Being good yet horrible at guitar

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BigGuitars

BigGuitars

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Musical ability is genetic. It’s that simple. I’m great, yet completely worthless on guitar at the same time. I cannot progress. Can’t write music. Can’t write a riff, can’t write a lead, can’t improvise... The more I dedicate myself to practice the worse I get. Anyone else the same?
 
I have the music in me, as they say, but can't play for shit.

Putting a song together involves practicing and recording each instrument's parts (bass, keys, geetar), sometimes just one phrase at a time, or even a few notes to be stitched together with others to create a fill.

The trick is maintaining ideas in my head whilst I futz around trying to bring them into reality.
 
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For me, this is how it started. I was sitting around with a dozen or so friends and one of them had a guitar and he was trying to play a Rolling Stones song. Everyone was impressed, everyone but me. I was like, what the fuck was that? That did not sound like the Stones at all. So I said so. They said they'd like to see me do better to which I took the guitar and proceeded to play "Rock & Roll Hoochie Coo" by Rick Derringer. The next day I traded my Zappa album collection for a Les Paul copy and I never stopped. At 18, I left Connecticut for Hollywood, CA and a G.I.T. education.

The only way to get better is to go futher than everyone else, prctice actually starts after your done practicing. That is something you have to push yourself into, practicing after band practice. When you think your done, play for another 3 hours. Warm up for 2 hours before you perform, just like Eddie or Zakk do, or do like Dime bag or Jimi did, never take the guitar off your shoulder. Jimmy Page is considered a sloppy player, he played his guitar for 12-18 hours a day to get that sloppy! EVH is up all night long playing his guitar, according to Sammy. "Finish What You Started" was written and recorded at 4 a.m. To hear Sammy tell it, you can understand the OCD that EVH had for the guitar. When I was at GIT, I lived with my guitar 24/7 and only stopped playing to sleep and shower, I was known for it.

When I bought a second Strat, a '63, I built a wall to hide my '55 in. I used to carry a MIM Strat & boss micro cube with me but now I have a beat-up Taylor 314 acoustic that comes with me everywhere.

I am much better today than I was last year. Oh, and I just got an email saying my new guitar is arriving today, another Les Paul!
 
BigGuitars":a5c8bnh8 said:
Musical ability is genetic. It’s that simple. I’m great, yet completely worthless on guitar at the same time. I cannot progress. Can’t write music. Can’t write a riff, can’t write a lead, can’t improvise... The more I dedicate myself to practice the worse I get. Anyone else the same?
Click to expand...

Simplify everything. Start writing 3 note songs. I am not kidding. Focus on composition and flow, not technicality. If you don't already, use a program like Garageband that can make beats for you (if you can't do it yourself).
 
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Moving this to the main RT sub-forum where it belongs.
 
BigGuitars said:
Musical ability is genetic. It’s that simple. I’m great, yet completely worthless on guitar at the same time. I cannot progress. Can’t write music. Can’t write a riff, can’t write a lead, can’t improvise... The more I dedicate myself to practice the worse I get. Anyone else the same?
Click to expand...
Nope, I am not even THAT good :(
 
The creative aspect of playing is what has always driven me. When I was 15 and first started trying to figure out how to play a guitar (my uncle had a Hondo Les Paul he gave me) I “learned” one or two riffs - the main riffs of Smoke on the Water and Cat Scratch Fever, which I think I mostly knew from Beavis and Butt-head, and then I started trying to come up with my own songs.

These were no doubt horrible, but I was just so excited by it and had melodies pop in my head while I sat there pathetically trying to play chords its all I wanted to do. It’s always been that aspect that has driven me and why if I ever have to put it down it will be like dying a little death. Creating something that you feel has “something” to it, that inspires emotion or tells a story, it does something for you that nothing else does.

On the flip side I have always been a dilettante as far as technique and knowledge goes. Not that I haven’t picked up things along the way and I can always get by, but I’ve been playing since the mid 90’s and only fairly recently have been trying to rectify that by trying knuckle down on plain old practice.
 
japetus said:
Simplify everything. Start writing 3 note songs. I am not kidding. Focus on composition and flow, not technicality. If you don't already, use a program like Garageband that can make beats for you (if you can't do it yourself).
Click to expand...
Yes. The 3 note. Play it all over the fret board. Really tons of cool things can be played. When I was giving lessons. Always said ‘the 3 note’ thing.
 
There is no such thing as talent. There is only hard work. Anyone you have ever seen be good at anything has spent countless hours doing it. That is just as true for professional athletes as it is plumbers or tradesmen. Musicians are not special. The more you practice, the better you get. Learning theory will help get ideas out faster without fumbling around to figure them out. Practicing complex scales will help make simple leads easier. Don't expect your hit song to be one of the first few hundred you write. It takes time. There are no short cuts.
 
The creative aspect has always been my modus operandi.

It was only in recent times that my technical ability has caught up; but I still gigged and toured in many bands from age 14 to 30ish despite having fairly rudimentary skills.

Being creative and writing good music is important, and other musicians value it a bunch more than how well you can do the "cowboys from hell" solo.

I know a ton of guitarists who focus on the technical aspect to their vast detriment. They don't realize that the creative and emotive part always comes first, even for yngwie or rusty Cooley or Shawn Lane or impelliteri.
 
BeZo said:
There is no such thing as talent. There is only hard work. Anyone you have ever seen be good at anything has spent countless hours doing it. That is just as true for professional athletes as it is plumbers or tradesmen. Musicians are not special. The more you practice, the better you get. Learning theory will help get ideas out faster without fumbling around to figure them out. Practicing complex scales will help make simple leads easier. Don't expect your hit song to be one of the first few hundred you write. It takes time. There are no short cuts.
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Greatly disagree and probably so would the field of genetics. There is absolutely talent, but it too has to be shaped to brought to it’s potential. However not everyone has the same innate sense for things, just like no matter how hard I would have tried, I could never have dunked a basketball like Michael Jordan.

That isn’t to say a less talented person can’t work harder to achieve something in the same arena, but it’s like almost anyone can learn to sing, but you can only do so much about the natural timbre of your voice and some people are
gifted with the natural ability for perfect pitch.

People who lack a talent are generally the first to roll their eyes at such oversimplified blank slate-isms. We generally know what doesn’t come easy to us better than we know our own talents.
 
I can write like a motherfucker.
I can write the riffs and the drum patterns,then compose the song structure quickly and efficiently.
But I have been doing it in stints(on and off)since the Boss Dr.rhythm 550 and the tascam syncaset 238 out in '89.
Before that,i was lucky to have local heroes like Dime,Rick Perry and Mike Scaccia around who taught me a lot about song structure.
Nothing is better than having someone up close on the couch next to you...coaching and giving constructive advice.
Lyrics and leads are a different matter altogether.
But I am only good in my given genre...up tempo thrash. Because that's what has always lit my candle.
I should note that lots of meth helped me put in the time,focus and dedication need to to get good at this...all at the young age of 17-22 or so.
Now it's just muscle memory. I get in the zone of writing and get to it. No chemicals needed.
Ok...just caffeine.
If I had the time to learn all this new tech like how digital drum programs and recording worked,I could bust out a lot of material.
I just no longer have the time or drive to do it anymore. Age has me by the balls.
And I'd rather be sleeping.

 
rottingcorpse said:
Boss Dr.rhythm 550
Click to expand...

FLASHBACK alert.

I started with the 110.
boss-dr-110-dr-rhythm-graphic-152.jpg
 
I feel you, doesnt matter what I learn to play I still think I suck.

That said, you are talking about muscle memory here. There is only one way to build muscle memory. Talent certainly helps pick things up quicker and perhaps drives innate creativity but it doesn't replace the requirement to put in the work. EVH, Dime, Petrucci, etc. these guys probably have/had immense talent but they also work(ed) harder than everyone else... As they say, "Hard work beats talent, when talent is hardly working."

If you look at most rock music, very few people are inventing anything new, most people are just rehashing old ideas with their own phrasing/style. If you are stuck creatively. Perhaps you don't need to practice playing, but rather practice listening... Phil X has great insight on training your ear, vs training your fingers.
 
I’m at home with a rhythm section; playing in a band setting always brought out some cool things from my playing. But not having played out since ‘17, I get stuck doing the same old things at home now. I need to hook up some backing tracks and start playing to them.
I agree though on talent is sometimes a trait with musicians; sure they worked a ton at it but I know a few people who can play multiple instruments WELL…that’s a gift and no amount of wood shedding will get you there.
 
I suck at guitar but love playing one regardless :lol:

I actually love amps and amplification more than the guitar itself. I know. Weird.
 
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