zac18992

Hey, just a quick question about practicing the guitar

Which of these would you say helps to improve playing best:

1) Playing things within your capabilities and become more efficient at those.

2) Playing things outside your range, in order to push yourself.

3) Both.

Thanks guys

Anthony1991

both, and improvising.

Start with stuff you know and can improve, than push yourself to do harder stuff.

charlie__flynn

Be continually pushing yourself on the technique side of things, but always go back to songs youve previsouly learned. And on the other side learn how to improvise, soon you'll be able to combine the techniques you;ve learned into your own improvisation.

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zac18992

Cheers guys, great advice! Do you have any tips on improvising? I have only been playing about 5 months, I do not really do any imprvising at all and don't have a clue how to Thanks

luyano

both, improv, and do weird sounds
you can create something new

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luyano

mmm
i improv by learning the frets to play in that certain song
ej: to improv in C
i learn all the frets that are in the C scale
and just play around them

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Iriathz

Both.

Are you working on alternate picking? If so, try this lick, (it pretty much started me off with alternate picking). Start extremely slowly and gradually increase your tempo.

repeat.

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zac18992

Kool. I don't kno wmany scales. Obviously I can learn some if necessary. What scales are good for improvising? I mean in terms of major, minor etc. Would minor pentatonic be a good one to get started with?

zac18992

I've just been using the Sweet Child Of Mine intro and alternate picking that for practice with that. I'll give your little lick a go thanks mate

charlie__flynn

For improvisation you need to know a bit about theory. Ill start you off, say you are playing in Eminor. You can play notes from the E minor pentatonic scale (learn the minor pentatonic if you havent yet off by heart) and it will sound good . You can also play Gmajor pentatonic as this is the relative major (more complicated with theory).
BTW you dont have to limit yourself to pentatonic scales, theyre just the easiest for improvising, if the Key is G major, you can play any form of the G major scales over it, or any Eminor scales.

EDIT: for now just focus on, if your playing in E, solo using E minor pentatonic. Worry about theory later!!

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zac18992

That was a great help. The oonly thing I was a bit iffy on was "if the Key is G major, you can play any form of the G major scales over it". Sorry! I know some scales including minor pentatonic, but do you know where I can learn about relative minors and stuff? Cheers again

Iriathz

You're welcome.

Try this one as well:



Hope this helps!

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charlie__flynn

So we're playing in G major (chords could be any of G, A, B, C, D, E, F# but a popular song using it is knockin on heavens door, chords: G, D, A,) We can play a G major pentatonic over it, notes for G major pentatonic are - G, A, B, D, E, G. As you can see those notes correspond to those scales, (well some of them). Now you can also play Eminor pentatonic as those notes are relative as they are - E, G, A, B, D, E. Same notes almost!!! and now you can see why they both fit over Gmajor.

EDITED^^^ made it more clear on the key of G major - what the song is in.

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zac18992

okay man, thanks for all your help! greatly appreciated

charlie__flynn

Anytime man, if you got anything else you need to know just ask

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SilverDark

If you want to work on improvisation, you'd also want to work your ear out in order for you to know what sounds good over what. Train your ears to recognize intervals and apply intervals on your guitar so you can think about if "this note sounds good if it follows the next one". Then practice it over and over and your improv skills will skyrocket until you can hear a melody, find the first note, and just repeat it back without thinking about it.

If you don't know what intervals are, look up some theory. It'll help you out in the long run.

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edg

Personally, I think the "pushing yourself" part is where most people waste a lot of
their time. If you're interested in mastering your instrument, you absolutely do NOT
push yourself to the point of struggling. Then you are practicing "struggling". And
what you practice, you are.

The terms you're using, "within your capabilities" and "become more efficient" don't
really specify anything enough to be meaningful. What you might think is within
your capabilities, may be like seeing your own reflection on the surface of a lake
and concluding that's all there is to the lake. But, you're missing a vast depth that
actually contains 99.9999% more of the lake.

Since I like this quote so much, I'll use it again: "An amateur practices until he/she
can play it right. A master practices until he/she can't play it wrong."

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zac18992

nice thanks man