Music Banter - View Single Post - Any Advice For an Aspiring Guitarist?
View Single Post
Old 05-31-2013, 01:48 PM   #11 (permalink)
anathematized_one
Music Addict
 
anathematized_one's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Someplace Awful
Posts: 123
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by MasterGarrus View Post
I know it may not make a lot of sense, but try not playing for a while. It seems to work for some people and not work for others - worked for me though. If you play every single day without a break, I think eventually your body and mind kinda get over it. I find if I struggle to play to the best of my abilities or don't find myself improving at all, I just lay down the guitar for a week or so and keep myself busy with something else until I get a strong urge to play again.

Like I said though... this may or may not work for you, but if you're running out of other options, give it a shot. Who knows
It worked for me.

Paet of the reason you slow in the progress you make is because the harder stuff is harder, so it takes more time to get it—there is definitely a learning curve.

Some other things you can do is to make sure you warm up by practicing basics. Don't just go in and practice sweep picking without warming up by playing simple arpeggios.

You also should vary what it is you practice. If you can't get something, practice something else and come back later. A lot of slowing can be simply mental—many people who can't do a particular thing will keep practising that thing until they do get it, which leads to frustration, causing more mistakes and further hindering progress. Mentality definitely is a huge factor. For example, with myself, I can play far better (faster and more accurately) live than I can playing by myself or when recording. No matter how many times I tell myself that it is ok if I screw up in recording because I can always go back and re-record it, I still get anxious.

At a certain point, it seemed like my skill level would plateau, but then after a while I was suddenly markedly better than before, like when you "level up" in a game and get to add ability points to different stats.

Another thing is that as a generality, we learn new things better than we do things we already know a good bit about, which is why the suggestions of switching style works for so many.

Sent from my SCH-S720C using Tapatalk 2
__________________
Sardonicus
YouTube Channel
anathematized_one is offline   Reply With Quote