Suggestions for practising

[ernal]

Hi

I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on the best way to practice. Currently I am just practising the few chords that I know, the notes on the fretboard, and some basic riffs.
I am only just getting started, so I would like to make sure I am covering the most beneficial things when I am practising.
It seems easy to get caught up just doing riffs all the time because they are fun, and it makes it almost sounds like you know how to play.

Thanks
Ernal

[rischoll]

It depends what style you want to play and what you're in to. I started on an acoustic for learning the basics. Wanting to play lots of effects and distortion is only any good if you have the fundamentals down pat, otherwise you just get noise and buying the right equipment is expensive.

I would recommend, finding a song you like, again depends what you're into but I can recommend something easy like Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here"

It uses standard tuning in 4/4 time.
(Get a metronome and set it for 60 beats per minute, if you don't have one that's fine, but you will struggle with timing which can be a hard lesson to learn later on)

Start off by strumming the G maj chord for 4 beats, then the rest of the song has a simple repeating pattern as follows:
C maj, D maj, A min, G
D maj, C maj, A min, G
That's all there is to it.

Practice it until the chord changes are fluid. Other songs are learnt in the same way. Stick to songs that use the main chords, E, G, A, D, C, majors and minors, avoid barre chords until you get better.

If you feel like a change, practice your major scales then move onto the blues scales. Basically if you subscribe to the site and follow your way through the lessons, it will help alot. I've found the lessons on the site excellent and easy to follow.

Good Luck.

Richard

[tricky]

This sounds like very sound advice.

I am an absolute novice, starting very late but I have always wanted to have a go with an acoustic guitar. Quite a challenge! I know I need to practice little and often. I'll give these exercises a try.

Thanks
Alan

[fretdancer]

If there is one tip I could pass on now I have the benefit of a little hindsight it would be to learn the pentatonic scale in all 5 positions.

Time and time again I read about the importance but although I quickly learnt the first shape and read that some people never learn anything else I did not really pursue or try to memorise any other shape.

After jamming with a friend this week it was clear he was better at jamming along to a backing track and sounding good and yet has been playing far less time than I have and does not really know many riffs. He has learnt totally different to me, by learning scales and playing to backing tracks, iunstead fo learning riffs and licks, so when we came together I would rip off a couple of riffs and he would be impressed and learn them - but when it came to to playing he was much better - his foundation had served him well. He told me that all he was doing was playing the pentatonic scale.

So I decided to concentrate my learning on that - I thought it would take a week or more (2-3 hours a day) to get the patterns in my head but in fact after only an hour or 2 I picked it all up and its much easier than I thought.

And boy does it make a difference - now I am not "imprisoned" by playing only licks and riffs I have learnt, I can put on a backing track in say E and off I go and I sound like I have been playing for years I move up and down the neck and it actually sounds good. Whats more is, I can now see how all the licks I have learnt fit into these patterns and its much easier to learn a riff because you just seem to know where its going to go. Even if you play a couple of "wrong" notes in the riff - it still sounds ok because you are playing "right" notes in the context of what you are playing.

Trust me - concentrate on the 5 positions of the pentatonic scale so you can play them all over the neck, its not as daunting as you might think - keep a chart in front of you while you practice "solo-ing" and in no time you will be sounding great. It certainly helped me, I wish I had done it sooner.

Pete

[Danny Poole]

Here Here! these words written are gold. If you want to improvise then learn your scales

[Vix]

The others have all given good tips but I just have to add that you shouldn't wait too long before trying out barre chords. Sure, they seem real daunting at first but the sooner you start practicing them, the sooner you'll get the hang of it!

Also, you should try picking out a song you like that's not too complicated and learning it or at least start learning the chords in that song. It really helps to learn new chords and it's much more interesting than just strumming away randomly at various chords. At least you have some goal to achieve!

Speaking of random strumming, it could also prove beneficial to learn a few common strumming patterns so that you're not just randomly strumming away but actually learning your chords and the art of strumming at the same time!

And if you don't have a metronome, I strongly advise you to get one. It can give a lot of stability in your playing (which is a good thing to have, when starting out).