Thread: Where to go now
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Old March 31st, 2007
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Chris C Chris C is offline
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Playing guitar for over a year.
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Last Online: December 19th, 2007 02:58 AM
Location: Mundaring, West Australia
Posts: 204


Hi Sean1968,

I'd guess that a lot of players reach the same point, one way or another. Maybe it's "OK can do 100 chords now, what's next?" or "Right, I know 30 scales backwards, forwards and inside out - now what?" It's easy to be concentrating so hard on the business of rowing that you rather lose sight of just where you are on the river...

I'm sure it varies for everybody, but I imagine that it makes a big difference what your overall goals are. If you want to play like a particular player, or be good at one style of music then it's probably a matter of running through what you can do and what you still can't and picking what you want to try and improve next. But there might be some places that are worth looking at first. Here's a couple of ideas.

At the start there's a tendency to be obsessed with what the left hand (fretting hand anyway...) is doing, and grinding away at getting it smooth, quick and accurate. But it's only half the story. Much of the real artistry and emotion comes from the other hand - it's incredibly important for the timing, the touch, the phrasing or whatever. I'm not sure of all the terms, but you can have the world's best left hand and still sound like nothing if your right hand has no flair, skills or imagination. So maybe just sit on what your fretting hand can do for now, and concentrate on your strumming/picking hand. Work on your sound, your style, your pacing and phrasing - your whole 'feel' - all that stuff that's hard to describe exactly but makes the difference between one player and another. Take one piece of music and see how many different ways you can make it sound. Look at how you made it different and then work on ways of making it better or different again.

Another road is improvising. I've never had any real interest in following a particular style or player, so I've improvised right from the day I could manage 3 notes to mix together. That to me is where the fun lies, and I've never been bored, because it's not too hard to find out where 12 different notes and a handful of basic chords can be found, in one form or another - and once you have that then there's a few zillion possibilities to play around with. Pick a key and a handful of chords or notes and just go for it - see what comes out. If improvising is your thing then it comes out different every day. Once you've got a few ingredients in your kitchen there's almost no limit to what fresh dishes you can serve up by just changing the recipe and adding a new twist and a little fresh seasoning.

Good luck.

Cheers,

Chris


"There is no magic secret, other than loving the process of learning and putting in the time."
Quote shamelessly stolen from ColoradoFenderBender at Guitarnoise.
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