, of different composers like Bach or Mozart (good because they’re orchestral or piano pieces transcribed for solo fingerstyle guitar, so it helps with learning), and also of different styles, like Latin or Jazz Standards or Film Score and so on. Unfortunately, they tend to have only around 15 or so pieces. But they’re generally well arranged, and not too difficult - not ‘studies’ but also not some kind of advanced concert level piece. You’ll also be more familiar with the songs, from films and shows and so on.
This is great for starting with Spanish style - its not complicated like flamenco, again well arranged and for beginners.
This is more your genre to a degree, and its good because (while being probably more complicated arrangements than the above reccomendations), you’ll be a lot more familiar with the songs, their timing and style and so on. And, as I mentioned, its a lot easier to get a satisfactory level of fidelity to the ‘whole band’ sound with fingerstyle, compared to strumming.
These are mostly more ‘pop’ songs, again good because of familiarity. Despite the effusive title, they may not be songs you’d enjoy listening to, and the quality of arrangement does vary more than the previous ones, but they’re generally relatively simple, and also there’s a lot of them.
This is an excellent resource of arrangements of Irish/Celtic ‘folk’ music, which is good as it will be a difference in style and manner of playing. The arrangements vary a lot more in difficulty, but there are lots of easy ones to start with.
Of course, there are many more, for different genres and styles and regions. But these are all good for starting to learn fingerstyle, and even though many are easy (and you’ll end up disliking some), there are pieces in there that you’ll end up playing indefinately. And some pieces you’ll learn the simplified version of, like Canon in D, and then as you progress you can find published the actual concert level music (often individually rather than as part of a collection), to make it sound even better. I tend to avoid the ones that are specific to a band, because I found that the arrangements aren’t always so good - its more kind of ‘merchandise’. Also, because I can’t read sheet music, I always make sure they have the tableture as well, which I can read. The ones with just chords aren’t worth it imo, but then again if you can ‘play by ear’ you can probably use them to figure stuff out.
I’ll give those muting exercises a try.
Do you play much with others? I’ve mostly heard the metronome advice in relation to that. So that when you go to play with others you have experience keeping tightly in time. Though playing to a backing track would probably serve a similar purpose and I think some people are innately better at keeping time as well.
Thanks a lot for those book recommendations too, I’ll definitely seek them out. Tablature is useful, while I can read sheet music a little (learned when I was younger) translating that to the guitar neck is a challenge.
Hi, apologies for the delayed reply, work got in the way.
I’ve tried again with the exercise, and it didn’t give me an error this time, but the tab didn’t work at all, it messed all the spacing and sizing up when I posted it… not sure how to fix that unfortunately.
I have played a lot with others yes, not so much at the moment. I think its maybe better to develop your own kind of time discipline, so that if you’re playing with people who go out of time (excited or drunk usually) they can follow you. As before, I can’t comment on the utility of a metronome, having never used one, but I expect it must be helpful - however its clearly not vital. If I’m playing rythym, I often need to tap my foot, but with fingerstyle or lead I don’t need to, maybe because the notes being more broken up than chords helps you keep beat better? I’m not sure its an ‘innate’ thing, though it might be that people’s differing experience helps, but rather that I learned by practicing (on my own, and with other people).
Yes, I think tableture is a lot better for guitar, since sheet music I think is developed or at least refined for orchestras, where they’re expected to know the piece they’re playing anyhow so it emphasises the beats/timing more than the notes, and isn’t tailored for a particular instrument.
Hope the practice is going well, and good luck with it - anymore questions let me know.
No worries at all, I appreciate the effort regardless.
I think I’m coming to realize that a lot of things, like the metronome, are just one way to learn something amongst many and the “best” way really varies person to person.
Practice is going pretty well - had a busy weekend so not a lot of time but I’ve got the structure of The Wind down and it’s just a matter of repetition now to build speed and precision. It’s been fun. I’ll certainly be coming back to this thread a lot as time goes on for all the great resources and if I come upon some specific issues later in my learning I’ll definitely reach out.
Thanks again for all your input.