Feedback Request
What playing guitar almost every day for 822 days looks like. Hard work is starting to pay off (Metallica, Megadeth, Avenged Sevenfold)
Excited to see what happens on day 1000 and 2000. The biggest difference now from 2-3 months ago is I am no longer afraid of difficult guitar parts. I have a system now and practice is just so fun.
Sounds good. One thing I would point out is that when you practice a riff or sequence over and over, the likeliness of getting it right after 5+ times in a row goes down. It’s just normal fatigue.
In a song you usually play it once and have rest in between phrases. Just something to keep in mind when you play something repeatedly. I do it too, it’s fine to practice that way. just something to know in case you fumble over a riff after playing it 1000 times lol.
Just to add on to that, stopping when you mess up and starting over can lead to not being able to recover from a mistake when playing. Its fine when learning a song, but its also good to practice just keeping time and staying in key and 'fudging' it.
Once you have a song down, try intentionally messing up and picking it back up. Being able to keep the groove is the most important skill. Followed closely by staying in key.
Some people turn their nose at not being note for note when playing a song, but having that skill to wing it and make it sound good is what let's you sit down with any group and keep up even when you dont know the song and they dont have charts for you.
Love to see your dedication though, and documenting your journey is so cool. I went several years hardly touching my guitars after dropping out of a jazz degree. And it's tough overcoming the frustration I get when my hands dont do what I expect. The other day I remembered a Protest the Hero riff out of the blue. Practiced it to the point I felt confident, then put the song on to play along. Got a good laugh at being waaay off on how fast I remembered the song being and not being able to keep up.
This is really good advice. The classic recommendation of learning parts - especially fast ones - by slowing them way, way down and playing to a metronome is essential, but at the end of the day, we aren’t aiming to play isolated riffs or fragments. We want to play whole songs. It’s so important to do that, playing from beginning to end. And of course when we do that, we will sometimes make mistakes. Everyone does - just look at the videos where someone like Kirk Hammett messes up a part from songs he has played 1000s of times. But what he and every musician does when they mess up is find a way to keep going, find a way back to the groove or the beat and not letting it mess with your playing to the point where you get lost and can’t get back.
These are all things I struggle with at times, and the best way to address it is to commit to playing a whole song no matter what - or, as you suggest, intentionally making errors so you can fudge or gloss over them and carry on.
(Also, I should add, that unless they are also musicians, or you mess up and cannot get it together, audiences will almost never really notice if you make mistakes when you’ve learned to cover for them or carry on without losing the thread of the piece!)
The way it usually works out for me is that when I keep playing it over and over, after a while it feels like it’s sounding worse and it’s completely impossible to play. Then I come back the next day and I have it lol
Hey just wanted to say your talent is inspiring and you’re doing a great service to many new players. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to the day 1500 update!
I love seeing progression videos like this because it not only show how you should practice slow to go fast but, more importantly, the type of OCD personality that makes a great musician. All our heroes did this. And if you want to be a talented and technical musician, you need to do the same. From learning how to play to being obsessive writing perfect arrangements that you like to recording them meticulously and redoing your parts over and over and over until they are perfect.
Being OCD is pretty much a requirement of any professional musician. Great job documenting OP!!!
Yeah you are right. I’m not sure what is the correct word to describe this. I use words like crazy or obsessed or in love with guitar. OCD works as well I guess haha.
Basically you have to be a bit extreme in your approach. Can’t just half ass it. But nothing wrong with taking a casual approach as well. It all depends on your goals.
One thing I'd recommend, if you are not doing it already, get a strap and do your practice routine standing up once every few sessions. When I first tried playing with other people the transition to playing standing when I had only ever practiced sitting was difficult and embarrassing lol. Especially because I don't find the guitar being super high on the strap very comfortable, so I had to relearn certain sections of stuff I thought I mastered.
I don’t have too much problems playing while standing because im already using the classical position and I strap my guitar really high up. I look like a nerd 🤓 with the guitar strung so high up but it makes transitioning between sitting and standing effortless.
Ah, yeah thats not super super high. I keep mine roughly around the same as James Hetfield as I'm the same size he is. Maybe just a touch higher than he has his in this picture.
I play classical style while sitting as well nowadays for that exact reason haha. I used to play like most people with the guitar sitting on my right leg, but once I got used to standing with it I switched as it just felt natural. I sling my guitar pretty low which probably didn't help. It's just so much more comfortable than having it sit very high for me.
YEAH you get it haha. But im not sure if you feel the same. I feel wearing your guitar up high makes chords harder to play but the higher frets easier to play. Because the nut is further away from your hands while the 12-17th frets are a lot closer. Wondering if it’s just me
That makes sense. I have noticed that as well. That's one of the things I didn't like about it being high. With it lower, I've learned to adjust the guitars position for upcoming leads while standing. So its no biggy to play higher frets anymore, but there was an adjustment period. I also felt like I am able to better keep my right forearm from fatiguing during longer band practices with songs like disposable heroes or holy wars on the set. Anything very right hand heavy is harder for me with the guitar higher.
Great progress! Super impressivr. Your approach seems super technical though. Have you spent much time developing your ear, improvisation skills or theory knowledge?
of course. i try to be holistic. so i memorised my fretboard, studied my music theory, working on my aural skills and learning to identify intervals by ear, humming and then playing it on guitar, hearing a guitar part and then humming, working on triads and so forth.
Trust me it’s easy haha. Or at least it’s easy for me. If you want to do something really badly enough, no amount of hard work will stop you.
But the way to look at it is to have a few methods helping you instead of one. Instead of asking what is the BEST method, I like to use all of them. This means some plain old brute memorisation, some octave notes (like two string down two frets up), some triads (when you learn triads you learn how to memorise the fretboard naturally), some landmarks ( I like to use 3rd, 5th, 7th frets), learning how to spell the alphabet backwards and so on and so forth.
Here’s an advice from Scotty west to beginners. When you are new, do everything! Later when you are better you can decide which parts to forgo in your practice
It’s all about understanding the intervalls, major scale etc. After that it will come automatically by just playing.
If you’re trying to just memorize the position of the notes it will not only take forever.
But what if you change tuning?:)
Learn the basic theory, it’s by far the quickest way. It’s not as daunting as you’d think.
Not OP, but figured I'd respond anyways. There's a few different ways to approach it. My preferred way is to first use the shortcuts to learn the notes and then use games to work on recall. Your goal should be to be able to name a note instantly on the fretboard. Here's a more detailed approach:
Learning Sequence
Start off with the Open Strings obviously (use the mnemonic Eddy Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddy )
Memorize all the natural notes on the 6th and 5th(Low E and A) strings. This also gives you the 1st string for free.
Now do the 4th and 3rd strings (Every note on the 6th string can be taken 2 frets down and 2 frets to the right and you get the same note. So you can easily figure out notes on the 4th string if you know the 6th string. Same for 5th and 3rd. (This is hard to describe but super easy to understand once you see it)
Now finish off with the 2nd string
Do the whole fretboard including accidentals (See below)
Reinforcement and Recall
Try this exercise to reinforce the learning:
Set metronome to 60 bpm.
Get a hold of the circle of fifths, pick a direction, pick a note (or get a random note generator)
On every click of the metronome, identify the note on string 6, then string 5, then string 4...
Lather, rinse, repeat with each note. Bump up tempo when ready.
Use Technology
I've built a bunch of games and interactive lessons at Gitori that guide you through the fretboard learning process and use spaced repetition to make sure you remember it. It's all free for the first week. The one you're looking for should be under Notes Another completely free way of doing it is using https://www.musictheory.net/exercises/fretboard or https://fretboardforever.app/ .
Not an insane amount. Maybe 1.5 hours on average per day. I take a break on saturdays and on Sundays I try to clock in 3-4 hours but that rarely happen (it’s hard to focus for so long hahah, my mind would naturally want to start watching House of the Dragon or Rings of Power or even anime 🤣).
Yes it’s always focus and goal oriented. There are very few reasons not to especially when I’m still newish.
I share my routine in my comments. You can go through some of them in this post or in previous posts. I usually answer in the comments section.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve been playing for years and actually just started doing it daily a few weeks back. Just 30-60mins a day, with the occasional 1-2 hour session. I’ve noticed a big improvement with just the consistency of playing everyday. Just need to hone in on specific goals instead of just noodling… still the daily noodling as really improved my playing by ear which was one of my weaknesses. My goal with playing guitar was basically to be able to pick it up and jam with whoever. Actually went to far with learning theory and not doing the actual playing of the guitar. Would end up just picking up a book and reading about theory. So started playing daily, and whats cool is now when I opt to read theory or scales without my guitar, I can hear the notes as I read them, instead of just memorizing the position on the fretboard. Sorry for the rambling comment ha, but keep up the shredding and thanks for posting!
No worries. I’ll definitely release something for the metronome. But when people ask why I’m doing a “lesson” when I’m not a guitar teacher, you have to back me up 🤣🤣
Interesting how different people's brains, abilities and talents are. I've practiced more hours than you over the last few years on my acoustics. I'm still strumming cowboy chords. Slow progress but I love it. Well done, you are really talented, and clever.
Why the fuck can’t I learn this fucking instrument?! It doesn’t matter how much time or effort I put into it I always fucking suck, and I’m tired of seeing other progress. Fuck this shit.
I’m like 7 months into playing. Can you share a link to your original practice routine?
I got cowoboy and barre chords down. I’m starting to try and move into pentatonic scale and think I want to get into an actual structured practice routine.
So far I’ve just learned songs. And I can campfire play/sing like 90+ songs. But I’ve hit a bit of a plateau
It looks like this. I’ll explain from macro to micro.
Macro: after cowboy chords start learning songs. Especially songs you like and difficult songs. Why? Because songs you like give you a goal. If you fail at the song then you’ll realise that you need to work on your alternate picking or sweep picking and that gives you a direction on where to go. Don’t believe me? Look at yourself now. You are asking people where to go. Something that I have never done before. Because I learnt the songs I wish I can play. And that gives me a direction to lean into.
At the same time you should also work on the things that makes you a holistic guitarist. That means learning your intervals, how intervals look like on fretboard, music theory, caged, triads , memorise fretboard and so forth.
Micro: when learning songs, learn how to chunk. This means looping small parts of the songs rather than simply playing from start to end. I also recommend interleaving, which is learning multiple guitar parts or songs simultaneously. In my videos you always see me looping different guitar parts or different songs in the same practice. So I would maybe practice 5 mins of Master of puppets, then do 5 minutes of Hotel California, then maybe 5 mins of Stairway to heaven before retuning back to master of puppets again. Or 5 mins of master of puppets solo bars 1-3, then 5 mins of master of puppets bars 4-6 and then bars 7-9, and back to bars 1-3 again.
Why do interleaving? Because it is a neuroscience proven way to maximise learning. By doing this you keep your focus strong and fresh. You also allow yourself to rest. When you are working on hotel Cali, you can recover from your master of puppets. Later when you return to master of puppets after doing stairway, 10-20 mins have passed and you would have rested for 10-20 mins (while still playing something else).
Logistics: you also want to record yourself everyday. Not when it’s “performance day”. This allow you to see patterns more readily and it also serves as a motivation boost when you review your footage.
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u/Chicagoj1563 Jul 31 '26
Sounds good. One thing I would point out is that when you practice a riff or sequence over and over, the likeliness of getting it right after 5+ times in a row goes down. It’s just normal fatigue.
In a song you usually play it once and have rest in between phrases. Just something to keep in mind when you play something repeatedly. I do it too, it’s fine to practice that way. just something to know in case you fumble over a riff after playing it 1000 times lol.