so is your musicianship improving, plateaued or slowly declining?
my guitar playing had frustratingly plateaued for many years. felt as though i wasn't improving at all. then i realised i wasn't nearly focused enough on stretching my skills n' pretty much played the same songs, riffs n' scales every time a guitar was in my hands. also, i mainly used the guitar as a songwriting tool so it wasn't necessarily improving my guitar playing.
so i decided to quit thinking about writing songs and work solely on my guitar skills - learning other people's songs note for note n' concentrating on lead playing, new scales etc. over 12 months i improved a hell of a lot. in fact, i think i'm beginning to plateau again at this new level of playing.
any tips on how to keep breaking through and improve musicianship? what do you guys do?
singing - going downhill rapidly
songcraft - same
guitar playing - plateau
No time to sing, write or play. If you don't take it out and use it, it's going to rust!
As embarrassing as it sound to confess here I used to get Guitarist magazine and do their workshops. There was always some jazz nerd or fusion fan who would have an utterly different approach to playing and thinking about the guitar and that would influence my playing no end. Just deciding to focus on flamenco guitar for a while brings a totally new approach to writing even if you have no interest in flamenco music (see - Johnny Marr).
I never practice, but I think I'm getting a little better.
But it's hard not to get better when you're as shit as I am.
I wish I could practice more.
My production skills are getting better by the day though, I think.
At least I think so...
As always it's been fairly remedial at best.
imagine if we used ALL the hours we spent online instead to practice our instruments?
damn internet!
Shithouse.
musicianship is overrated.
i wish i could shred
declining with advancing age.
I almost never pick up a guitar these days unless I'm actually playing or rehearsing, and all my various bands rehearse sporadically at best.
i never learned to do sweep arpeggios.
constantly improving but then disappearing as i'm not rehearsing with a band or gigging regularly
though the one thing that has improved markedly in the last year is my rhythm playing..... i'm fucking tight as now.... especially in a nice soul/rock and roll groove...
i practice a fair amount and i devour music books.... and though i will learn something and forget it... eventually it will show up in a jam or something....
if only i was jamming more regularly I would notice...
and i am constantly intrigued by differnt styles and approaches and instruments which all helps...
at the moment i'm teaching myself flamenco (badly) and the pedal steel (so so so so hard)
though i won't become exceptional at either - I will learn lessons from each that will filter into my actual guitar playing
unfortunately my song writing has stagnated as i'm not regularly wirting for a bad - so i start ideas and put them aside.... i have a huge sketch pad of ideas across different protools sessions at home and on cassettes and things....
so when i next need to go in i will have plenty of material to start with
but i'm finding it harder to finish ideas into actual songs at the moment
I'm learning to get worse every day
I'm amazing at every instrument.
What musicianship? if anything, I'm a singer.
Aaron absolutely is, I may have in fact mastered every instrument in the world. Therefore I have plateaued on every possible style and flavour of tune on every possible thing in the world that makes noise. Fuck I am good. Although, I choose not to show off these talents and make shit songs to mock you.
WHERE DO YOU GET THESE SHIPS????????
my musicianship is totally shit.........i dont even know the names of any chords and i dont know what being in key is.......i should have been a drummer
how can you not know the names of the chords you're playing?! that doesn't make sense to me. would be like painting and not knowing the names of the individual colors you're using.
''I let my guitar speak for me'' - as Adrian Edmondson so concisely stated
i dunno i just remember the shapes and patterns and where they are on the neck
does learning the names of different colors in chinese make you a better painter?
Learning the colours in chinese, fuck. That is without doubt the worst example of comparison I have ever heard.
No - but if you're forming a painting group with 3 other Chinese painters at least you can communicate effectively.
nah the way bugsy learnt is the same way a lot of people, including myself learnt...then over time you learn the names of chords just from hearing them said, or learning other songs, or finding out....it happens naturally.
How do you say red in cantonese then?
BLOOOOOD
When you start to plateau the best remedy is to take up another instrument (viola worked a charm, and Balalaika at the moment for me) and then apply what you have learnt to your main instrument.
I got nuthin' to work with.
if you got nuthin, I got ultra nuthin
Liar!
King_Rat said 5 hours ago:
Aaron absolutely is, I may have in fact mastered every instrument in the world. Therefore I have plateaued on every possible style and flavour of tune on every possible thing in the world that makes noise. Fuck I am good. Although, I choose not to show off these talents and make shit songs to mock you.
U GOT CHOPZ SON
SGH said 5 hours ago:
WHERE DO YOU GET THESE SHIPS????????
I built an ark for the flood where I'm going to make various master musicians fuck each other to repopulate the world with soundscapes of tuneful screaming babies.