# Improving as a guitarist step by step; Have you improved?



## Metalkitsune (Jul 11, 2011)

Because i have,from 2008 when i first got a guitar and couldn't even play stuff,to now which i'm able to play stuff. Of course i still have to work on two-handed tapping,sweep picking,tremolo picking and arpeggios.

So how have other people improved on guitar?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

You have to experiment and find where your strong points are. I don't play anymore, but when I did (1977-1997) I liked arpeggio playing with a pick, and fingerstyle acoustic guitar. I couldn't play rock music worth a darn. I liked to play classical style, as well as bluegrass, and Al Di Meola string skipping/arpeggio stuff.

Two handed tapping and sweep picking are fine when used in service of the composition, but I don't care for them as a showcase vehicle. Allan Holdsworth is one of the more creative players using tapping and hammer on techniques.

I know a great guitarist from Chicago, and he told me the most important thing when learning and practicing is to start off very slowly using a metronome. Make sure you can play a piece at a slow tempo with solid time and without mistakes.


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## Metalkitsune (Jul 11, 2011)

starthrower said:


> You have to experiment and find where your strong points are. I don't play anymore, but when I did (1977-1997) I liked arpeggio playing with a pick, and fingerstyle acoustic guitar. I couldn't play rock music worth a darn. I liked to play classical style, as well as bluegrass, and Al Di Meola string skipping/arpeggio stuff.
> 
> Two handed tapping and sweep picking are fine when used in service of the composition, but I don't care for them as a showcase vehicle. Allan Holdsworth is one of the more creative players using tapping and hammer on techniques.
> 
> I know a great guitarist from Chicago, and he told me the most important thing when learning and practicing is to start off very slowly using a metronome. Make sure you can play a piece at a slow tempo with solid time and without mistakes.


Yeah,i have a metronome that came with Garageband on my mac.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Honestly, I just started playing guitar under two months ago. I've always been able to pick up instruments fairly quickly and it seems like the guitar is going to be the same way. I feel like every time I pick up the guitar I'm making major strides. I took to scales really easily and it improved my alternate picking a lot. I have a pretty large vocabulary of chords that I can switch between pretty well and playing finger picking songs with pick only has gotten my picking faster and more accurate. Tremolo picking was one of the first things I started out doing -- I drop my bass all the way and treble all the way up on my amp with distortion and it sounds killer for Black Metal -- but it was semi-difficult because of the terrible picks my guitar was shipped with. They were about the thinnest thing you could ask for and would bend too much. I went and bought some Jazz III guitar picks and quickly improved that to the point that I'm pretty solid at tremolo picking and I can go at blazing speeds. I can revert back to my thin picks and still do it now. I still need to improve on it all, however. I can play a few songs and a slew of passages from songs. This isn't too difficult for rock songs, but I really want to play Jazz. I'm leaving to improvise and its coming along and I'm picking up speed going up and down the fret board instead of staying in one relative area. 

I listen to a lot of Math Rock so two-hand tapping is something I do but I don't spend too much time on it. I'm working on gtting my barre chords to ring clearer at the moment. I'm absolutely atrocious at palm muting that I never bother trying. I feel like my stratocaster makes it difficult for me because of where the knobs are. I've never bothered trying sweep picking. I'm not anywhere close to the point where I'd try something of the sort. I'm still a beginner after all and have a far way to go. The main thing is that I love to play the instrument. I pick it up at 7 PM and next thing I know it is 3 AM and I'm passing out while trying to play still. I've been having to focus on school a bit more lately so I haven't had the chance to play as much as I did a month ago.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Cnote11 said:


> Honestly, I just started playing guitar under two months ago. I've always been able to pick up instruments fairly quickly and it seems like the guitar is going to be the same way. I feel like every time I pick up the guitar I'm making major strides. I took to scales really easily and it improved my alternate picking a lot. I have a pretty large vocabulary of chords that I can switch between pretty well and playing finger picking songs with pick only has gotten my picking faster and more accurate. Tremolo picking was one of the first things I started out doing -- I drop my bass all the way and treble all the way up on my amp with distortion and it sounds killer for Black Metal -- but it was semi-difficult because of the terrible picks my guitar was shipped with. They were about the thinnest thing you could ask for and would bend too much. I went and bought some Jazz III guitar picks and quickly improved that to the point that I'm pretty solid at tremolo picking and I can go at blazing speeds. I can revert back to my thin picks and still do it now. I still need to improve on it all, however. I can play a few songs and a slew of passages from songs. This isn't too difficult for rock songs, but I really want to play Jazz. I'm leaving to improvise and its coming along and I'm picking up speed going up and down the fret board instead of staying in one relative area.
> 
> I listen to a lot of Math Rock so two-hand tapping is something I do but I don't spend too much time on it. I'm working on gtting my barre chords to ring clearer at the moment. I'm absolutely atrocious at palm muting that I never bother trying.


Palm muting isn't an easy technique at all if you want to play fast thrash metal and riffs with a lot of gallops and downstrokes like James Hetfield or Jon Schaffer, but if you want to play jazz is not that important.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I started off on acoustic/classical finger picking. I played for a couple years before I understood what palm muting was...(I think it is an essential technique for all styles of music on guitar now). I got schooled on guitar one day by my younger cousin who could play all kinds of metal stuff like Pantera, this inspired me (and taught me to palm mute and try using a pick) I then went through a small metal/electric guitar phase. This was over-shadowed by a long acoustic guitar phase playing stuff like Days of the New and Dave Matthews. Than one day I realized I wanted to be able to play in the style of classic rockers like Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton...long story short it took me a couple years of steady practice before I felt like I could do some of those things well like bending accurately and getting vibrato at the top of a bend. For the last 6 or 7 years I play mostly classical guitar. I still work on some different things on electric guitar too like bending, different picking patterns, sweeps etc.


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