CrimsonRegret said:
I have been playing guitar for a couple years now. I can play many songs. I can shred a little bit. And I am no beginner anymore. I'm still not "good" however. I Wish very much to improve my abilities. I know there are many programs online that are very rigorous and with enough hardcore practice around can drastically improve your skill. I am wondering if anyone has any good experience with a website or program, I don't want to drop a lot for nothing. (Kind of broke) I practice daily of course but teaching yourself songs, and scales can only go so far. I have an instructor but I want something more. I am willing to put as much time and effort into any of these programs as necessary. Please help.
I'm a qualified guitar teacher, among many other music-industry related things. Teaching is one of the main ways I pay the bills when I'm having cashflow issues at the record label I work for (which is all the time lately - goddamn music industry).
Don't waste your time with paying for anything online. I'll tell you one way you are definitely NOT going to become a better guitar player, and that is by using a computer. From a guitar student perspective, the internet is good for free tablature, YouTube, the occasional learning resource and nothing else. However most free tabs are at least slightly incorrect (very few are 100%, some are truly pitiful). When I was a student in the 1980s there were no free tabs, so I had to sit down and work out songs just using my ear. Develop this skill and you will get amazing musical ears, these days I can sit down and listen to
any song (with the exception of lightning fast stuff) and visualise the player's fingers on the fretboard, and write out tablature then and there. I don't buy books of tablature or songbooks, I don't need them, unless it's Dragonforce or something like that, I can write out tabs for a song almost as fast as the player actually plays it. It's one of the reasons I now consistently get work as a teacher. Bottom line - if you want to get really good, shutting down the computer should be step #1 because although it's a learning tool it's also one hell of a distraction. Especially ignore all those gimmicky programs, "complete fretboard system" and "three ways to become a guitar god" ads etc that are just out to rob your money. I'll tell you the three ways for free. Practice, practice, practice. How about that, who would've thought?
It's hard to tell you what to practice because I don't know what you know already. I also don't know what your goals are as a student. Yes, you want to get "better" but what does that
actually mean to you, in the real world? What is the end point that you want to get to? I will tell you this though - the number 1 thing that separates a good player from a bad one is not speed, technique, the amount of scales known, but
a good sense of rhythm and feel. The best way to get that is to experience the real world of music as often as possible - that means playing with others.
You want to avoid become a "bedroom shredder" type. I work with musicians every day and there's nothing more tragic than the guy who has been playing all his life in his bedroom and has great technique and speed but has completely eschewed social skills, as well as the skills of interacting with other musicians, and is therefore functionally useless in the real world of music. If you want to accelerate your learning exponentially, play with other people at every opportunity you get. Join a band if you can, otherwise do jam sessions, go to "open mic" style events, invite friends over to play, busk with friends, whatever you can think up, just do it. This will stop you getting "folksinger syndrome" where you only listen to yourself, you will learn how to
really listen to the other players and bounce off them musically, and fit
within their playing. Anybody can play their own thing and have a band follow them. It's a far more valuable and useful skill to listen to what other people are playing and be able to play something
complimentary, on the fly. People who can do this and move in the right circles (and stay off drugs) get session work which is decent money, and have people practically begging them to join their bands.
Oh and learn music theory. It's not essential but it's handy, and once you start being able to mentally recognise the forms and see music as a theoretical construct
and have the ear going that can transcribe, amazing things will happen in your brain. Every time I listen to music these days, it's like that bit in The Matrix where Neo sees everything for what it really is. It actually gives you a new appreciation for music that you might have never thought you'd like (like Lady GaGa!). Also, even if you don't care about music as theory because you want to play sludge doom grind noise metal or whatever, it stlll helps to know the rules so you can break them more effectively. It's the same reason why the Mafia have lawyers.
So yeah in summary - get outside the bedroom. Go play with other people - often. That's what will accelerate your learning, not some internet nonsense course.
