General Music Chat

So I've changed my practice mode.
Partly because I feel I've hit a plateau. Partly because this shift of focus will return my "desire" to practice daily instead of just feeling like I need to.
I've decided through the first of the year instead of doing hand exercises and working various scales, that I am going to focus on Arpeggio shapes to bolster my solo ability.
Hopefully this will give me better feel and vision of the fretboard.
We'll see.

Here is my practice routine FWIW. I try to mix it up so a bit of everything to keep it interesting.

Scales, modes, arpeg, 10 minutes only for warm up. (really boring but useful. I can do anything for 10 minutes. The payoff comes later.)

Work out a youtube lesson or song we are learning. 30-45 min. ( I rarely get it all in one shot. I have to put it down and come back to it another day.)

Play for pure joy and explore the deep recesses of guitar tone. Maybe lay down a simple rhythm track to rehearse a solo passage. 20-30 min.

Rinse and repeat as necessary:)

Thanks for the input.
At this point anything that makes me a better guitarist will also improve the end results with the band.

Thanks again!

Something I learned from the late Howard Roberts is called sonic shaping. It's a unique approach to playing guitar. Not that useful in performance or compositions but it get's you thinking in another dimension and has the fingers moving in different directions.

What is it ? One plays shapes on the guitar/fretboard. Do not concern yourself with the notes or the sound or theory. Just play geometric shapes. Play squares, triangles, rectangles, trapazoids; any odd shape you can think of. I have dozens of "shapes" I play to strengthen my left hand and improve my right hand picking. Practicing arpeggios and scales will accomplish the same thing in terms of strengthening your hands, but sonic shaping is just a different way of doing it. Plus, if you're playing a solo, you can throw one in on occasion for a unique, atonal effect.

I wish I could describe it better. Hopefully, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Actually it's really not a stretch in understanding at all.
Very similar to one of my "workouts" in theory.
I am a very spatial individual, kind of see things is shapes and patterns anyway.
I'd bet just your mentioning it, will be enough for it to bleed into my practice sessions.

Appreciate the input.

reading all your posts are good enough to keep me motivated.

LOL

If your read all my 9444 posts you may not have time to play.

Really not an issue of motivation as such.

More looking for different paths so that it remains interesting and fun vs doing "work" to get to the fun.

If that even makes sense.

Sans, try this one,,, Try and break out of all the scales and patterns you know, by playing steady 8th notes at what ever speed you are comfortable with,, try to let your mind wander and become one with the guitar,,, Use a click. Then try to do it with any backing track and see how hard it is to play out of tune. The brain is very funny as to where it can lead you.

Today, I realized that I no longer learned songs in technique, I just learned how my fingers should go and regurgitated that. I realized this when trying to learn a simpler song, but was having more trouble with it than the more complex ones I play all the time. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about guitar (although I am considering giving it up) but for bass, I sat down, set a drum machine to a steady beat, and played on my e string. started with 2 measures of quarter notes, a measure of eighth, a measure of quarter, a measure of eighth, a measure of 16th, a measure of eighth, a measure of quarter, and so on to 64th. (ever had to run suicides? same idea) I went for half an hour with a pick, and half an hour fingerstyle. that's a full hour of playing one note, and it's fantastic. I feel better already.

Great input fellows ... Thanks !

Two things.
Practice string bending like so:
If it's a whole step bend, fret and listen to the note you will be bending to. Then bend until you think you hear the exact same pitch.
Do the same with half step bends.

Using one string, play a note then sing that note. Repeat.
Then switch it to sing a note, then play the note.
Repeat.

I actually do this one Zip.
Well except for the singing part.

Well if you're not a singer just try to get as close as ya can.

Also you might wanna pick up the first volume of the Fretboard Logic book.
It shows how the patterns line up with th CAGED sequence for barre chords.

OK OK I tried to get as close as I could ...














Then the singer pointed me back to my corner.