That one discovery that changed you as a guitar player

[alexreinhold]

2. Master dynamics. Knowing how to use dynamics is one of the things that differentiates seasoned/mature bands from the rest. I don't mean just playing quietly sometimes, but knowing how to effectively incorporate quite passages into your performance, and play through them without losing intensity.

I agree 100%. And I would add that learning to play less is a lot harder than learning to play more. While I still think it's cool to play a gazillion notes for a few scales during a solo, it took me years to figure out that it's actually an art and skill to play less most of the time to add more to the dynamic of the music/band as a whole.

Another thing I've been trying to get better at is to consciously complete the range of the band smarter - when called for. Meaning, when bass is playing higher notes and keys are somewhere in the middle of the range, I'll automatically go for lower notes and so on.

 

[DangerousR6]

For me it was the realization that having a tool that does one thing perfectly is better than having a swiss army knife that does a bunch of things average/poorly.


Also, the realization that nobody notices your mistakes when you're smiling at them.

Is this too much... :icon_scratch:

 

[DangerousR6]

Same here, both with the Charvel necks and unfinished neck woods. I still have, and play occasionally, an '87 Model 2 that is one of my favorite guitars of all time.

I was a little skeptical of the raw necks until I got a Canary/Ebony neck. I'm never going back. Since then I've had Canary/Rosewood, Pao Ferro/Pao Ferro, Goncalo/Goncalo, Roasted Maple/Roasted Maple, and Roasted Maple/Rosewood. I've also extensively played a friend's American Strat with the all Rosewood neck.

My favorites now are the Pao Ferro and Roasted Maple/Rosewood. Both are fantastic necks.

Exactly, one that eludes me is an all ziricote neck...

 

[Lbpesq]

My big epiphany was back in Junior High School when I discovered that girls like guitar players.

Bill, tgo

 

[Samhain]

1 5/8s nut width.
First time I played one it was an epiphany.

 

[Tonar8352]

Three words. Vintage Fender Amps.

 

[toblerobe]

That playing with a metronome/click is not the same as recording yourself play – with the former you can often delude yourself into thinking you're playing perfectly in time when you're not

 

[zebra]

Can I share again? 

Non-standard tunings.
First it was those droney, modal Jimmy Page-y sus tunings.
Then later, P4.
Both helped get me out of guitar-based, standard-tuning based cliches and made the guitar a more expansive place.

 

[swarfrat]

I love P4. It unlocked a ton of ear training for me. I hate to say "improvising" because it's more complicated than just that, but it really helped me be able to play harmonized lines out of my head.  And then I hit the wall where I was like "I can't play everything like this." First I put one guitar in standard. Before long everything was.  I miss it, but I was trying to transcribe stuff and getting frustrated.  I really wish I could go P4 all the way no looking back. But I like AC/DC too much.

 

[mayfly]

What the heck is P4?

 

[Logrinn]

All string pairs tuned to fourths.
So E A D G C F

 

[swarfrat]

Parallel Fourths - or All Fourths - no half step shift. EADGCF.

 

[mayfly]

Ahhh.  The Robert Fripp tuning!

 

[swarfrat]

Also Stanley Jordan

 

[Logrinn]

I believe Fripp uses fifths(!) not fourths:
C-G-D-A-E-G - except the two highest strings that are tuned a minor third

 

[mayfly]

er, yea - maybe you're right.

Loads of tunings out there!!

 

[swarfrat]

Yeah. Fripp used fifths and then what he calls New Standard Tuning. One thing I didn't like about P4 is the homegenization of voicings. But I loved how it simplifies diad voicings. I can play two note stuff out of my head in P4 on the fly. It just happens.

I went on a year long kick playing just P4. And I did a lot of chord melody using hymns (the earliest and deepest musical memories in my brain. You could probably flashything my brain and they'd still be there the grooves are so deep.

My dad was a preacher and I was drug to church all over about a three state region, 3x/week plus conferences and special meetings. Plus he sang us to sleep as kids. Horrible singing voice. Couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. But he just exuded this calm grandad thing that put kids to sleep like it was a magical power.  For his horrible pitch, he actually had a pretty good swing.

At any rate, when I was trying to learn P4 I did a bunch of that. Plus there is a lot of non diatonic harmony in many, but I knew them well, so it was actually some pretty good ear training practice

 

[musicispeace]

Three things come to mind for me:

After I had quit for years and took it up again I fell in love with the Stratocaster. I would never have owned one before but second time around I felt/discovered that it had everything for me.

Billy Gibbons quote, "Learn to play what you want to hear."

Working to play more by listening with my ear where a melody or progression could go and honoring that sense of music.

 

[stratamania]

Not something that changed me but an observation.

Be a musician first and a guitar player second.

 

[docteurseb]

My only epiphany was to realize I prefer wasting my time assembling, building, and trading guitars, than spending it practicing and becoming a decent player :laughing11: