Guitar Practice outside of Syn’s School

[defaultydaniel]

Hello everyone,

I’ve had my custom-s since about mid December, and I’ve been going through Syn’s school with Papa Gates, but I feel that I’m not improving as fast as I could be - or should be considering I’ve had an acoustic for a little under a year.
For my acoustic practice I was really inconsistent, but when I did practice I used JustinGuitar.
When you all started out did you do anything outside of the school here? What could I do to improve a bit faster? I know I should include a metronome, but not sure what else.
Any recommendations or guidance would be appreciated.

 

[William B.]

I could try to help but I don't know how, I like playing coustic guitar

 

[Ed Seith]

Honestly, learning songs. It gives you a practical application of what you’re learning in the school
And it gives you a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Plus jamming songs is just fun.

 

[defaultydaniel]

Honestly, learning songs. It gives you a practical application of what you’re learning in the school
And it gives you a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment. Plus jamming songs is just fun.

I have been doing this, my only problem is I can’t play fast enough or have the right techniques to play right (e.g. bending, controlling my fingers, stretching, etc)

do I just need to start slow and work my way up? And do metronome exercises?

 

[Ed Seith]

Well, that's the thing - when you encounter a technique you need that you don't have, you learn it. If you can't play a part at full speed, play it at 25% or 10% until you can speed it up.

I've got a lead part I've been working on for months. I've finally got it comfortable at almost 65% speed, but when I get it up to 100%, then similar things will take a LOT less time to get up to speed. Everything builds on everything else.

 

[Allan]

I believe everyone has their own journey to find what really works, the tips I am currently working on are:

- (Metronome)^100.

- Record myself playing, because when I'm playing it's hard to evaluate and keep it fun. Listening later/after is when I can really study my faults.

- Based on the flaws, I focus on every little part that can improve the result. For example, if my rhythm is sloppy, I try to internalize the tempo in any way that will allow me to get a better result. However, this may not be the only small part that is making the rhythm sloppy, maybe I need to work on position changes, readjust my fingers, or pay attention to tension.

- When I'm stuck on a beat, I set the metronome to a fast bpm, and after a few awful failures I go back to a slow bpm, this works some magic on my brain. xD

- Sometimes we are not taking breaks to refresh ourselves and let the brain reorganize the information.

- Lastly, working on the basics as a way to warm up the hands makes everything more natural.

 

[Jeremy Healey]

Very good points from Ed and Allan. It might feel like you need to learn everything right away, but it takes time and effort. You got to play things slow at first our else it’ll be sloppy. Hell I’ve been trying to play the second half of the Paranoid solo for a year now and I still can’t get it just right.
And recording yourself playing is a great way to evaluate your playing. It’s a large reason why I post my videos here, so I can see my progress as time goes by. Also to gain amazing feedback from the wonderful minds here!

 

[MegasetH]

When I first started, I used powertab and guitarpro software. I was playing pretty hard metal songs within a couple/few months. Within a year, I was able to play pretty much any metal song perfectly, regardless of how hard or fast.

I haven't tried the lessons here (yet) but if it's the same as the software I mentioned above, the trick is to set a loop on a riff and slow the tempo down. Practice it slow until you've mastered it, and then speed up the tempo.

If the software can gradually speed up the tempo automatically after each pass through the riff, that would come in super clutch. That one feature helped me tremendously to learn really fast and hard riffs.