Anyone have any tips on how to learn to play better, like how to master scales and such?

are you enjoying it? cause in my opinion its not about how good you are, its about how much enjoyment you get out of it.

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riley

If you want to get better you have to practice, practice, practice. I have been playing nearly 20 years and I should be WAAAYY better than I am. So many times I say I am going to practice scales or chords etc. I start, learn a few things and then I am off doing my own thing again. I wish I would have been more dedicated to practice than wanking off (no not that kind ) Its never too late to start though. I smell a New Years resolution.

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Find some friends... Playing with others will get you off and running faster than anything, and its a blast!

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Hey, Boy Blue is back!

+1000!

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

You have to get a good balance. Divide your time between three main things in my opinion;
1.doing scales and a bit of theory
2. Playing songs you enjoy (to keep it fun)
3. Playing songs from other genres to improve on all aspects of playing.

That's what I do, and it seems to work. I've been playing for about seven years and still feel as though I should be much better than I am. Then I look back at things I struggled with in the past, and when I find it relatively simple it makes me realise that although it may not seem like it at times, I am improving.

just learn songs you like. the first complete song i learned was bob dylans all along the watchtower(barre chord version) and that really helped my chord prog. skills, then i learned smells like teen spirit by nirvana and that helped with my power chord structure skills, my soloing, my timing, my bridges, and just a little bit of everything. youd be suprised on how much you learn from just playing full songs, i suggest starting seven nation army by the white stripes, theres some excellent instrucionals on youtube for it.

If your worried about scales than just subscribe to guitar jamz blues lessons, its 18 blues building lessons for free, it introduces the minor pentatonic scale in its simplest form and eventually builds you to learn scales in different keys and progresses to 12 bar blues and so on and so on. It really helped me with my blues skills.

All aside practice is the most important thing, practice scales up and down(literally) until it becomes natural, become familiar of your finger positioning and practice picking techniques. Start out simple and build!

Here's something easy to practice, its the basic minor pentatonic scale in the key of E, you can create simple to complex solos with it, its excellent for a beginner:



just 0-3, 0-2, 0-2, 0-2, 0-3, 0-3, and back again

it doesn't get much simpler in scales

Hi StratoSmythe, I saw a portion of Daily Planet this week and they were talking about musicians. Basically they said that to become a world class musician, you have to practice 10,000 hours. So three hours a day, seven days a week for ten years and you are good. But the idea for most of us here is to have fun and buy a lot of gear. As long as you have fun, play with friends and tape yourself to listen to your progress from time to time, you are on the right path. You might consider taking one on one guitar lessons. That beeing said, I hope that you'll find what you are looking for but forget about Fast, Easy, Free and such stuff. Good luck.
Claude.

Practice, practice, practice

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I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk...

I was wondering, what style do you play? Do you play covers, do you improvise solos?
Claude.

It takes a lot of time and practice to become proficient at the guitar. Andres Segovia once said"The guitar is the easiest instrument in the world to play yet the most difficult to play well."that pretty well sums it up.I've been playing for 45 years and still I'm not satisfied with my level of playing even though I've made some pretty good money-at tiimes-over the years some people must have thought I was alright.As guitar players we are our own harshest critics the thing is you play for enjoyment and if the enjoyment goes out of it you are trying too hard.Take your time and don't spend too much time concentrating on any one thing-such as scales-in time it will all come together believe me. Virtuosity and proficiency are something you can't rush.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Practice and have a couple of lessons if possible. If your practicing the wrong stuff it can be a bit tedious and get you into bad habits.
For example. Even with simple scales your teacher could play the chords while you run up and down scales. So not only are you practicing the scale you also hearing how the chord tones fit that scale. Nothing exciting i know but its another step, and then another etc. you get the idea.
I tried self teaching but i gave up after 6 months because i hit a brick wall in what to practice. Lessons opened up all sorts doors and vastly improved my playing. Now i try and set myself targets monthly to give me something to aim for.

I agree with most of the other people here.

1. Practice
2. Have Fun
3. Play with other people

I have been playing for 20+ years. I am not where I would like to be, but have to admit that I am better than I was 5 years ago.

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RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head

also, heres a site for other scale variations: http://www.12bar.de/soloscal.php

I suggest you read Frank Zappa's interview where he identifies each scale/mode/chord structure with an emotion. He explains it all so well. You're not going to get any real enjoyment out of this if you aren't good at it.

I suggest you use a tuner.

!. Pick a song you pretty much know the changes to. Practice alone.

2. Tune your guitar/bass to pitch and try and play along to the recording...or until you can do so smoothly. Don't fool yourself about your abilities at this point. Smoothly means....smoothly. Don't go to step 3 until you are ready.

3. Play that same song all the way through without the recording aiding you. If you can do this, you have the song nailed.

4. Do the same(steps 1 thru 3) with another song. Then another. Also...start learning a chord structure a day/week. Practice changing scales...smoothly.

5. Pick a song you haven't been shown how to play. Spend time learning how to pick out the changes...all that. Figure it out, and play to the recording.

6. Keep learning chords. Start learning some scales, too. This part pretty much never ends.