As requested in the PM here's the questions i wanted to ask you

Hi Kris, i read that it roughly took you a year of serious practicing to be at the stage where you were very happy with your playing and stuff and to be able to be a great player which i think is very good going for anyone. So i just wanted to ask did you try and practice like everything in one practice session or did you tackle it bit by bit as in get your picking done first then tapping etc.

Also i'm finding i'm at a stage now where my vibrato is improving as is my picking etc and i also know the pent scale pretty well so as well as improving my technique i'd like to at least start making music but i can't seem to. Any riff i come up with eventually gets thrown away same with licks and stuff and was hoping you'd be able to give me some advice on how to start on this. I can't make my own backing tracks at the moment as i don't have the resources to do so.

I also wanted to ask you how important was it to you to learn other bands/guitarists songs/solos/riffs? And how many would you learn? There must have been a stage where you noticed your solos and stuff weren't very good and they were suddenly getting better and better and then they were very good and now you won't make a bad solo. So what was the main drive behind that because lets face it, every guitarist will make crap solos in the beginning so what really excelled you to make better solos if you know what i mean. What was it that took your solos from bad to better? I feel like i'm going in an endless circle at the moment. Thanks

Hi Steve,

First - these are some truly awesome questions! This is exactly the kind of questions I think everybody should be asking themselves - I know I did!



This is an essential question. I did it all at the same time - which led to very long practice sessions. Had I been putting those hours on just a few techniques, I would have learned them quicker for sure.

This resulted in me being able to write/play solos with lots of different techniques quite quickly. However I am still struggling today with being able to improvise with the most difficult techniques!

I think there is a danger with [as an example] only studying picking for two years, and then proceed to legato. I think there is a risk that you will be so much superior with the first technique - that you will find it really boring/limiting to work with legato.

However to give you both sides of the story - I can tell you for sure that knowing one technique really good, is a lot more useful than knowing lots of techniques "semi-good".

At this point were I am now I really have no choise but to continue practicing all the techniques I have invested so much time in. Otherwise I will really regret not having invested my time in just a few techniques, which I probably would have mastered really well by bow...

To summarize - there really is no right and wrong here. Analyse your favorite musicians and decide which techniques to go for!



Simple answer here - learn lots of new riffs, as many as possible - and your musical vocabulary will increase! I don't know any other way to do it.


Ok I already answered a little of this in your previous question. This is extremely important in the beginning. It doesn't really matter if you know the exact scales (etc) of your favorite guitarists. To really get their stuff down - you have to sit down and work countless of hours with learning their riffs/licks.

I believe that with GMC you can make this kind of practicing much more efficiently. However I would still advise you to learn by ear as well - as it develops you ability to connect your ears with your fingers!



Now that's not entirely true - I make lots of horrible solos. But I do my best to only show you the good ones!



Yes that was probably the single most important thing. However I would never have been able to learn a difficult solo if I hadn't practiced lots with the metronome as well (etc - you get the picture!)

I hope this somewhat helps you!

Nice post Kris- kind of reassures me that perhaps i'm practising right

Haha

Hey Kris,

Thanks for the reply i was a little unsure at the end though When you said "Yes that was probably the single most important thing" did you mean learning other guitarists solos/songs or did i get confused with something else?

You understood it correctly!

Ok good thanks Kris

So just to clear the topic up, if say you wanted to make a classic rock song you should learn as many classic rock licks and riffs as possible from inspirational bands until you can find inspiration from anywhere to make a certain genre and it won't matter anymore if its in the same style?

Also where you say music vocabulary will increase i'm guessing you mean the inspiration and ideas to come up with original stuff as you can't reuse someone elses riffs and licks right?

Yes and yes - you got it right!