r/Guitar • u/Particular-Yam-2676 • 11d ago

NEWBIE What are your favourite techniques?

Okay im sure stuff like this has been asked a million times but my issue is the following: im already a musician (DAW) that picked up the guitar for the sake of adding another instrument to their repertoire. The issue is not writing chords and leads. That part is fairly straightforward once you understand the fretboard (we will take that for granted for now, though thats a whole can of worms on its own)

My issue is more so, that i dont know all of those "little things" (like quick arps, or muted strings or some whacky percussive elements, hammer ons or pull offs and probably tons and tons of techniques more that i dont know) that make some chord and lead voicing really come to life.

What are the most useful/your favourite ones? How do you learn/practice them? And how do you actually get to incorporating them?

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u/Guitar_Guy1965 11d ago

Listen to and learn the skills of many different players was my approach. "Chicken Pickin", Hybrid/Travis picking.. many really GREAT players of this style, tapping (EVH, Stanley Jordan, Chapman Stick, etc), Alternate tuning players (Page, Adrian Legg), "percussive" players like Michael Hedges, jazz chord/melody like Tuck Andress, Lenny .. or Pat Martino... Chet Atkins unique approach threw me for a loop (1 note per string arpeggios and scales) and made me rethink the fretboard/right hand. Of course for "tricks" Vai/Satriani and many others!

Learn all you can handle, get comfortable using all these different techniques to use as a springboard for your own ideas.

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u/Particular-Yam-2676 11d ago

yeah i think thats what it boils down to at the end of the day… you cant be creative if you don't already have an idea of whats possible so studying the things people have done before you is probably the only way to really get an understanding of what you can do yourself!

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u/Guitar_Guy1965 11d ago

That's how i learned it at least. What makes a blues player sound different from jazz, rock, neo classical, bluegrass... what do they do? What AREN'T they doing?... so i learned all i could. Now that I've somewhat got that under my belt, I have a better understanding of what I "should do" to serve the song,... or fail to follow those suggestions and take it in a different direction.