What Did You Use To Practice? Options

[steve25]

So as the topic says i'm just curious as to what you used to practice when you decided to get serious on electric guitar? I know you started off on classical but it's different styles isn't it? You also said you didn't like to practice on metronomes so how did you increase your speed properly with good technique and everything? So what did your practice schedule look like and stuff and how much did you practice it? How long was it until you noticed you were improving? Also you don't like to solo uses licks you just like to mess about with scales right? So how do you get better at that what did you do for that? There must have been a stage where you didn't like your solos so you improved them when was it you noticed the improvement and what did you do to get there? Sorry for all the questions

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[Marcus Lavendell]

Thanks for the questions and interest Steve! I'll do my best to answer them

Thing is that I've never really practiced scales up and down as many do, simply because I thought it was boring. And that's also why I haven't used a metronome much. What I did instead was to jam along with my favorite CD's. (Jason Becker, Yngwie, Paul Gilbert, Michael Romeo, John Norum, Shawn Lane, etc etc). And I always thought that it was fun (still do btw)! I never ever used tabs! I learned every single solo by ear. When I got my first computer I started making backing tracks to jam along with, which was a lot more fun than a metronome, imo.

The schedule was to play as much as I could. Not "practicing" so much, more just jamming and composing. So I basically spent all my free time with the guitar (5-10 hours per day), and I just enjoyed it. Didn't think about special exercises and stuff like that, but I tried to improvise a lot.

I bought a Porta studio and started recording myself. It was so much more easier to be able to sit down and just listen to how my playing actually sounds. I improved a lot just by listening. And it was also a great way to compare myself with my heroes. Actually that's another important thing; I always compared myself to my heroes... and not to the kid next door.

Sure, I use learned licks in my solos. But I try to not play a lick the same way twice (not so easy sometimes though).


-Marcus

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[steve25]

That's an interesting way of doing things marcus but how did you learn to do things like sweep picking and tapping and get so good at it. Also you can shred and stuff right but how did you learn to pick up the speed? I mean those players you named can shred right so when you played along with them you must have struggled to keep up so how did you do it?

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