Well said, TR!
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Alternate picking me too.
Played only downstrokes for the first 8 months... :(
How important chords are. Spent the first 6 months just learning riffs and such and wondering why I wasn't getting any farther.
~Mike the Redneck Rocker.
"The only two things in life that make it worth living are guitars that tune good and firm feeling women" - Waylon
I wish I'd focused an equal amount of attention and practice on my strumming hand.
Don
Um, lets see,,,
and the BIGGEST one...
don't be scared of playing with others, even if you are a complete newbie; it is THE best way to learn!
Pete
Yeah! I often heard the advice, to play with as many people as possible... but I was always scared cos I wasnt good enough, kept thinking ill practice till im good enough to do that, the few times I have played were really useful and I played better than I thought I would, ill now play with some1 anytime even though im still a scared beginner, luckily, ive come back home from university and while I was away one of my mates become a guitar teacher, think ill try have some jams with him
I wish I'd learned how to practice properly from the start. How to break the piece being learnt into "bits" of the right size and how to work them until you know them well. How to set up a practice schedule and how to review things. When I started trying to learn on my own using the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method I would just take an exercise and bang away at the whole thing until it was "ok" before I moved on. I never broke the exercise apart and worked on the part that was giving me difficulty. I wasted a lot of time.
Pop music is about stealing pocket money from children. - Ian Anderson
I wish I wouldn't have been so intimidated by all of the different strumming variations out there. For the first year I was SO limited in my strumming, and mostly just picked notes.
Oh, and alternate picking! Which was really the first thing that came to mind.
Life is my friend
Rake it up to take it in
Wrap me in your cinnamon
Especially in Michigan
...well I could be your friend- RHCP
I wish I would have learned proper right hand technique from the start.
What do you consider the proper right hand technique?
From simple things like being able to play straight eighths with alternating picking using the elbow to move the hand instead of the wrist (essential fro really fast runs) to being able to do sweep picking techniques correctly etc.
I learned to play with my wrist cocked and the heal of my hand resting on the bridge. Breaking that habit was a lot of work -- and I still to this day find myself doing that on difficult passages.
A well trained right hand though just makes everything smoother and faster . . .
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
I wish I would have learned proper right hand technique from the start.
From simple things like being able to play straight eighths with alternating picking using the elbow to move the hand instead of the wrist (essential fro really fast runs) to being able to do sweep picking techniques correctly etc.
A well trained right hand though just makes everything smoother and faster . . .
Any tips on how to learn this? I'm a month old in guitar years and I'm constantly worrying that I am neglecting my right hand. My left is getting nice and tough and my fingering is getting cleaner and cleaner (guitar talk is so dirty!) but I find myself strumming strings that should be left out and missing the bottom or top end sometimes. Also miss my string when playing individual notes a bit too... Sources for drills or some books or any kind of recommends on this would be much appreciated.
When I first started playing, quite a few years ago, I thought you picked right next to the fret to play different notes, instead of fretting the note and playing the string closer to the bridge... :lol: :lol: luckily it wasn't too long until my brother showed me how completely wrong that was.
Steve-0
That could keep you pretty busy! :D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
