MissingSomethin

Growth of music skill is not linear. Rather, you are in a rut for sometimes years, and then you learn something new, and wham, you're playing just jumped up more in 1 day than in the last year or two.

Was there a certain technique or bit of theory that abruptly elevated your playing to a new level? Something that took maybe only an hour to learn, yet had huge implications on your playing by opening a whole new door you never knew about.

This is not meant to sound like some shortcut for becoming good. I have been playing 20 years, and know there are no shortcuts in anything complex. But there may be some keys that open some doors that you never knew about b/c you didn't take lessons, or didn't do deliberate practice, etc.

For example, the simple act of moving the minor pentatonic scale down 3 frets opens up an whole new major sounding scale. Instantly. Nice to know. Or, maybe you learned a new mode like Dorian/Mixolydian where your solo sound changed instantly, just by moving the major scale up or down a few frets

Or, maybe it was it finally learning chord construction which allowed you to understand the intervals in the chord tones, and opened the door for including 7th chords (or some other kind) into your vocabulary. etc. One hour, and suddenly, you understand chords, and are now exploring and expanding, since it's not just dots to be memorized.

Can you think of something that was a real "Eurekha!" moment that you had wished you had learned years sooner?

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1978 Les Paul Custom Sunburst
2001 USA Strat (Hot & Cool Rails)
Effects: Boss GT-6 with Tech-21 Power Amp

mdc

Yeah. Minor chords.

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Sweet

coman91

Just improving my finger-picking technique.

macashmack

Functional harmony.

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Modes and scales are intelligent and useful. Start learning them. Seriously.

vIsIbleNoIsE

the mindset that your left and right hands are separate. for difficult solos, i used to forget that just because i had to tense up my left hand for a stretch or something didn't mean i had to tense up my picking hand as well.

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intheshadowplay

A couple things stand out in particular to me. 1) Open-G Tuning and 2) Finally getting around to using the slide I bought. I'm no Duane Allman but those two things combined was like having a new eye opened.

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Hail

i think what really helped my musicianship was when i sold my guitars

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MetalFriend

Alternate picking instead of downpicking all the time. Learning that my right hand should move like a pendulum when I strum.

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It's not so much that the Schecter's neck is ''fat'', it's that the Ibanez neck is anorexic.

LightxGrenade

Multifinger tapping. Not because I use it a lot in songs (Almost never do actually) but because it opened my eyes into a very interesting approach to the fretboard. I'm able to take the notes of a chord, play part of it with my left hand then tap notes with my right and hear how tapping different intervals or how a note played an octave or two higher than the rest of the notes effects the "quality" of the chord. I started hearing unique melodies that I wouldn't have necessarily have thought to play had I just been jamming. Some of my coolest riffs started because I tapped a note or two and it made me interested in what combination of notes I was using that created that sound.

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Gibson LP Studio
Taylor 518E
Washburn WD15SCE acoustic electric
Carvin DC727 (ordered! The wait is driving me nuts!)

AlanHB

LOL +1

For me it was actually listening to what I play, and later realising that I should play to improve the song, rather than wank off.

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And no, Guitar Hero will not help. Even on expert. Really.

StuartBahn

A broad answer but it was theory. Seeing progressions as bVI bVII i instead of just anonymous chord names.

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20Tigers

Me too.

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Si
Explaining Modes part 1
Explaining Modes part 2 (continued)

Tempoe

Working out where my left thumb should be for certain things, and stopping anchoring.

TravisWright

chord voicings and inversions

Peaceful Rocker

lmao!


Learning the major scale

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http://www.soundcloud.com/fillerempire

ElliottJeffries

Directional picking, chord formulas (I, ii, iii, IV etc) and...harmony!

will42

Not even theory, and it's more applied to my bassoon playing, but it's valuable to all musicians.

Hear yourself play.

That does not mean to record yourself, it means to listen to the notes that you play while you are playing them. Harder than it seems.

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So awesome that I run around screaming, throwing things, and puching people during the 5th movement.

"If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster." - Gustav Mahler.


Yay, my first compliment!

afromoose

I did a crazy triad exercise recommended by a guy called Sheldon King, it took a couple of months to get good at it, but afterwards I could play pretty much anything I wanted do.

That's just pure technique, but it helped an AWFUL lot with everything else. It's an important balance to get right, but I think ultimately technique can really be a limiting factor. When you find it easy to hit any note you want it makes it a lot easier to play by ear.

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Luke Mosse Guitar Teacher in Bristol, UK

bdof

Two things.

I dicked around to learn some of the rhythms for the intro to Teras by Sylosis for an hour straight and for the last month it feels like I'm a far better rhythm guitarist and I can downpick at 180 bpm (still not THAT fast) now out of nowhere. It literally felt like I was an RPG character and once I finally leveled up that I got a new skill as well

The other was one session with this lead guitarist we're trying to get in our band and taught me about the 3rd/Flat 3rd harmonies on the scale I was using. He also taught me some diminished runs and how to harmonize with him during it.

Both of these happened within the last month. It sure is nice to meet a guitarist that's waaaaaaaay better than you