OOT's Guitar Players

[balkii]

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If you don't want to take lessons (and even if you do), the best thing you can do is transcribe solos. Learn all of your basic scales in every key and transcribe solos from your favorite players. In addition to helping improve your vocabulary, it will improve your ears and help with your improvising skills down the road.



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Thread over. First off, you should reconsider not taking lessons. They are usually pretty inexepensive and will take your playing far beyond you current state if you practice, and have a GOOD teacher.

But really, all the scales, patterns, and licks in the world won't get you to where you want w/o transcribing. Like the one someone plays? Learn how to do it. And it should noted that attempting to learn from tabs or books is nowhere near as useful as doing the transcribing yourself. The only person who ever got anything out of a book of transcriptions was the guy who made it.

[_TKO_]

Listen to songs that contain the types of solos you would like to play. Duplicating fast solos will require a lot of technical practice, but simply duplicating fast solos will not teach you how to create your own work.

I learned how to solo by doing three things:
1. I learned the blues pentatonic scale;
2. I played a lot without listening to music; and
3. I transcribed riffs and built songs around them.

One key thing is to play without a rhythm of any sort behind you; this will allow you to feel where your own music is going. You will be free to change the beat as necessary.

[diebitter]

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Finger speed will come with time for the most part. ....
This will improve speed, strength, and overall dexterity.

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-- Acoustix

Reading this and looking at your avatar made me laugh.

[DrunkHamster]

Learn music theory and scales, and play plenty of good solos (My personal favorite is the Comfortably Numb solo, not too hard but note perfect). The finger speed will come with practise, concentrate on nice melodies.

[garion888]

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The most basic finger exercise I'll do is to go down 4321 then shift up one fret and go 1234 and then go up one fret and go down 4321. (pinky=4, pointer=1). I generally go up to about the 15th fret. Then I come back down (4321 down 1234 down 4321). I do this as fast as I can *cleanly*. CLEANLY is very important. I then do it on the next string, and then the next, etc, all the way through. I pick it using all up strokes going through once, then alternating up and down strokes, then all down strokes. This will improve your speed.

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Along these lines...If you're looking to pick up speed here's what you do(I had a really great bass teacher and this is what we did.)

Buy this book and do all the exercises. It's a bass book but its all about fret exercises like the one quoted above.

Buy a metronome. Run through all the exercises starting at quarter = 60 (the low tempo helps improve your time), and run up as far as you can on the metronome while preserving good fret and picking technique.

Edit: I forgot about arpeggios. Learn to do all the chord arpeggios up and down the fretboard(same thing quarter = 60 on up). Major, Minor, Major7, Minor 7, Major7b5 are the ones you generally need for popular music...

For learning to solo well you should learn all the diatonic modes and blues scale and be able to run them up and down the fretboard. (Same thing start at quarter = 60 and go up).

After you can do all that stuff that buy the Jamey Abersold blues books with the companion CDs. They provide simple jazz and blues loops(Bass, Drums, Piano) that you can play along to and solo over.

Join a band...get famous...

[surfinillini]

I have dexterity, I was a classical pianist for almost 9 years...

my guitar is all self taught though and I think I've plateued (sp?) at this point

I'm gonna look into some lessons but I am familiar with scales...legato/arpeggios, theory, etc...

my pinkie strength sucks though, it my be partially my guitar, the action is not the best

I think I'm gonna pick up an Ibanez...action is pretty good on most of their guitars

[adsman]

Surf,

If you really want to become a good soloist then you have to learn how to play rhythm guitar. The best soloists use rhythm mixed in with their solo part - think Hendrix. Jimi played back-up to Little Richard for years. It taught him how to fit in with a band and how to comp ends. You meet a lot of guitarists who can rattle off a few good solo's, but apart from that technical ability they have no feel. Put them in with a band and ask them to improvise and they're lost.

You don't need to worry about your fingers getting faster. It's the notes that you don't play that make the difference.

[NT!]

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there's an excellent analogy metheny made about practicing scales and finger exercises. basically, practicing scales to improve your soloing is like polishing your water faucet and thinking it will make the water taste better.

when you're soloing, you're creating melodies as you go along. the way to learn to make stronger melodies is to learn to play strong melodies (hopefully by ear) and start to identify (in your own way) what makes them strong.

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very good advice... knowing scales helps too

i rike spanish phrygian the best... i think playing in that scale makes you like twenty times better automatically

NT

[buriedbeds]

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my pinkie strength sucks though, it my be partially my guitar, the action is not the best

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No, that is not the case. Your fingers are weak. Buying another guitar because your fingers are weak is lame. Make your hands do what you want them to do.

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I think I'm gonna pick up an Ibanez...action is pretty good on most of their guitars

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YECCHHH. 1. Ibanez guitars with low action are sine-tone producing pieces of garbage. They are HORRID. They might give you the illusion of being good, but it is an illusion. You could also get a multieffects and pave over your inconsistent picking with compression and distortion, it wouldn't mean you don't suck. 2. You can get a real guitar, likely for cheaper or just as cheap as an ibanez sine-tone machine, and lower the action on it if it's not to your liking.

-bb.

[acoustix]

When I feel that I plateau in my skill, I always will step away for a week or two and really build up the desire to pick my guitar up again and usually end up teaching my self some new tricks. This may or may not work for you, but it helps me take 2 steps forward most of the time.


Diebitter- In looking at my original post and my avatar, I realize it is both disgusting and incredibly funny.