Do I Need To Practice With Distortion? Options

[Kempee]

do i need to practice with distortion? i practice scales, slurs, and alternate picking. i never use distortion i prefer a clean sound. can i learn from practicing with distortion?

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[Pavel]

Practicing CLEAN is good BUT it's also BAD because than you don't have to mute the strings. Later when you turn your distortion on you have problems with overall noise because you didn't practice muting which is very important for playing.

For example practicing sweeps is best with distortion cranked up all the way because than you'll learn how to properly mute the strings.

So the best would be to combine both!


P.S. playing with distortion doesn't cover mistakes unless you are stone deaf and can't hear them. Same goes for delay. People say DELAY covers the mistakes. Hell it does! It only doubles or triples them!!!

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

[fkalich]

Practicing CLEAN is good BUT it's also BAD because than you don't have to mute the strings. Later when you turn your distortion on you have problems with overall noise because you didn't practice muting which is very important for playing.

For example practicing sweeps is best with distortion cranked up all the way because than you'll learn how to properly mute the strings.

So the best would be to combine both!
P.S. playing with distortion doesn't cover mistakes unless you are stone deaf and can't hear them. Same goes for delay. People say DELAY covers the mistakes. Hell it does! It only doubles or triples them!!!

agree up to the p.s. that is an over generalization, for example, if one considers not being able to play a melody with sustained notes smoothly a mistake, as a good violinist would, it covers that type of mistake. that is just one example, there are others. same thing with distortion, there are aspects of playing that i would define as a mistake that it will cover up. i define mistake more broadly, more in terms of "something is wrong here", even when it may be hard to put one's finger on exactly what it is that is wrong. some styles of guitar music just need distortion as an essential ingredient. but for other things, if you can't play it clean and sound good, something is wrong.

edit: typo's

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

This post has been edited by fkalich: Jun 13 2007, 06:18 PM