looking for help from guitarists?

[jaketheripper]

k, so ive been playing for a solid two years right? well now im at the point where out of the four thousand songs on my fucking ipod, half are way too fucking hard, and half are way too fucking easy, i guess im just used to power chords from my previous band cuz thats all they wanted, but this is bs, i can barely solo, i feel like i should be farther along than this. do any of my fellow escapists have any tips?

 

[ICanBreakTheseCuffs]

everyone goes at their own pace so choose a song and practice PRACTICE [HEADING=1]PRACTICE[/HEADING]

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Learn some scales, get some backing-tracks and...

practice PRACTICE [HEADING=1]PRACTICE[/HEADING]

Improvisation is the most thing to do on a guitar.

 

[Bravo Company]

Start mastering scales and try different a few different generas of music. Playing Blues is always fun

Like others have said, practice and practice more.

 

[FinalHeart95]

To solo, do the following:
1) Learn scales
2) Listen to solos from songs of certain genres to get feels of solos
3) Learn various techniques (sweep picking is particularly useful for metal solos, as is tremelo picking)
4) Practice
5) Practice
6) Practice
7) Practice
8) Eat dinner
9) PRACTICE
10) ???
11) PROFIT!

 

[Blue_vision]

I'm basically where you're at OP. And my answer is the exact same as everyone else's
The important thing is to learn to suck at hard stuff. Then, before you know it, you rock at it!
EDIT: Any accidental innuendo unintended

 

[cocoadog]

Learn to sweep pick. Even if you never intend to play music that incorporates it. It is the best warm up solo exercise I have used. Try some diminished scales.

 

[zen5887]

To solo, do the following:
1) Learn scales
2) Listen to solos from songs of certain genres to get feels of solos
3) Learn various techniques (sweep picking is particularly useful for metal solos, as is tremelo picking)
4) Practice
5) Practice
6) Practice
7) Practice
8) Eat dinner
9) PRACTICE
10) ???
11) PROFIT!

This is pretty much it.

At first limit yourself to what notes you can play. Kind of like "This time I can only use 1, 3 and 5" and try to make a good solo out of those notes. Kind of like how you wouldn't jump into the deep end if you wanted to learn to swim.

 

[BodomBeachChild]

Just keep playing and practicing. Playing to yer favorite songs is always a plus, and so is watching some of their guitar clinic videos and stuff you can find on YouTube. And study the piss outta scales. You don't have to play like Malmsteen, but it never hurts to know what he's playing.

 

[Valiance]

experiment.

bend a lot, slide a lot, tap a lot, get a wah pedal, try everything again, get a chorus pedal, try it all out again, work on technique, arpeggiating chords, playing a solo on only one string, playing with octaves, etc...

There's so many resources online it's an information overload. The best thing you can do is ignore most of it because hard work is what is really needed. It's too easy to load up a tab from ultimate guitar with a youtube 'howto' video in another window and not really learn or understand it, or train your ear or fingers to know where things are.

It's tough to explain, really, but you'll find a way to make a song have your style, whether it's something as simple as tone or a pedal, or a finger technique, or what.

But really, just taking a riff and playing it backwards, or palm-muted, or instead of moving your hand from 5 to 7, bending it up, or whatever, there's a lot of ways to do things, and you can probably pick out the melody from a song you want to hear and play it on one string.

If it doesn't sound exactly the same as the originals, well, it says something for technique if you can imitate it, but why force it if it isn't natural for you? Find something that comes to you easy, and work hard on that. Say, 20% talent and 80% working hard, or something...

I know I'm completely rambling, but believe me - I love dream theater, and I can't play their songs, (at least not the leads anyway) but you can take a couple small twists that they do and apply it to other things. For some reason, my natural solos end up sounding like something Knopfler would play in his Dire Straits days. No one wants to be a one-trick pony, but you can take something like that and build on it. Dabble in various styles, as was already said, and then apply them to what you love. Jazz, Blues, stick it on a cover you're doing, find a way to spruce it up...

TL;DR: HARD WORK > TALENT. PRACTICE > TALENT. CREATIVITY > TECHNIQUE. THEORY LEADS TO CREATIVITY WHICH LEADS TO TECHNIQUE.

There's enough way to play one chord to make it interesting, so keep learning chords, and of course, scales and modes.

 

[Treefingers]

Scales. Lots and lots of scales. And other exercises too. Plus additional theory on chords and chord/harmony structure.

Learning to improvise is always good. Learn to play the blues. Blues pentatonic over 12 bar blues patterns are a great place to start.

Play a different style of music. Try some fingerpicking, for instance.

[HEADING=1]PRACTICE[/HEADING]

This too. Everyday. As much as you possibly can.