Hello folks,

I've been wondering what are the two most common techniques students struggle with.

Question to instructors: Which two techniques to you find students most commonly struggling with?

Question to students: Which two techniques do you find the hardest to get to grips with?

My answer as a student is, bending to pitch and vibrato.

Maybe if two techniques stand out as being particularly common, Kris could arrange an instructor to do a series of workshops starting from very basic and working up each week. Those students that are interested could practise a given exercise and submit a video for the instructor and the other students to view. The other students could also learn from their peers' problems.

I know we can all do this with our own mentors but a dedicated, focused workshop would be great and also help those members that don't have a mentor, they could just follow the workshop and hopefully get something from it.

Maybe this could start a whole series of workshops covering a few of the most popular techniques. I know we have lessons that cover topics but these workshops could be stand alone packages that are pinned somewhere.

Sorry for rambling on, what do you all think?

Cheers

Phil

I haven't taught actual 'guitar' lessons since somewhere in the 90s so I'm going to go broad and esoteric ...

1) How to listen to both music and your own playing of music.
2) How to understand what it is you're listening to (and for) in music and in your own playing.

As an instructor, I'd say I see folks struggle with
1.)Picking (Alt and Econ)
2.)Hand Synch

But these are at the very start of musical journey typically. Also, I see most students trying to play really fast really early which usually means ones reach exceeding ones grasp. As with many instructors I am always on about "speed being a byproduct of precision" but I get that those words are cold comfort for a student who is eager to "shred" In the end it all comes down to one big problem. Practice.

If one doesn't practice, one won't get better. There are many foul notes one must play to get to the good ones. Just as there are many bad paintings a painter must paint before painting the good ones

So if I could teach anything to new students, it would be patience. Patience with themselves. If I could let them see in to the future after 5 years of practice, how good they will be, it would be great Still working on that.

Todd

This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Dec 23 2017, 08:43 AM

This post is getting more interesting than I expected. I reckon the instructor's are going to go more with the mental approach and students will lean toward the physical.

Personal opinion as I had the same problem when I was learning shred guitar, not counting metronome/beats while soloing.

This comes from music listening habbits as music is more of a flowing feel for the listener and we mistakenly adapt this to our playing. It does not work with playing an instrument, the more loose the tempo follow feel is the more ones playing refects as to the listener as "shy playing".

Classic blues players are a good example, they usually play technically very easy stuff but sound so big+strong in music.

Picking and fretting.

Yes. This is related to and reflective of my post above.

In a nut shell ... most students' as well as amateur musicians' time is really bad. They know something's not quite right but they don't know what it is or how to fix it. Many times, even the teachers don't know how to help with the students time issues.



This post has been edited by klasaine: Dec 23 2017, 04:52 PM

For me it was the other way around, learning shred helped me start to grasp metronome/beats.
Mainly because I would always look for the 1 beat to serve as an "anchor" point by accenting the note like ONE(slight hard pick accent)-two-three-four, so on so on depending on the lick.

Also f*** rolling and barring in general
I am way better at it, but it still have nightmare of trying to play a F barred chord when I first started to play the guitar.

I used to think that ear training was impossible, but after 2 months in music school. I can easily identify any interval....although for some stupid reason I have an hard time hearing the major 3rd.

This post has been edited by MonkeyDAthos: Dec 23 2017, 05:06 PM

No problem, 2 months even in music school is still a very good result!

If a famous melody doesn't come to mind with maj. 3d, maybe building a major chord in your head might help you memorise it whenever you suspect maj. 3rd is asked. But no worrys, just keep working on the regular program cause ear training is all about hard work and there are no shortcuts

Reflective of what I've seen from the other side as well I mean in general, not of you in specific.

Todd


Also something I see a lot from the other side! TIMING ISSUES. Timing is directly related to picking and picking briskly as well as playing briskly. A really strong sense of time is critical for "Shred". If you are drifting or play "loose" with the beat, it sounds like you are playing "sloppy" when trying to "shred". So being able to pick/fret/hand synch in tight synch to the beat is crucial. Just being able to count 4/4 time is the best place to start imho. Folks somehow seem to skip that part

I played drums for a while and i'd suggest it to every guitar player. It allowed me to be able to play to a drummer when recording without needing a click track. As a matter of fact, when I recorded my first Demo tape with a band, there was no such thing as "click track" in mid priced studios as they were still all using multi track tape and analogue desks. PRE DAW! Back then, if you could not play to a drummer you just sounded AWFUL when recording. These days, the click track is always there if needed. I fear it had reduced many players reliance on actually listening to the drummer and reliance on the click track.




This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Dec 24 2017, 01:15 AM